You’re strolling around a Japan and passed by a sushi restaurant and you see this statue of a Japanese guy with his hands out as if to say “welcome to my humble restaurant” or maybe creeping you out.
But do not worry, this guy is probably one of the most important people in Japan. He’s a welcoming guy that has his hands out (and he takes photos with his staff doing the same and you will see it in billboards and photos outside of his restaurant) and that’s because the guy is Kimura Kiyoshi, the owner of Kiyomura Corporation which owns 49 SUSHIZANMAI restaurants throughout Tokyo and different areas in Japan (Hokkaido, Tochigi, Saitama, Kanagawa, Aichi, Kyoto, Fukuoka, Kumamoto and Kagoshima).
SUSHIZANMAI opened back in 2001 and has grown his chain all throughout Japan.
Known as the “King of Tuna”, this is because for many years in Japan, for the first auction of the new year in Tokyo, Kimura has paid top notch for a single tuna.
In 2019, Kimura paid $3.1 million (333.6 million yen) for a 612-pound bluefin smashing his own 2013 record of paying $1.8 million for a 489-pound fish.
Now the purchasing a lot for an auction of tuna has become highly competitive and also brings a ton of worldwide news coverage. In 2018, Sushi Ginza’s Onodera Hiroshi thwarted Kimura’s many consecutive years of being “King of Tuna” by outbidding Kimura at $323,195 for a 893-pound Pacific bluefin tuna.
Kimura repeated this feat. in 2020 by paying $1.8 million yen for a 276 kilogram (608 lb.) tuna.
And while Kimura came back in full force after the Onodera group beat him, since 2020, Onodera has been relentless in making sure they are the winners and have now done it for four consecutive years. But since 2021 and 2022, Kimura had no interest in participating in the auction.
In January 2024, a 525-pound bluefin tuna was purchased by seafood wholesaler Yamayuki and sushi chain Onodera group for nearly $800,000. Yamayuki president Yamaguchi Yukitaka said to reports, “If we were going to do it, we wanted to win”.
But for 2024, Kimura didn’t get all flashy about the auction. In fact, he said in consideration of the victims of the 2020 Noto Peninsula Earthquake, “Before you get too excited, there are people who died in Noto due to the earthquake and others who have not been found yet. This year, please refrain from doing anything too flashy. In that case, please donate some money to those affected by the disaster. I think it’s better to do what we can in this form”.
While he didn’t get the #1 fish, he got a fish that he was proud of from 150-160 kg in size and said, “It’s the best tuna that looks like it’s about to start swimming”.
Once the auction was over, they took the tuna home and prepared to serve it at SUSHIZANMAI.
He also hinted on what may be a sign that he may be looking at other countries to open a SUSHIZANMAI store, possibly in Los Angeles.
But each time you pass by a SUSHIZANMAI sushi restaurant, and see a statue or a poster of a guy with his hands out, just know you are right near a restaurant owned by the “KING OF TUNA”.
