It’s Friday happy hour, and recently opened Blue Wasabi Sushi & Martini Bar in Gilbert is packed. Alex Ortiz is lucky. He and his wife, Leslie, manage to find seats at the bar, where they order one of the stylish SanTan Village restaurant’s signature sushi rolls.

“I’ve had sushi all my life,” says the 45-year-old aerospace products sales manager, who moved to Mesa three years ago. “It’s not real heavy and you don’t get bloated. It’s better-tasting food. We usually go to Ra at Dana Park, but some friends told us about this place last night and we had to check it out.”

For people like Ortiz, who eats sushi once or twice a week, these are boom times in the East Valley. A little more than a decade ago you could count the number of sushi restaurants on one hand. Today, there are more than 100, and new ones are opening every month.

Once confined to trendy, upscale areas like downtown Scottsdale, the Japanese cuisine is riding a wave of popularity that’s taken it to mostly Hispanic neighborhoods in west Mesa and the cowboy-centric climes of Higley and Queen Creek.

Few people have followed the East Valley’s growing appetite for sushi more closely than Scott Kilpatrick (pictured above). In 1997, he and friends Rich Howland and Taison Obata (pictured at left) converted the Scottsdale restaurant Trapper’s into Ra Sushi.

Kilpatrick, 38, now oversees a 19-restaurant chain — with five more locations scheduled to open by 2009 — stretching from California to the East Coast. There are five Ras in the East Valley.

“Ten years ago, if you told people you had a sushi restaurant, they’d make a face,” he says. “Now, nine out of 10 people say they love sushi.”

Kilpatrick credits Scottsdale restaurants like Sushi on Shea and Kyoto with pioneering the Valley’s sushi scene in the early 1990s, but found something was lacking.

“There were places that had decent food, but the atmosphere was zero,” he says. “I loved those places, but who’s gonna go there with a group of guys?”

His idea? To target a 21-to-35-year-old crowd with an energized, nightclub-like vibe, alternative rock music and a fun-loving staff. It proved to be a wildly successful concept and has been much copied.

One of those following Ra’s blueprint is Blue Wasabi (pictured at right), where Desirae Forrey, a 27-year-old mortgage banker, takes Ortiz’s vacated seat at the bar while she waits for a friend.

“Once I came here, I totally loved it,” the blonde says. “When it gets later, it’s more like a club. There are no clubs in Gilbert.”

Forrey said she often drove to Ra in Ahwatukee Foothills or Scottsdale before Blue Wasabi opened within walking distance of her home.

“I don’t want to go to Scottsdale,” she says while sipping a $9.50 martini. “It’s a long drive, and there’s the DUI thing to worry about.”

Of course, not every new sushi place fosters a nightclub atmosphere.

Paul Cho and his son, Richard, opened Sushi Eye in Tempe in 2005. The eatery caters to older diners with traditional sushi, but also entices the younger generation with colorfully named Booty Booty Rolls and Climax Rolls.

In December, Cho (pictured at left) opened a second restaurant, Sushi Eye in Motion, in downtown Chandler. It has a conveyor belt that carries sushi around the bar, allowing customers to grab what they want. Although popular in Japan and Korea, it was the first such belt in Arizona.

“There are so many Japanese restaurants opening up,” Cho says. “We wanted to do something unique that’s entertainment itself.”

Apart from an ever-growing number of competitors, Cho says restaurants like his in the south East Valley have another challenge — beyond the expected one of convincing people who’ve never had sushi to try eating raw fish.

“Scottsdale has very good sushi, but it’s expensive,” he says. “Not many people can afford it. People have the wrong perception that all Japanese restaurants are expensive.”

He points out that both Sushi Eye locations offer lunch combinations that include a four-piece sushi roll, soup, salad and rice for just $6.95.

“That’s less than what many people are paying at fast-food restaurants,” he says.

Sushi restaurants are wagering East Valley residents’ appetites haven’t been sated yet. 98 South wine bar owner Ron Wojcicki is about to open Kizake across the street in downtown Chandler, and Sapporo, which already has locations in Scottsdale and Las Vegas, is coming to Ocotillo this fall.

In Scottsdale, Los Angeles’ popular Sushi Roku will launch a branch at the new W Hotel this summer, and James Beard Award-winning chef Nobu Fukuda will move his Sea Saw across the street to a bigger space at SouthBridge. Fukuda also will open a Japanese tavern called Shell Shock.

“Ten years ago, the question was, ‘How long do you think the sushi trend will last?’ ” Kilpatrick says. “It’s proven to be more than a trend. It’s exploded in the last 10 years, but I don’t know if it can sustain that kind of growth.”

Cho says it’s unlikely there’ll ever be a sushi restaurant on every block.

“It’s not going to be like gas stations because there’s not enough popularity,” he says. “Every shopping mall has a pizza place, but I don’t think it’s going to be like that with sushi.”

Posted in: Ahwatukee • Chandler • Gilbert • Mesa • Scottsdale • Tempe |

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