Some restaurants go out with a line down the block.
This one asked for the opposite.
Isami, the family-run Japanese restaurant that spent 35 years just off Kingsway near Metrotown, has quietly closed for good.
The Burnaby sushi spot served its last meals at the end of April, closing a run that started back in 1991.
We were tipped off about it in early April, but we are only writing about it now, and that was on purpose.
A Noms Mag community member first flagged to us, but came back hours later after asking the owners whether it was okay to share the news.
The owners said they would rather close quietly than draw a wave of farewell crowds and long lines.
Eventhough a Reddit thread and some other publications have reported on it already, we held the story out of respect to the owners and the community member’s request.
Now that the signage has finally come down off the exterior, the closure is plain to anyone walking by, and it feels right to mark the moment.
The reason for closing is a familiar one, and for once, a happy one.
According to a Reddit post that surfaced in early April, the restaurant’s lease was up, and staying open meant signing on for another five years.
Rather than commit to another half-decade, the owners decided it was finally time to retire.
After 35 years behind the counter, that is a decision few would argue with.
Isami was the real thing.
It was Japanese-owned and Japanese-run from day one, a family business that opened in 1991 and stuck around long enough to become a fixture for Metrotown-area regulars.
The owners built it on decades of professional kitchen experience, and the website still describes the place as a family vision that grew alongside the community.
For a lot of locals, Isami was the kind of dependable, no-drama sushi spot you stop noticing precisely because you assume it will always be there.
There is something fitting about how they chose to end it, too.
A spot that spent 35 years feeding the same neighborhood wanted its last chapter to be calm rather than a frenzy, and that says plenty about the people who ran it.
Still, it is one less independent, family-run Japanese kitchen in a city that has been losing them quietly, one lease at a time.
Isami joins a string of recent Burnaby closures, including Little Billy’s, Tendon Kohaku Brentwood, and Kingspark Good Food.
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Address: 4603 Kingsway Unit #6, Burnaby, BC V5H 4L3