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Kome, the Japanese restaurant and sushi spot on Airport Boulevard from Kayo and Take Asazu, is moving, but it isn’t going very far. It’s crossing the Hyde Park border into North Loop, settling into a larger space on 5301 Airport Boulevard. The director of operations Elizabeth Hyman said its current building is too small for its demands.
The new Kome will add 20 more seats to the dining room, along with a ten-seat sushi bar, patio seating, and larger lobby for waiting customers. It will also add a semi-private dining room that can fit 20 people. Hyman said the restaurant will also use that space for dinners and sake/sushi classes. The parking lot will double in capacity too.
Otherwise, it will look similar to the original restaurant, with an open dining room and blue mural on the back wall. It is being designed by Weiss Architecture, the firm behind Kome’s sibling restaurants Daruma and Sa-Ten.
The Eater 38 restaurant's menu will remain mostly the same with teishoku-style fixed lunches and sharable izakaya-style dinners. Ramen will be added to dinner service. The restaurant will offer cocktails, including sake ones, and more wine, once its liquor license is approved.
The new Kome is looking to open sometime in early to mid-October, which means the original Kome will close beforehand, most likely during the last week of September. Kayo and Take will renovate the original location which will become a brand new concept, yet to be announced.
Kome is keeping busy this fall too. It’s opening a downtown branch of the restaurant within looming food hall Fareground, Ni-Kome, which will serve sushi rolls and ramen. That’s set to open sometime in October.
The Asazus, who ran popular sushi truck Sushi A-Go-Go, opened Kome in the fall of 2011. The pair opened downtown ramen shop, Daruma, known for its chicken broth soup, in May 2013. Kayo Asazu also opened Japanese-inspired cafe Sa-Ten with coffee, toasts, and curry rice plates with East Side King's Moto Utsunomiya in September 2015.
- All Coverage of Kome [EATX]
