Matsutake, Hinode, Ichiban, Sushi Chalet, Sushi Densha, Tsunami Sushi, Niko, Otani, Obi Sushi, Kangnam, Gah Rham, Heebeen. I know I’m missing a few.

These are all restaurants that used to serve a sushi buffet in the D.C. metro area, and either no longer do or are no longer in business. Surprisingly, perhaps, a few of them closed or got out of the sushi buffet business before the pandemic. Over the last 10 or 15 years the number of places offering that arrangement has been dwindling.

There are very few left these days—there’s a big, expensive, old-school sushi buffet in a mall in Fairfax, and a more modest place out in Fredericksburg. Both of those are permanent, all-day buffets; most of the places I mentioned above did lunch-only or dinner-only buffets, little informal setups kind of like the Indian restaurants that offer lunch buffets. So it’s been interesting to me to watch an entire format or category of dining slowly disappear. (It’s sort of like when over a period of several years, tube televisions gave way to flat-panel models, until only one or two low-grade tube models remained, and then, finally, none.)

In the D.C. metro area, broadly defined, there is, to my knowledge, one of these places left. And I just ate there. It’s notable simply for holding on, reopening its buffet after the pandemic and an ownership change, and sticking with it through inflation.

Out of many, one. Somehow, without doing anything, you become the last of a thing.

Some of this makes me think of a Catholic doctrine known as “apostolic succession.” It refers to the passing on of holy orders, i.e. ordination, from bishop to bishop (who then ordain priests), through time, in an unbroken chain that can (theoretically) be traced all the way back to Christ and the first apostles. It does not, as it does for most Protestants, simply mean fidelity to correct teaching. The actual continuity of the chain and the laying on of hands is crucial, in Catholic theology, to the passing on of the priesthood. (Most Protestants, as far as I understand it, view this doctrine as positing something like a “magic touch” that has no real basis in Scripture.)

So what’s that have to do with sushi buffets? I think you can see a certain secular and broadly applicable idea in that Catholic understanding. It is a way of highlighting the importance of tacit or embodied knowledge; of learning by doing; of continuity. It’s an acknowledgement of something about human endeavor that is true: it is easier to maintain something than it is to resurrect it. Bringing something back requires a certain act of will that simply maintaining it does not.

Maybe bishops need to be ordained in actual, temporal continuity for the same reason that a factory that’s been in existence for decades puts out a more refined product than one just getting into the manufacturing game.

This is why I talk about restaurant or retail concepts as if they’re almost alive—in terms of evolution and extinction. Because these same human realities are true of businesses and indeed all of the economy.

This, also, is why I don’t think these buffets will ever really reappear. As simple as it is to put some trays of sushi out, there are processes and logistics involved, and once restaurant workers and customers have moved on, a certain amount of working knowledge is lost. What exists now has staying power—a related idea to path dependency. And what ceases to exist, of course, loses staying power. As with the success or failure of technology, the underlying merit of the concept is only one factor, and maybe not the primary one.

So how was the sushi? See what you think:

This was plate one of…more than one. And not everything out on the buffet is on this plate, so the selection is larger. There is no sashimi—slices of fish only without rice—so it’s a lot of rice. But the variety, and the fish-to-rice ratio, is pretty good.

In fact, it’s pretty much the same as it was when I went a long time ago during grad school, back in 2016! I find that kind of amazing, actually; there was enough continuity within the restaurant, after everything, to bring this back pretty much exactly as it was. That to me is indicative of very good management. It’s secular apostolic succession, and it doesn’t happen without the secular laying on of hands.

What’s, however, is different is the price: about $10 up from 2016, and significantly up from early 2020. This used to be a little treat of a work lunch, or a casual weekend outing, at about $15. Today, it’s $26. After tax and tip, it’s right around the $30 mark. For lunch. (A man sitting next to me at the sushi bar visibly enjoyed his lunch, only to blurt out the name of Our Lord when the check arrived.)

But while this place was once known as one of the best, if not the best sushi buffet in the area, it’s now become just about the only one. I wonder if that will help it—a premium, unusual product at a premium price? Or if the shrinking of the buffet sector will sort of strand it. Is the relative judgment of “best” actually more valuable than the objective judgment of “pretty good”? It’s interesting how much of judgment, and even identity, is relational and comparative. Are you the same thing if you’re the only one left? I guess we’ll find out.

I love buffets, and I enjoy writing about them, in the same way I enjoy writing about retail stores. I come back to these subjects so often because I think they’re specific ways to think through much larger stories and lessons.

Related Reading:

The Shape of Metal

The Last Buffet, Or The First New One?

“Same-Same But Different”

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