Sushiya closes after 28 years on the Sunset Strip

Sushiya, a Sunset Strip sushi restaurant open since 1998, will close on 29 September after 28 years in West Hollywood's Sunset Plaza.

The closure ends the last legacy restaurant still trading in Sunset Plaza, following the closure of French bistro Le Petit Four roughly a year earlier on the same strip.

Sushiya's last service on the Strip

A landmark closing on the Strip says more about rent than it does about sushi.

Management framed the closure as the end of an era rather than a sudden decision, telling guests that “if only the walls could speak, they would certainly have a few amazing stories to tell.”

Over 28 years, Sushiya became a regular stop for celebrities and musicians, with patrons including Rihanna, Leonardo DiCaprio, Stevie Wonder and John Travolta, and frequent use as a filming location for television shows and films.

No landlord or rent figure has been made public for Sushiya itself, but rising costs on the strip are widely blamed for a run of recent closures nearby, including Employees Only, Electric Owl, The Belmont and Connie and Ted's.

A wave of Sunset Strip closures

A nearby business owner said rent on the strip has almost tripled since her own shop opened twenty years ago, leaving many operators struggling to break even against rising rent and the rising cost of living generally.

Sunset Plaza built its reputation in the 1980s and 1990s as an open-air strip of sidewalk cafes and boutiques, and Sushiya was one of the few restaurants there to survive the area's long slide from that peak into a run of short-lived tenants.

The pattern echoes closures elsewhere in North America this year, including a 14-year run that ended at Vancouver's Fable Kitchen and a 29-year run that closed at Walt Disney World under Wolfgang Puck, both cited as evidence that even established names are not immune to rising costs.

Sushiya is inviting patrons back for dinner and cocktail service through its final weeks, with management asking guests to raise a glass, share a memory and say farewell before the doors close for good on 29 September.