Robots rule at Kura Revolving Sushi Bar in Lynnwood

EVERETT — The official grand opening is Friday but sushi lovers are already aware of Kura Revolving Sushi Bar.

During its soft opening on April 2, a long line formed outside the latest conveyor belt sushi restaurant — this one located in the H Mart Plaza in Lynnwood.

On some nights since April 2, sushi lovers waited more than an hour to be seated.

It’s about food, of course, but also entertainment. Along with the conveyor belt sushi, a robot delivers drinks. Free prizes are awarded after eating food from 15 plates.

With the addition of Kura, Lynnwood could be considered the conveyor-belt sushi capital of Snohomish County. The Alderwood shopping complex, just a quarter mile away, is the home of BittyFish Sushi — another conveyor belt sushi restaurant. A third sushi restaurant, Sushi Hana, which offers what it calls a monorail system to deliver sushi, is less than a half mile from Kura. At Sushi Hana, a flat, motorized, miniature cart on an elevated rail delivers the sushi after it has been ordered.

Other conveyor belt sushi restaurants exist in Snohomish County, but none next door to their competitors.

Robert Klugler, chief development officer at Kura Sushi based in Irvine, California, said the company knew about its competitors before it picked its Lynnwood location, its 75th in the United States.

“Sushi is huge in this area, and we thought we had a chance to out-position the competition,” he said.

Publicly traded Kura looked at a variety of factors before deciding to locate in Lynnwood, including the high percentage of upper-income, college-educated families in the area and the large number of Asian American residents in the city, close to 20 percent of the population, Klugler said.

BittyFish Sushi co-owner Steve Rosen said the restaurant has been very successful since it opened in September 2020.

He said he hopes there is enough business around for both restaurants.

Klugler called visiting Kura “overstimulation.” After a recent dinner visit, a reporter couldn’t agree more.

The lighting is bright, showcasing the sushi and other Japanese food on a slowly revolving belt that snakes through the restaurant, giving customers a chance to offload plate after plate of colorful food.

Customers who don’t see the fish they want, or another Japanese dish or dessert, look up at their own small video screen and order from there. Their order then comes down an express lane above the first conveyor belt at a rapid speed straight to their seating position. Then there’s Kur-B the robot. Kur-B brings drinks and condiments to customers’ tables with upbeat music to announce an arrival.

The prizes that roll out of a massive container above the conveyor belts contain a variety of key chains with pictures of sushi and other food. Once every 500 times, a rare key chain with a picture of a salmon painted on it comes out.

BittyFish offers a lower-key atmosphere. There are no robots and no prizes. Rosen said hosts offer a more human experience, taking drink orders in combination with the sushi conveyor belt experience.

Both Kura and BittyFish offer something fairly unique for the sushi experience — inexpensive prices. Most dishes are under $4.00 at both restaurants.

Conveyor belt sushi restaurants first originated in Japan in the late 1950s. They remain popular in the Seattle area because they can provide a safe, low-cost sushi experience, said Ted Mack, chairperson of the Japan Studies Program at the University of Washington.

“At the same time, any sushi connoisseur will tell you that nothing beats sushi made fresh right before your eyes by an experienced sushi chef,” he said.

Randy Diamond: 425-339-3097; randy.diamond@heraldnet.com.