Akira and Yasuko Yamaguchi, owners of Restaurant Yamaguchi, recently announced their retirement after 37 years of serving traditional Japanese cuisine in Port Washington.
The restaurant, located at 39 Main St., will continue operating under new management, the Yamaguchis said.
“It has been our greatest pleasure to serve you over the years, and we very much appreciate your patronage,” the Yamaguchis said in a statement to customers. “We feel confident the new owners will continue our tradition of excellence. We wish you all the best for the coming year. Thank you for your support and friendship.”
For nearly four decades, the Yamaguchis operated their restaurant with little to no change to their menu or work ethic. Even on Mondays, the one day per week they were closed, Akira Yamaguchi still oversaw the restaurant.
When they founded their business in the late 1980s, the Yamaguchis said they built inroads with Japanese workers who would take the Long Island Rail Road to Port Washington or who worked for Japanese companies like Nikon in Melville.
Over the years, the Yamaguchis’ kind spirits have made a lasting impact on the Port Washington community, former worker Kaz Ochiai said.
Ochiai, whose family also ran a Japanese restaurant in Merrick, knew the Yamaguchis for years before he started working for them around the time of the pandemic. Ochiai also said the Yamaguchis were able to make the community thrive by welcoming and anticipating the growth of their customers down through the generations.
“They’ve seen infants grow up to adulthood,” Ochiai said. “[One customer is now] in California, as a doctor, and he’ll come back and get little treats that they got when they were little, so the nostalgia comes back.”
But their journey toward retirement hasn’t been without its ups and downs. The store had to close temporarily during Hurricane Sandy’s aftermath, and a fire in 2013 forced the business to reopen in its current location down the block after a two-year closure.
And even with lower traffic during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Yamaguchis were able to come out strong in the years before their retirement, Ochiai said.
Yasuko met her husband, Akira Yamaguchi, while working as a maître d’ at a Manhattan restaurant that Akira and his brother owned during the Eighties. Both Yamaguchis are originally from the Tokyo area and look forward to traveling back to their former home sometime in the future.
But until then, Yasuko Yamaguchi said she is devoting more of her time to volunteering at the North Shore Animal League America, a non-profit organization where she has been adopting rescued cats for longer than her time as a restaurant owner.
