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After a 14-year reign as a top ramen spot in the Bay Area, Orenchi Ramen is down to one location – and its founder has stepped away from the brand entirely.
“We had great moments with Orenchi,” said Kuniko Ozawa, Orenchi Ramen founder and longtime owner. “It’s about time, because there’s so many other great new ramen places. I think Orenchi’s golden days were over. After COVID, I felt like we were just running it because it makes money. But in the true feelings, I think I was done with it.”
Ozawa founded Orenchi Ramen in Santa Clara in 2010, expanding the shop into San Francisco’s Mission District in 2014, downtown Redwood City in 2018 and Los Altos’ State Street Market last year. But in 2022, the San Francisco outpost closed. Last year, the Redwood City location shuttered to make way for Ozawa’s fine-dining concept Ogiku Kaiseki, which permanently closed in August. And on Oct. 26, the original Santa Clara location closed as well.
“We are shrinking our businesses…The main reason was we are getting old and my husband is thinking about retirement,” Ozawa wrote in an email.
Last month, Ozawa transferred ownership of the last remaining Orenchi Ramen to Yasu Yamamoto and Masato Arimitsu, co-owners of Sunnyvale’s Rokko Restaurant and Ramen Seas and San Jose’s Fugetsu Market, Dan Izakaya Restaurant, Kahoo Ramen and Curry Life.
“We have so many Orenchi customers, so I just felt sorry for customers to take away the brand,” Ozawa said. “I asked (Yamamoto and Arimitsu) to keep the same recipe, same menu, and then continue Orenchi for my customers.”
Arimitsu said he’s committed to keeping Orenchi’s recipes the same and is open to the idea of opening additional locations of Orenchi Ramen later on. Arimitsu and Yamamoto have already expanded Orenchi’s brand presence with the addition of Orenchi Sushi in State Street Market in October. State Street Market was looking for a sushi spot to fill its former oyster bar (most recently Little Sky Bakery, which just moved into Ikuka’s former spot), and Arimitsu and Yamamoto already had experience with sushi restaurants, Arimitsu said.
The head chef of Orenchi Sushi is Sataro Hiramatsu, who worked at high-end kaiseki spots in Japan for the majority of his career and is specialized in oshizushi, a pressed sushi that predates sushi rolls. Orenchi Sushi’s menu features classic rolls ($9-$22) like California and spicy tuna, oshizushi ($12-$20) with salmon and roasted eel, and sushi cups ($7-$9) with yellowtail and crab.
“Since this is a food hall, we wanted to have people easily come here and easily take something, (like) grab-and-go items,” Arimitsu said. “So we created a menu item called sushi cups. And it’s in a cup with rice on the bottom and ingredients on the top. And people could even walk and eat with this too, if they wanted to.”
Salmon sushi cup with salmon sashimi, salmon roe and tamago over sushi rice ($7) at Orenchi Sushi in Los Altos’ State Street Market. Courtesy Orenchi Sushi. 
Chirashi sushi bowl with assorted pieces of sashimi over sushi rice ($25) at Orenchi Sushi in Los Altos’ State Street Market. Courtesy Orenchi Sushi.
In addition, find sushi bowls (sashimi over sushi rice), unagi don (roasted eel over rice) and three Orenchi sushi sets, which include a selection of various items. Vegetarian options include avocado rolls, tamago rolls, avocado tamago sushi cups, tamago oshizushi and veggie oshizushi.
Outside of State Street Market, Ozawa continues to operate three restaurants – Sumika Grill in Los Altos and La Casa Mia in Santa Clara and Milpitas (formerly Obaitori Ramen). Ozawa’s start in the restaurant industry began in 2004 when she opened upsale izakaya restaurant Sumika Grill. She was formerly a sales rep for high-tech companies and moved from Japan to the Bay Area 27 years ago, after meeting her husband in Tokyo.
“When I came here to the United States…we had some good sushi restaurants, but that was it,” Ozawa said. “I really missed the food in Japan, and that was the only thing that I really didn’t like about living in the Bay Area. So I was always craving for quality food.”
A mother of three, Ozawa initially hoped her daughters would take over her restaurant empire.
“My two daughters were helping me to run the seven restaurants, but they wanted to move on to the new career,” Ozawa said. “For me and my husband to run seven restaurants was really too hard, so we decided to scale it down to three.”
One of her daughters, Miyuki Ozawa, opened Japanese bakery Ikuka in State Street Market last year. Ikuka scaled down operations when its main pastry chef became pregnant, shuttering its State Street Market location on Aug. 31 and relocating to La Casa Mia Santa Clara and Milpitas. Miyuki Ozawa will continue to spearhead Ikuka and hopefully will expand the bakery into its own brick and mortar, Kuniko Ozawa said.
During her two decades in the Bay Area restaurant industry, the biggest change was the pandemic, which altered consumer eating habits, Kuniko Ozawa said. There’s been a significant decrease in the weekday lunch crowd, a moderate decrease in the weekday dinner crowd and a huge rush on weekends, she said.
“It’s really hard to schedule full-time workers, because everybody wants to work five days, but people just want to eat on those three days: Friday, Saturday, Sunday,” she said.
Despite these difficulties, Ozawa said she’s not looking to retire anytime soon.
“I really love this restaurant business and being the owner, so I’m going to continue my restaurant business until I get really old,” she said.
Orenchi Ramen & Sushi, 170 State St., Los Altos; 650-823-0933, Instagram: @orenchi.ramen_sushi. Orenchi Ramen open Sunday to Thursday from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 5-8 p.m., Friday and Saturday from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 5-9 p.m. Orenchi Sushi open Tuesday to Thursday and Sunday from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 5-8 p.m., Friday and Saturday from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 5-9 p.m.
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Correction: An earlier version of this article used the phrase “food court” in a quote by Masato Arimitsu. At his request, the phrase has been replaced with “food hall.”
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