From KCRW, I'm Evan Klyman, and this is good food. For decades, Suhiro was known as the little

Tokyo restaurant that served remarkably good, home-style Japanese food, and stayed open until way

late into the night. Then, after struggling through the COVID-19 pandemic, they received an

eviction notice, and in early

2024, the restaurant closed the doors at its long time first street location. Fortunately,

it has reopened in a new spot at the corner of 4th and Main Streets. Owner Kenji Suzuki is our

guest on In the Weeds. My name is Kenji Suzuki. our guest on In the Weeds.

My name is Kenji Suzuki.

I'm the second generation owner of Suihiro Cafe.

My mother and my aunt, her sister, younger sister, opened the Suihiro back in 1972.

My family, we came over from Japan in 1969. I remember the first couple of years, my family played Majan. Mahjong is a Chinese tile game, which makes a lot of noise

when you mix it. And originally, they were so hooked into Majan.

They wanted to open up a Mahjan parlor.

And that was the start of our restaurant journey.

So we were looking for a space or they were looking for a space to,

place to have everybody play mahjong,

maybe have a small kitchen so that they could

make rice balls and soup.

When they were looking, a mutual friend had said, you know, there's a cook that wanted to

open up his own store.

He had a place, but he needed a partner to fully invest into so that they could actually open up the restaurant.

So we actually went into a partnership with the cook.

...