Sushi Friend owner Kevin Min sears a salmon roll while general manager Jesus Covarrubias, back, and Asa Scott work on platters (photo by Marjorie Rice).
It’s hard to miss Sushi Friend, a no-frills spot on Central Avenue just north of the canal. The building is small, and right now there’s no sign because it got mowed down by an unlucky driver. But you still can’t miss it.
Look for the blindingly yellow structure – think smiley face yellow – and you’re there.
Owner Kevin Min says he’s working on replacing the demolished sign, and delivery has been delayed. But on a recent weekday afternoon, plenty of customers had found the place, filling the bare-bones dining room’s stark yellow metal tables, digging in to platters of silky sushi, sashimi and rolls, and bowls featuring spicy tuna, poke, seared salmon and unagi, among other toppings.
Christmas Eve will mark four years since Min opened Sushi Friend.
After more than two decades in sushi restaurants – “It’s my only skill; I don’t know how to do anything else” – Min had started a sushi catering business, delivering platters to local businesses. COVID shut that down, and he needed another income.
The Sunnyslope location was a natural, Min said. “I used to live here, at Central and Griswold.”
Well, if you only know how to do one thing, it pays to do it well, and it’s paid off for Min, whose team serves dine-in customers as well as a busy pick-up and delivery trade. Ordering is a bit unusual. There’s no phone; instead, customers order entirely online, both for pickup and delivery and to shave wait time off their in-house orders.
He still does some limited catering for a couple of business regulars, Min said, and customers who want to host a party can pick up large platters.
Those platters are customer favorites, he said. “Bigger platters that families can share are our heavy-hitters.”
Smaller orders – combos of sushi and rolls, and rice bowls are most popular – round out the menu. Two standouts are the H Bowl, with rice, salad or a combination of both, topped with tuna, oranges, scallions, spicy soy, pickled onions and cucumber sunomono, and the sushi combo with ahi, yellowtail and salmon sushi and spicy tuna or California roll. That bowl is ample for two.
At Sushi Friend, the sushi combo features ahi, yellowtail and salmon sushi with spicy tuna roll, while the H Bowl includes tuna, oranges, scallions, spicy soy, pickled onions and cucumber sunomono over rice, salad or a combination (photo by Marjorie Rice).
Min has seen tremendous growth in the popularity of sushi in the Valley right around the turn of this century. As a result of the demand, sushi restaurants have a reliable supply of quality fresh fish, he said. “You can get fresh fish six days a week, and we do.”
What Min hopes customers find at Sushi Friend, in addition to good food, of course, is “a friendly establishment, with local chefs trying to make sushi that caters to families. We’re an easy, accessible place. When I first made it, I had two little kids. I made it so that families like mine can come here and take it home and have just as good sushi there as they would find in a restaurant. Because at that time, you couldn’t get something like that anywhere. You had to go to the restaurant to get restaurant quality. And if you wanted take-home sushi, it wasn’t presented well. I wanted something that was easy to grab, to order online so you don’t have to wait.”
Min says online pre-orders are the way to go because “at dinnertime it gets packed here.” You also can order on terminals at the counter, which offers a view of Min and his team working on platters and rolls.
Sushi Friend’s low-key, casual service and unfussy style were deliberate choices, Min said.
“When I started, I took out a lot of the things that we didn’t like at restaurants where we had worked,” he said. “I always say, ‘Yes, we wear T-shirts and shorts as we are making your sushi, but the quality is just the same, and the skill is maybe even more. These people have more time invested in their craft than a lot of chefs in this town.’”
While some Valley places may be more well-known and feature spiffier surroundings, Min said his and other simpler spots hold their own.
“You can go to a small hole-in-the-wall somewhere in Phoenix and they may have a chef who has been doing this for a very long time, and he’ll give you something better than if you went to a name restaurant,” he said.
Sushi Friend, 8727 N. Central Ave., is open Monday through Saturday, noon to 7 p.m. There is no telephone number. For more information and to order for pickup and delivery, visit www.yoursushifriend.com.
