From sushi curiosity to East Vancouver institution: Fujiya turns 50

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When Shig Hirai opened Fujiya nearly 50 years ago, sushi was still a curiosity in Vancouver.

“People did not know sushi,” said his granddaughter Megan Matsuda, executive vice-president of the family business. “The raw-fish thing was very weird.”

Today, with sushi restaurants seemingly on every Vancouver block, it can be difficult to imagine the city without California rolls, bento boxes and grab-and-go nigiri. Fujiya’s history spans much of that transformation.

Before opening Fujiya Fish Market on Powell Street in 1977, Hirai and his wife, Akemi, operated a Japanese restaurant in Vancouver beginning in the late 1960s. The restaurant featured tatami rooms and a sushi bar, and one of Hirai’s chefs was Hidekazu Tojo, who would later open his namesake Vancouver restaurant.

At the time, however, customers were more comfortable with cooked dishes such as chicken teriyaki and yakisoba.

“There just wasn’t a lot of understanding about the products,” Matsuda said. “And now it’s so convenient. Sushi is almost as convenient as fast food.”

Hirai eventually left the restaurant business for retail, seeing both a need for Japanese ingredients and the appeal of more predictable hours. Fujiya’s first store was near Oppenheimer Park in what had historically been Vancouver’s Japantown.

In 1994, the business moved to its present Clark Drive flagship. The move represented a considerable gamble for Hirai, who put his house up to finance the purchase of the property and construction of the building.

The gamble paid off. Fujiya now has three Lower Mainland stores, while Clark Drive has become an East Vancouver institution.

“It’s really just a community hub,” Matsuda said. “We get regulars that come in weekly, if not sometimes daily, for their lunch.”

Hirai himself was a fixture there. Rather than retreating to an office, he preferred being out front, greeting customers, occasionally bagging purchases and, most of all, talking.

“He wanted to be at the front talking to everybody,” Matsuda said. “He was there almost every day up until COVID.”

Matsuda’s own route into the family business was less direct. Despite being the founder’s granddaughter, she didn’t grow up running up and down the aisles or working behind the counter. “I was kind of sheltered from that,” she said.

She joined Fujiya about eight years ago after working at Aritzia’s head office.

“It was more just a timing thing. It was interesting the first few years, just trying to gain footing and figure out how to work with my dad. It was just he and I at the time, and I was learning the business and how to do everything, all the different jobs.”

She found herself modernizing a decidedly old-school family operation. Fujiya was still using manual cash registers, with employees entering the price of every item. There was no formal HR system and little management infrastructure.

“It was kind of a mom-and-pop style,” she said. “I was like, ‘Hey, there’s a lot we can do here.’”

Those changes have positioned the company to contemplate another expansion, although there is one significant obstacle: food. Prepared dishes for all three stores currently come from a single kitchen at Clark Drive, and it’s operating at capacity.

For now, Fujiya is marking its milestone with in-store promotions, including collectible stickers, golden tickets worth $50 gift cards and a contest inviting customers to share their Fujiya memories, with a trip to Japan among the prizes.

Those stories have reinforced for Matsuda the role the store has played across generations. Customers tell her about visiting Fujiya with their parents, then coming as young adults with partners and, eventually, bringing their own children.

That continuity also helps explain why Fujiya has resisted chasing food fads. Its sushi remains comparatively traditional rather than loaded with sauces and toppings, although the company is introducing seasonal products and plans to add onigiri, the familiar Japanese rice balls.

“We try to be trendless,” Matsuda said.