In the kitchen of Shinjuku Station, located at 260 North Street in Burlington, across from Mawuhi African Market, lives a robot of sorts nicknamed Suzy. The Japanese machine makes sushi rice into perfect rectangles, taking the most time-consuming step out of the process of rolling maki. When you make hundreds of eel, salmon and vegetarian rolls a day, a friend like Suzy becomes invaluable.
Owner Mao Mizushima and her assistant, Peter Hartwell, were behind the popular sushi concession at Burlington’s City Market/Onion River Co-op, which pumped out rolls for up to 350 people per day. When the businesses parted ways, Hartwell and Mizushima started up a cart that vends on the upper block of Church Street near Urban Outfitters (11 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. daily). (City Market has yet to replace them.) On Monday, they opened a takeout kiosk in the Old North End, open daily from 11:30 a.m. to 7 p.m.
The duo hopes the customers they cultivated over the previous 14 years will have an easy time finding them in their pair of new locations, Hartwell says. He also hopes that when customers enter the takeout kiosk, they’ll be excited to recognize the same white cooler that used to stand in City Market’s meat and seafood department. “It’s like muscle memory,” he suggests.
That case will contain all the familiar sushi and rolls from the City Market concession, plus bento boxes designed with vegans, vegetarians and meat eaters in mind. Mizushima and Hartwell plan to experiment with selling brewed green and barley teas — and, down the road, they’ll add a few Japanese grocery items.
The original print version of this article was headlined “Raw Talent”
This article appears in Sep 21-27, 2016.
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City Market made another one of their customary consumer/vendor unfriendly moves when they lost these folks. They have not had sushi reliably since and their management has repeatedly made excuse after excuse for their short-sighted, confusing move. I am glad these good folks are going to continue in business and plan, on my trips to town, to be a regular customer. Their product was always fresh, tasty and very affordable. It is truly sad that City Market can not stand by its initial promise to be responsive to its customers and vendors and continues to make arbitrary, nonsensical decisions.
Um, what’s the address of the kiosk in the O.N.E?
Jennifer Blair, I think it’s all at 260 North St (right on the corner of North and N Winooski). I’m so glad to have their sushi back! I ran into Peter at the cart on Church St and when he told me they were opening a location in the ONE, I literally jumped up and down with joy.