Customers eat at a CoCo Ichibanya location. The Japanese chain is coming to the Bay Area next month.
Courtesy of Josh Siapno
Japan’s dominant curry rice chain is landing in the Bay Area for the first time.
CoCo Ichibanya will serve its thick, rich curry with rice and a long list of customizable toppings — chicken cutlets, stewed beef, garlic shrimp, spinach, cheese — when it opens in Cupertino in mid-December. The approximately 50-seat restaurant is centrally located at 19900 Vallco Pkwy., Suite 100.
The chain, which launched in the outskirts of Nagoya, Japan in 1978, has since exploded into more than 1,000 locations. CoCo Ichibanya now operates one store in Texas and several in Southern California, but none up north.
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CoCo joins a wave of specialized chains from Japan concentrated in the South Bay. Hannosuke, which focuses on tempura-topped donburi, debuted its first standalone U.S. restaurant in San Jose this fall. Tokyo-based Tsujita brought its thick cold noodles and dipping sauce to the same shopping center a year earlier. And abura soba restaurant Kajiken added a location at Westfield Valley Fair in October.
Curries at CoCo Ichibanya, which is opening in Cupertino.
Hannah Ceman
Edward Chan, partner in the new Cupertino CoCo Ichibanya, said he first tried the brand’s curry on multiple trips to Japan: “Frankly, they’re everywhere.” About three years ago, he reached out to the company, asking if he could bring CoCo to the Bay. They said yes, and Chan brought on Charles Kusuma, another fan of CoCo, to run day-to-day operations.
“I have to go to LA just to eat it,” said Kusuma, who used to run a café in San Bruno. “If we missed it, many, many people probably missed it.”
He and Chan saw that a Japanese curry spot called Curry House had closed down in Cupertino, and decided the area was ripe for a replacement. (Curry Hyuga, also dedicated to Japanese curry, is still nearby.)
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Chan picked a space right near Main Street Cupertino, the mixed-use development, with Apple headquarters just a short drive away. Customers at the new CoCo will walk past the logo declaring in curved text, “Good smell. Good curry,” and into a wood-panelled restaurant.
To eat, almost everybody gets curry, but that doesn’t mean their decisions are done. First, diners pick a spice level. Then they choose how much rice. Do they want a keema curry, with bits of meat mixed into the savory sauce, or a plain one? And what should they top it with? A flat, breaded cutlet? A tomato and clam omelet? Pork dumplings? Veggies? Some combination of it all?
At locations in Southern California, a classic chicken cutlet curry goes for $15.85. They sell a few other dishes, too: spicy teriyaki fried chicken, bowls of curry udon and kid’s meals. Kusuma said Cupertino’s menu will be largely identical, though he may later add specialty items.
“There’s a lot of options,” Kusuma said. “I would say people can mix and match to create even up to 45 dishes.”
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CoCo Ichibanya. Opening mid-December. 19900 Vallco Pkwy., Suite 100, Cupertino. ichibanyausa.com
AloJapan.com