From cigarettes to sushi

Dining - Forest Grove shop ditches its cheap beer and smokes for Japanese treats

By Frankie Guros

The Forest Grove News-Times, Mar 5, 2008, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (2 Reader comments)

Chase Allgood / News-Times

John Kim greets Edward Baker, a chef at Cornerstone Pub & Grill, who enjoys the California rolls and miso soup served at Forest Grove’s newest and only sushi restaurant.

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From the outside, the small, brick store looks like the discount outlet that sold cigarettes and beer for the last three years in Forest Grove.

The only hint that anything has changed is the disappearance of the giant Cost-Plus sign on the building and the addition of a one-foot tall white sign on the corner of 19th Avenue and Birch Street that reads, “Sushi.”

However, this nondescript structure has undergone a dramatic change inside.

Opening the door reveals a completely redesigned interior. Maroon walls and a few black tables and chairs have replaced the stacked cases of beer and value-sized cartons of cigarettes. Behind the counter is a dry-erase board offering a range of sushi rolls and other Japanese delicacies.

The small convenience-store-cum-sushi-bar is the work of the Kim family, who brought their business to Forest Grove three years ago after stints running similar markets in Portland.

Son John Kim didn’t announce the store’s shift from cigs to sushi with a big white grand-opening banner, however.

Instead, Kim said he’ll depend on the food to bring in customers.

“We use the Oriental style of word-of-mouth, not big advertising like most big businesses in this country do,” said John Kim, who runs the business along with brother Sung, his father Kug Joo Kim and mother OK II Kim.

Customers can still buy cigarettes from a drawer behind the counter, and beer and wine are on the menu, but the Kims, who are Korean immigrants, are hoping to draw on college students hungry for an affordable taste of Japan, rather than those cruising on a late-night beer run.

Kim believes the restaurant’s small-town feel “offers an alternative to the sushi-train or fancy-style restaurants found in Hillsboro and Beaverton.” The Kims are so casual that they haven’t even printed menus yet because their selection has changed several times already since the opening.

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