CINDY ELLEN RUSSELL / 2007
A lease disagreement is forcing Tsukiji Fish Market and Restaurant at Ala Moana Center to shut down at the end of service today.
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Today will be the last day of operation for Tsukiji Fish Market and Restaurant. Its owner was unable to reach new lease terms with Ala Moana Center management.
The buffet restaurant, on the center’s Ho‘okipa Terrace, was purchased from its original owner some years ago by Paradise Inn Hawaii LLC, led by Ronald Kim.
A representative from Ala Moana Center said center officials would have no comment.
Kim had been “operating all this time on the contingency of getting the lease,” said Jacob Li, the restaurant’s former director of operations. Three years were left on the lease, plus two five-year options, said Li, who said he has been authorized by Kim to speak on his behalf.
Unable to reach terms, Kim no longer wants the restaurant, and the original owner, Venfu Inc., “is not in a position that they want to run the restaurant anymore,” Li said. Venfu was led by Daisuke Matsuura.
“Ala Moana wants the keys Monday morning.”
The restaurant will serve customers Saturday; Sunday will be spent cleaning up.
Li estimates the restaurant employs 80 workers, although he did not have an exact head count.
The restaurant was in the news last year when the U.S. Department of Labor assessed Paradise Inn Hawaii more than $57,000 in tips and unpaid wages for some 68 employees. Investigators for the Wage and Hour Division found that Tsukiji servers had been required to contribute tips to what it characterized as an illegal tip pool.
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