Giant Japanese Conveyor Belt Concept Kura Sushi Finally Coming to Colorado

Conveyor-belt sushi restaurants are popular in Japan, and while the last Sushi-Rama closed in Denver this spring (at one point, chef/owner Jeff Osaka had five of them), the concept will soon make a big comeback. That's because Kura Sushi is finally coming to Colorado.

The company founded in Japan in 1977 now dominates the conveyor-belt category across the Pacific, with almost 700 outlets; it expanded into the U.S. with an American subsidiary in 2009 that currently boasts 82 locations in 24 states. And this week, Boulder will get one.

The original opening date for Kura Sushi Boulder had been July 22, but permitting issues pushed back the celebration, according to Newton Hoang, Kura Sushi USA's vice president for marketing. The new "soft-opening" target is July 25, with a grand opening scheduled for August 1, on the commercial strip between 28th and 30th streets (close to the Boulder Trader Joe's).

The idea for conveyor-belt sushi has been around since the late 1950s, when it was first used in an Osaka restaurant to serve sushi efficiently with fewer staff. At the 1970 Osaka World Expo, the concept was introduced to the rest of Japan and then the world, and it quickly took off.

Here's how it works: Sushi chefs make a variety of sushi and place them on plates on a conveyor belt that passes by diners' tables, and you grab whatever suits your fancy. Maybe you stick to familiar pieces like tuna rolls or try something a little more Japanese, like uni (sea urchin). At the end of your meal, you're charged for the plates you've taken off the belt, which are totaled up for your bill.
At Kura Sushi, technology has transformed the process in many ways. First, the sushi is made behind the curtain, so to speak, with the conveyor belt coming out of the kitchen where the food is assembled. As the rolls, nigiri sushi and other items (like ramen, soup and some side dishes) pass by your table, you grab what you want. Unlike at other conveyor-belt sushi shops, Kura's fare comes covered with a specially designed plastic dome to monitor its freshness (items are taken off the belt if they've been on too long) and protect it from tampering. (A controversy broke out a couple of years ago in Japan when teenagers were caught touching and licking sushi and putting it back on the belt.)

You don't have to wait to see something you like, either: You can order what you're hankering. But instead of chatting with the sushi chefs, diners interact with an electronic ordering system that lets you choose what you want, and then the custom order is made and sent down a separate belt directly to your table.

After you eat, you place the plates in a tableside slot that keeps track of the total. As a fun extra — and something popular with kids — Kura Sushi gamifies the plate system so that when a table drops in enough plates, it wins a prize that pops out of a dispenser. Kura has other tech bells and whistles, too, including robot servers to deliver special-ordered dishes that might not fare well on a belt.

This is the newfangled sushi experience that Boulderites — and eventually Denver residents — can expect.
Robert Kluger, Kura Sushi USA's chief development officer at the company's headquarters in Irvine, California, is apologetic about the delay in coming to the Rocky Mountain region. (Back in 2022, the president of the company told me that Kura Sushi was already scouting locations in the Denver area.) "Yeah, it's taken us a minute to get here," Kluger admits. A location in Salt Lake City opened in last week.

Why Boulder over Denver? "We're actually looking in both cities," Kluger responds. "But we wanted to start with Boulder, because our brand resonates well, like in highly educated areas, with younger folks."

Boulder has the University of Colorado as well as other residents who might be culturally open to new foods — like older hippies.

Denver and other cities in Colorado can expect Kura Sushi to arrive soon, though, according to Kluger. The company has already taken over Japan and has outposts in Taiwan (over fifty locations) and some in mainland China. But the United States is a priority, with an initial target of 300 in America.

It helps that the world has become more open to diverse cuisine. "I do believe it's a generational thing, because as the world is becoming more international, we're seeing more of those (new) flavors being accepted into the U.S. as well," Kluger adds. "And it's not just major metropolitans, but now it's being accepted in the Midwest and Texas and the Southeast, and it's kind of everyone's grabbing on to the new — I say 'new' flavors and doing air quotes, but it's really international flavors."

Kura Sushi Boulder will have a soft opening Friday, July 25, at 1855 29th Street in Boulder; learn more at kurasushi.com/locations/boulder-co.