![\"An](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/We-Be-Sushi-1-853x640.jpg\")
Andy Tonozuka prepares one last catering order inside his otherwise empty restaurant on Tuesday Feb. 24, 2026. Photo by Oscar Palma.<\/p>\nAfter almost four decades serving sushi and other Japanese dishes in the Mission District, We Be Sushi earlier this month closed its last location at 538 Valencia St. near 16th Street.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m 76 now, that\u2019s long enough,\u201d said chef and owner Andy Tonozuka. \u201cI felt so much relief once I decided to retire.\u201d<\/p>\n
After making the decision, Tonozuka said he \u201crealized I was under so much pressure\u201d working in the kitchen most days. \u201cRelief is the word I felt.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tonozuka shut his doors on Feb. 13. But on Tuesday morning, he stood behind the counter of his empty restaurant, preparing the final order of his career: a catering job he had committed to weeks ago.<\/p>\n
Andy Tonozuka prepares one last catering order inside his otherwise empty restaurant on Tuesday Feb. 24, 2026. Photo by Oscar Palma.<\/p>\n
![\"Two](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/We-Be-Sushi-5-853x640.jpg\")
Andy Tonozuka and one of the chefs he trained prepare one last catering order inside his otherwise empty restaurant on Tuesday Feb. 24, 2026. Photo by Oscar Palma.<\/p>\n
We Be Sushi operated for 39 years and in its heyday had up to five locations in San Francisco. Tonozuka opened the first restaurant at 1071 Valencia St., near 22nd Street in 1987, when he was already a veteran sushi chef. As a younger man, he had served as an apprentice at the Hatsuhana<\/a> restaurant inside of Tokyo\u2019s National Diet Building<\/a> \u2014 the seat of the Japanese government.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe were making sushi for prime ministers and all those big guys,\u201d Tonozuka recalled.<\/p>\n He worked there for eight years before moving to New York in the mid \u201970s to work for his boss, Mr. Tanaka, when he opened Hatsuhana <\/a>in Manhattan in 1976. Seven years later, the business became the first Japanese restaurant to earn a four-star review by the New York Times.\u00a0<\/p>\n Tonozuka arrived in San Francisco in 1984 to visit a friend and fell in love with the city.<\/p>\n In the Bay Area, he worked for Nikko restaurant<\/a> at Pine and Van Ness. When his boss learned that Tonozuka harbored ambitions to run a restaurant of his own, he suggested looking in the area around Valencia and 22nd streets. He first considered Silicon Valley, but he thought it was too sleepy.<\/p>\n It was good advice. Tonozuka remembers having many young families as clientele. He started to notice a real uptick in business within the first month \u2014 and within two months, customers even demanded his cooking in the East Bay.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n At the onset, Tonozuka had selected the name \u201cMcSushi\u201d for the business, but after receiving a letter from an attorney representing McDonald\u2019s two weeks before his scheduled opening, he decided to change it. The new name came from a contest he held a week before opening. He left a blank paper and pen on his window, and received about 200 suggestions.<\/p>\n In the end, \u201cWe Be Sushi\u201d won out.<\/p>\n \u201cI did not understand the meaning of it, but I liked it somehow,\u201d Tonozuka said. \u201cAfter many names, I decided to pick up that name.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Tonozuka closed<\/a> We Be Sushi\u2019s original home on Valencia in 2024, citing a dip in business, his age and sciatic nerve pain forced him to temporarily close up in early 2024 for a few weeks. At the time, he told Mission Local he was already \u201cmentally and physically halfway retired\u201d and reiterated his appreciation for the business and the customers that allowed him to buy a home and send his children to college. His daughter attended University of Puget Sound<\/a> and now works for Nvidia while he son attended Occidental College<\/a> and now works in Osaka for the American embassy.<\/p>\n The 538 Valencia St. restaurant opened in 1996. This year would have marked the location\u2019s 30th anniversary.<\/p>\n \u201cWe Be Sushi epitomizes what I love about Valencia Street \u2014 a true small business where the owner is there, and you can feel it in every detail: the quality of the food, the way you\u2019re greeted at the door, the quirky design that makes it unmistakably its own,\u201d said Eileen Rinaldi, owner of Ritual Coffee and president of the Valencia Merchants Association.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s places like this that weave the tapestry of our corridor \u2014 independent, personal, and full of character.\u201d<\/p>\n Lauren Umetani, a customer of 25 years, stopped by on Tuesday afternoon to drop off chocolates and a card for Tonozuka. She\u2019d brought colleagues and friends to the restaurant for the last two decades.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Umetani also works about two blocks away and ate lunch there about twice a week. Her favorite fare? Ebi-ten maki and a shrimp tempura roll.\u00a0<\/p>\n Umetani said she was \u201creally sad\u201d about the closing, \u201cbut very happy that they\u2019ll be able to retire. He has earned it.\u201d<\/p>\n Tonozuka said he\u2019s not sure what he\u2019s going to do now, but he said he\u2019d like to accomplish \u201csomething good for society.\u201d He has mixed emotions.<\/p>\n \u201cI really appreciate all the customer support for a long time. I miss them all,\u201d Tonozuka said. \u201cMany people enjoy the sushi, and it was my pleasure. I am proud of myself and leaving them \u2014 it\u2019s kind of a sad feeling, but I\u2019m done.\u201d<\/p>\n Tonozuka said he\u2019s gifting the restaurant\u2019s iconic signs \u2014 it advertises sushi \u201cLike Mom Used to Make\u201d above a matronly figure holding a smaller sign for drinks \u201clike mom used to mix\u201d \u2014 to one of those loyal customers who owns a bar. When asked what bar it was, he said he didn\u2019t know.<\/p>\n \u201cMaybe he wants to put it there,\u201d Tonozuka said of the sign. \u201cI don\u2019t know exactly how he\u2019s gonna use it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n While he doesn\u2019t know what\u2019s going to take over the space, he will take home the brand \u201cWe Be Sushi\u201d and 39 years of rolling memories.<\/p>\n \u201cI made good sushi for everybody,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s my best pleasure, to see the people smiling and telling me the sushi was so good.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After almost four decades serving sushi and other Japanese dishes in the Mission District, We Be Sushi earlier…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":192984,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[22459,387,412,101,103,102,104,106,105,583],"class_list":{"0":"post-192983","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco","8":"tag-16th-street","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-restaurants","11":"tag-san-francisco","12":"tag-san-francisco-headlines","13":"tag-san-francisco-news","14":"tag-sf","15":"tag-sf-headlines","16":"tag-sf-news","17":"tag-valencia-street"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/192984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Street](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/We-Be-sushi-7-853x640.jpg\")
The outside of We Be Sushi on Tuesday Feb. 24, 2026. Photo by Oscar Palma.<\/p>\n