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For 36 years, Sushi Sam’s Edomata served as the cultural epicenter for sushi on the Peninsula. When eponymous chef-owner Sam Sugiyama retired and closed the restaurant in December, there was a fear that perhaps another Bay Area culinary institution had been lost.
Those fears have been allayed with the relocation and rebirth of Sushi Sam’s as Sushi Edomata.
The restaurant moved from its 3rd Avenue location — notes informing customers of the move still hang in the windows — to 25th Avenue, next to the septuagenarian San Mateo staple, The Swingin’ Door.
You could be forgiven for missing it. As of yet, its black facade has no sign other than a neon “open” behind the glass, clearly visible only at night. Restaurant manager and owner Kelvin Ching said they’re working on adding signage, though some within their legion of loyal customers prefer the low-profile look.
“A lot of people say, ‘No, don’t put a sign, Kelvin, I don’t want everyone to know,’” Ching said.
Sushi Edomata is open from 5-9 p.m. Tuesday to Saturday for dinner and from noon to 1:30 p.m. Thursday to Saturday for its lunch service, which began a month ago. That brief lunch service caters specifically to those loyal customers. It’s important, especially since dinner reservations are already tricky to acquire.
The business remains in familiar hands and continues serving longtime clients.
Sam Sugiyama, 73, and his wife Mayumi, 68 — “the first lady of the Bay Area,” as Ching fondly called her, who worked alongside him for many years making sushi — retired in a mighty celebration packed to the brim at their old haunt. At that moment, they handed the reins to their family. Sam’s nephew, Koichi Ito, is the head chef at Sushi Edomata. His niece, Toko Ito, is the pastry chef who runs the dessert business, Kashi Edomata. And Ching, Toko’s husband, handles the business side.
This is how it’s always been: family led, family style.
Longtime loyal customers
Husband and wife Akira and Yuko Amizaki have been going to Sushi Sam’s for more than 15 years, since before they were married. It’s long enough that they’ve run into fellow customer Mark Zuckerberg. The Meta CEO and his wife, Priscilla Zuckerberg, donated $100,000 to Sushi Sam’s in 2020 along with seven of their other favorite restaurants.
Yuko and Akira Amizaki brought their daughter to the restaurant for the first time when she was 4 months old and a bit too young to appreciate sushi and have now brought her to Sushi Edomata, more than 12 years later.
And they were at the “bittersweet” retirement party for Sam, where they were bombarded with free bites of sushi.
“One thing we really love about Sushi Sam’s is that it’s not just the owner-chef; the whole staff on the floor, they haven’t changed, and they are really part of the team,” Yuko Amizaki said. “So seeing how they value their staff is really heartwarming.”
Sugiyama made a name for himself with quality fish and craft, but it was his warm, amiable personality and loving interactions with patrons that stood out.
That’s what Koichi Ito said he learned most from Sam Sugiyama. While he takes trips to Japan and picks up inspiration for innovations, he knows he cannot just copy and paste. There is a formality in Japanese service that doesn’t fit what Sam and Mayumi Sugiyama built here, Koichi Ito said. Just as important as quality is Koichi Ito and his 15-person staff’s presence and familial engagement with customers, which helped them build multigenerational customer loyalty.
Rolling out a new home
In an ideal world, the restaurant would have moved here earlier. The relocation plan had been in the works back in 2020, as discussions over renewing their lease at the 3rd Avenue location lingered. But the pandemic delayed the move.
Sam Sugiyama actually purchased the land Sushi Edomata sits on more than 15 years ago. It was previously occupied by various bars, one called Stingers, followed by the Mandala Lounge, which ended up on the TV show “Bar Rescue”, rebranding as 38th Floor Bar before going out of business in 2016. It’s not a particularly glamorous location and has some logistical challenges, particularly the lack of any convenient parking lot and limited street parking.
“We still have regular customers come to us, even though it’s very hard to park,” Koichi Ito said with a smile. “But there’s still people coming. That’s my inspiration. I’m happy.”
Ching said the restaurant was almost fully rebuilt, with the exception of the easternmost wall. Inside is a vision that Koichi Ito said he’s had since a trip to a Manhattan sushi spot 15 years ago. He was inspired by a sprawling, wooden chef’s counter.
“If I open a restaurant, I’m going to do this concept,” Koichi Ito recalled.
Sushi Edomata has a modern interior, with light woods and tatami mat benches acquired from a customer who sources his tatami from Japan. The centerpiece counter is an immense slab of redwood.
The counter tucks 12 curved, wooden seats beneath its berth. The arrangement aims guests’ eyes toward the chefs and an open kitchen backed by blue, scallop-shaped tiles on the wall. Smaller tables and benches wrap around the restaurant.
