After Sakae Sushi closed its locations, the city was down two sushi conveyor belts. It got them back this week. Luke Fryer, a 32-year-old Aussie restaurateur (and owner of London’s popular Wagamama noodle shops), recently renovated Yushi Kaiten to include a conveyor belt displaying “Japanese-inspired tapas” and sushi rolls, complete with calorie counts and color coding to reflect prices. Midtown Lunch’s readers were plenty excited during the pre-opening, but now that the midtown location is officially open, one of them is bummed to find out the moving sushi is for display purposes only, and that you have to order from a server. The restaurant tells Midtown Lunch this is for freshness purposes and that customers wanted it that way (which, ahem, sounds a little fishy), but if you’re a fan of this gimmick, you’ll be glad to know that, according to an employee who answered the phone when we called, the downtown location is still letting customers pick rolls off of the belt.
Yushi Kaiten, 4 World Financial Center, nr. Vesey St.; 212-945-3096
Yushi Kaiten, 245 Park Ave., nr. 46th St.; 212-687-1900
