The North Loop address most recently occupied by Sweet Chow, dark since early September, is coming back to life.
Chef Billy Tserenbat, the energetic force behind Baja Haus in Wayzata and Bibuta – both the food truck and the downtown Minneapolis skyway lunch spot – is launching Billy Sushi.
The restaurant is a homecoming for Tserenbat, a skilled sushi veteran. He created the city's first sushi food truck – Sushi Fix – in 2013, then translated it into a brick-and-mortar location in Wayzata. He sold the restaurant in 2017. (That's Tserenbat, above, at Sushi Fix, in a Star Tribune file photo).
Tserenbet has already pinpointed an opening date: May 1, 2020. "Just going back to making sushi is making me so excited," he said. "Besides my kids and my wife, there is no other pleasure in my life outside of sushi. I'm just thrilled."
Tserenbat said that building owner and pal Paul Hyde of Hyde Development approached him.
"He said, 'Hey Billy, I've got this space, can you help me out?" said Tserenbat. "I looked at it, and signed a lease. Boom. I'm back in the sushi business."
The building, which is located at 116 1st Av. N. and dates to the 1880s, is an exposed brick-and-timber beauty. The plan is to convert the current bar into a sushi bar, and to transform Sweet Chow's adjacent ice cream shop into a whiskey-sake-shochu bar. The dinner-only setup will have a welcome North Loop perk: complimentary valet parking.
Billy Sushi will be located a half-block from the neighborhood's other sushi bar, Kado No Mise.
Sweet Chow closed after an 18-month run.
