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Tuesday, March 8, 2016
Today’s featured teardown shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to anyone who was following the local news back in January: Sushi Nine, damaged by fire in the first full week of 2016, received demolition permits on February 29.
James Borden / Raleigh Public Record
Sushi Nine suffered extensive fire damage in early January
First built in 1985 as a Golden Corral restaurant, the former home of Sushi Nine at 3812 Western Boulevard was also the previous site of Ten Ten, a Chinese restaurant. Although we never visited any of these iterations of the place, I imagine Ten Ten was probably the best. But in the interest of full disclosure, I do have a very strong bias against sushi. What can I say? It’s gross.
Obviously there’s a lot of people that disagree, and those folks should be delighted to know that Sushi Nine announced plans on its Instagram account in January to stage a grand reopening of the restaurant.
The place clearly had a lot of fans and supporters: Sushi Nine’s posts on social media received lots of great feedback, and it had pretty decent Yelp ratings. Kong L., an Elite Yelp Reviewer (yes, that’s a thing, and from what I’ve heard, there are real-life perks, like free meals from restaurants, invitations to grand openings, groupies, etc.) wrote of Sushi Nine:
I’ve searched near and far for the best sushi in the Raleigh area and hands down…”Sushi Nine” is the winner! I’ve been living in Raleigh, NC for the past 3 years and have tried sushi from all over the area and nothing is as good as sushi nine. Each time I visit, I know exactly how the roll should taste; consistency is the key. I also like just enough sauce on my sushi; not splattered and drowned with sauce.
BOGO all day and everyday whether you’re eating in or taking out. That’s the up side of this sushi restaurant.
James Borden / Raleigh Public Record
Sushi Nine was damaged by a fire in early January
I guess I could make some crack about how sushi is such a terrible food that the only way you can sell it is by offering a never-ending buy-one-get-one special, but obviously I’m in the minority with regards to my hot take on raw fish.
The BOGO move is actually a pretty good one, especially considering its proximity to NC State. Students who might not otherwise be able to afford the relative “luxury” that is a meal at a sushi restaurant could easily split the cost of a buy-one-get-one deal. I have no idea if I’m hyphenating that right.
While browsing Sushi Nine’s above-mentioned Instagram account, I came across this short video shared by an obvious fan of the restaurant, Devon Gerenza. It was too hilarious not to include here:
A video posted by Devon Gerenza (@dev_gerenza) on
Hats off to Ms. Gerenza. There’s really no way to top that, although before I close out, I should mention that Cecil Holcomb will be handling the $15,000 demolition.
