After almost four decades serving sushi and other Japanese dishes in the Mission District, We Be Sushi earlier this month closed its last location at 538 Valencia St. near 16th Street.
“I’m 76 now, that’s long enough,” said chef and owner Andy Tonozuka. “I felt so much relief once I decided to retire.”
After making the decision, Tonozuka said he “realized I was under so much pressure” working in the kitchen most days. “Relief is the word I felt.”
Tonozuka shut his doors on Feb. 13. But on Tuesday morning, he stood behind the counter of his empty restaurant, preparing the final order of his career: a catering job he had committed to weeks ago.
We Be Sushi operated for 39 years and in its heyday had up to five locations in San Francisco. Tonozuka opened the first restaurant at 1071 Valencia St., near 22nd Street in 1987, when he was already a veteran sushi chef. As a younger man, he had served as an apprentice at the Hatsuhana restaurant inside of Tokyo’s National Diet Building — the seat of the Japanese government.
“We were making sushi for prime ministers and all those big guys,” Tonozuka recalled.
He worked there for eight years before moving to New York in the mid ’70s to work for his boss, Mr. Tanaka, when he opened Hatsuhana in Manhattan in 1976. Seven years later, the business became the first Japanese restaurant to earn a four-star review by the New York Times.
Tonozuka arrived in San Francisco in 1984 to visit a friend and fell in love with the city.
In the Bay Area, he worked for Nikko restaurant at Pine and Van Ness. When his boss learned that Tonozuka harbored ambitions to run a restaurant of his own, he suggested looking in the area around Valencia and 22nd streets. He first considered Silicon Valley, but he thought it was too sleepy.
It was good advice. Tonozuka remembers having many young families as clientele. He started to notice a real uptick in business within the first month — and within two months, customers even demanded his cooking in the East Bay.
At the onset, Tonozuka had selected the name “McSushi” for the business, but after receiving a letter from an attorney representing McDonald’s two weeks before his scheduled opening, he decided to change it. The new name came from a contest he held a week before opening. He left a blank paper and pen on his window, and received about 200 suggestions.
In the end, “We Be Sushi” won out.
“I did not understand the meaning of it, but I liked it somehow,” Tonozuka said. “After many names, I decided to pick up that name.”
Tonozuka closed We Be Sushi’s original home on Valencia in 2024, citing a dip in business, his age and sciatic nerve pain forced him to temporarily close up in early 2024 for a few weeks. At the time, he told Mission Local he was already “mentally and physically halfway retired” and reiterated his appreciation for the business and the customers that allowed him to buy a home and send his children to college. His daughter attended University of Puget Sound and now works for Nvidia while he son attended Occidental College and now works in Osaka for the American embassy.
The 538 Valencia St. restaurant opened in 1996. This year would have marked the location’s 30th anniversary.
“We Be Sushi epitomizes what I love about Valencia Street — a true small business where the owner is there, and you can feel it in every detail: the quality of the food, the way you’re greeted at the door, the quirky design that makes it unmistakably its own,” said Eileen Rinaldi, owner of Ritual Coffee and president of the Valencia Merchants Association.
“It’s places like this that weave the tapestry of our corridor — independent, personal, and full of character.”
Lauren Umetani, a customer of 25 years, stopped by on Tuesday afternoon to drop off chocolates and a card for Tonozuka. She’d brought colleagues and friends to the restaurant for the last two decades.
Umetani also works about two blocks away and ate lunch there about twice a week. Her favorite fare? Ebi-ten maki and a shrimp tempura roll.
Umetani said she was “really sad” about the closing, “but very happy that they’ll be able to retire. He has earned it.”
Tonozuka said he’s not sure what he’s going to do now, but he said he’d like to accomplish “something good for society.” He has mixed emotions.
“I really appreciate all the customer support for a long time. I miss them all,” Tonozuka said. “Many people enjoy the sushi, and it was my pleasure. I am proud of myself and leaving them — it’s kind of a sad feeling, but I’m done.”
Tonozuka said he’s gifting the restaurant’s iconic signs — it advertises sushi “Like Mom Used to Make” above a matronly figure holding a smaller sign for drinks “like mom used to mix” — to one of those loyal customers who owns a bar. When asked what bar it was, he said he didn’t know.
“Maybe he wants to put it there,” Tonozuka said of the sign. “I don’t know exactly how he’s gonna use it.”
While he doesn’t know what’s going to take over the space, he will take home the brand “We Be Sushi” and 39 years of rolling memories.
“I made good sushi for everybody,” he said. “That’s my best pleasure, to see the people smiling and telling me the sushi was so good.”