But every seat is in view of Koichi Ito, who enjoys the intimacy the new space provides. The 35-person capacity is a significant drop from the 60-person capacity at the old location, but it’s more manageable.
“It’s upscale compared to the last location,” longtime customer Amizaki said. “It’s modern, more spacious, but the spirit has carried on.”
Koichi’s journey
It’s also the realization of a multigenerational dream that had been in the making since Koichi Ito was a teenager.
He grew up in Aichi prefecture in Japan, where Sam Sugiyama ran a previous restaurant of the same Edomata name. It was originally founded by Sam Sugiyama’s grandfather-in-law, Mitsuhiko, and it was there that Koichi Ito would watch his uncle Sam work. By the time he was 13, he knew he wanted to be a sushi chef.
He began his own culinary career in Japan in 1999 before joining Sam Sugiyama in San Mateo at Sushi Sam’s five years later. Widespread appreciation and understanding of sushi in the United States was in its nascence in those days, and Sam Sugiyama’s intentional schooling of his customers helped build admiration and loyalty for the craft locally.
“Not many people knew sushi,” Koichi Ito said. “He tried to teach. He educated the customers.”
Sam Sugiyama passed that education down in a way Amizaki said is not overbearing.
“They do it in a way that is not imposing or pretentious,” she said. “It’s still casual. There are plenty of…Michelin-starred restaurants that we might be able to go to on an anniversary dinner, but Sushi Sam’s is a place that is still great quality, but we can go casually as a family.”
Koichi Ito influenced his uncle’s culinary education, too. After visits to Manhattan, he suggested that they bring omakase — an array of the chef’s choice of fish, presented artfully — to Sushi Sam’s. Sam Sugiyama agreed, and it thrived.
The uncle and nephew also share a zodiac symbol. Born 24 years apart, both share the year of the dragon. That symbol is etched into their collective identity in more ways than one. It serves as the restaurant’s mesmerizing logo — made by San Francisco-based artist Mayumi Sasage — of a blue dragon holding a sushi roll.
A familiar menu
Koichi Ito carried over the same menu from Sushi Sam’s, but he has also embraced the creative challenge of adding specials and innovating on a nightly basis to surprise and delight guests. He’s also assembled a staff of young chefs from Japan to aid in this endeavor.
The lunch menu features an $18 lunch set with a side of the day, miso soup, shrimp and vegetable tempura, rice or a California roll and chicken teriyaki or salmon yuanyaki. The dinner menu offers a variety of sashimi, nigiri and hand and maki rolls.
The fish is still sourced directly from Tokyo’s famed Toyosu (formerly Tsukiji) fish market. Koichi Ito has a direct text line to get fish and add anything that might be in season. Despite being a pricier option than sourcing locally, it’s one Ito believes provides higher quality, and typically fattier fish than ones found here. The Sunday timing for most fish deliveries is a major component of why they have thus far held off from opening the restaurant on Sundays, Ching said.
Facing the future
This new chapter all comes with Sam Sugiyama’s blessing. He splits his time between homes in Nagoya, Japan, and the Bay Area, popping by Sushi Edomata frequently to greet customers and drop off the product of his newest job: cork miniatures.
Behind the host stand is a wall cutout that glimpses into the larger dining area. In that thin strip of wall real estate reside the bite-sized, friendly sculptures that Sugiyama carves from corks.
“He’s really good at it,” said Toko Ito.
“That’s his new job,” said Koichi Ito. “He delivers them every day. He still enjoys it after retirement. And then he sometimes comes here and sees the regular customers. It’s too hard (to fully retire) because he’s been working hard for how many years? So long.”
Amizaki said Sam Sugiyama saved some of those figurines for her daughter before he retired.
“We have a couple of them at our home,” she said. “The first one was a Hello Kitty. That was really sweet.”
They’re a big hit with kids, which hits a soft spot for Koichi Ito, reminiscing on his 13-year-old self. It’s in line with what Sam Sugiyami did to pass down the culture and education of sushi in the Bay Area.
Koichi Ito wants the same thing and aspires to the same longevity as his uncle, health willing.
“I want to grow up with the customers,” he said. “I want to work as long as Sam. Sushi is my life.”
Sushi Edomata, 38 E. 25th Ave., San Mateo; 650-344-0888, Instagram: @sushi.edomata. Open Tuesday and Wednesday from 5-9 p.m., Thursday to Saturday from noon to 1:30 p.m. and 5-9 p.m.
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Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated Mitsuhiko was Sam Sugiyama’s father. This article has been updated to correct that Mitsuhiko is Sugiyama’s father-in-law.
