Shohei\u00a0Takamatsu, a pioneer for Japanese food in Dallas, has died\u00a0at age 94.<\/p>\n
Takamatsu owned Royal Tokyo, “one of the longest-lived and most respected Japanese restaurants in the city,”\u00a0The Dallas Morning News wrote in 2001. His landmark restaurant is credited with introducing some Dallasites to dishes like\u00a0shabu-shabu, udon noodles, sushi rolls and green tea ice cream.<\/p>\n
Royal Tokyo was open on Dallas’ Greenville Avenue from the early 1970s until 2001, when it closed because of a fire. The restaurant was lauded for its “elaborate gardens, bonsai trees, waterfalls and koi fish ponds,” according to a\u00a0News story in 2003.<\/p>\n
It was also home to one of Dallas’ first sushi bars, which was added in 1980.<\/p>\n
When Takamatsu was unable to reopen the original restaurant after the fire, he moved his restaurant to Far North Dallas in the early 2000s. In a smaller, less ornate location, Royal Tokyo Sushi Den opened near the Dallas North\u00a0Tollway and Trinity Mills Road. Royal Tokyo Sushi Den was “nearly as good” as its predecessor, a News critic said a few months after it opened.<\/p>\n
The bar was high for the man who started a culinary movement in D-FW.<\/p>\n
Takamatsu, called “Mr. T” by customers, had been a Dallas resident since 1958. He moved from Osaka, Japan to Hillsboro, Texas, then Dallas,\u00a0to work as an independent cotton buyer.\u00a0Takamatsu guessed that only “20 or so Japanese families” lived in Dallas back then. Today, there are more than 5,000 Japanese people in\u00a0D-FW, according to an estimate from the Japan America Society of DFW.<\/p>\n
Takamatsu\u00a0called Dallas “an intimidating place” in a 1996 News article, saying it had no Japanese restaurants when he arrived in the 1950s.<\/p>\n
As Takamatsu sought to make connections with neighbors, his home\u00a0became an “unofficial restaurant” for his group of friends. Eventually, he opened Royal Tokyo, sharing the recipes and cultural traditions of his home country.<\/p>\n
Takamatsu died peacefully on April 26, 2026 just over a week before his 95th birthday. He is survived by his wife of 68 years, Shigeko Takamatsu;\u00a0his sister, Harue Takeuchi of\u00a0Tokyo, Japan; his three children, Emiko \u201cAmy\u201d Meyers (Rodney)\u00a0of Houston, Chizuko \u201cSusie\u201d Hastings (Warren) of\u00a0Dallas and Yoichi \u201cSteve\u201d Takamatsu (Melissa) of Austin; and five grandchildren.\u00a0Visitation is 6-8 p.m. Friday, May 8, 2026 at Restland Funeral Home, 13005 Greenville Ave., Dallas. The memorial service will\u00a0be at 10:30 a.m. Saturday May 9, 2026 at Northrich Church, 1101 Custer Road, Richardson.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shohei\u00a0Takamatsu, a pioneer for Japanese food in Dallas, has died\u00a0at age 94. Takamatsu owned Royal Tokyo, “one of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":284801,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103,104699,95928,89729,104700,88939,88943,89307,89275],"class_list":["post-284800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-news-obituaries","tag-tp-chefs","tag-tp-east-dallas","tag-tp-far-north-dallas","tag-tp-historic-restaurants","tag-tp-japanese-food","tag-tp-restaurants","tag-tp-richardson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284800"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284800\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}