Sagami restaurant will reopen this week, as chef Shigeru Fukuyoshi decides to carry on after his wife’s death
"It would be really hard to go from having something being 100% of your life to nothing," Mimi Fukuyoshi, daughter of the founders, said. The restaurant will reopen on a limited schedule.
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Shigeru Fukuyoshi, the chef at the landmark South Jersey sushi destination Sagami, has decided to carry on after the death of his wife and cofounder, Chizuko Fukuyoshi.
The restaurant, on Route 130 in Collingswood since 1974, was closed for its summer vacation when Chizuko Fukuyoshi, 79, died July 15. She had been hospitalized since Memorial Day.
Sagami will reopen Thursday and will operate Thursday to Sunday from 4 to 8:30 p.m., an abbreviated schedule, the couple’s daughter, Mimi, said.
» READ MORE: Obituary: Chizuko Fukuyoshi dies at 79
Chizuko Fukuyoshi had been the heart and soul of the restaurant, her daughter said, handling the books and overseeing the dining room. Those duties will fall to Yumiko Takanashi, wife of sous chef Masaharu Takanashi, and Carol Hagen, a longtime manager. Reservations will still be handled by phone.
Mimi Fukuyoshi, who works in the fashion industry in New York City, said her mother’s death has been hard on her father. “They’ve lived and worked together for 55 years,” she told The Inquirer. “In the beginning, he said that he didn’t want to do it without my mom. But now I feel like he is pretty open to it. It would be really hard to go from having something being 100% of your life to nothing.”
Chizuko Fukuyoshi’s memorial service on July 19 at Kain-Murphy Funeral Services in her hometown of Haddonfield drew a long line of customers, friends, and family members. She was remembered for her kindness toward longtime customers; for many, Sagami was their first exposure to sushi.
In 1969, she was waiting tables at a Japanese restaurant in New York City, where Shigeru Fukuyoshi was apprenticing as a sushi chef. In 1974, the family moved to Collingswood and lived atop the restaurant before later moving their home to Haddonfield.
The modest, low-ceilinged dining room maintained a stellar reputation as its popularity grew.
Sagami was a semifinalist for the James Beard Award for Outstanding Restaurant in 2017 and 2019. Shigeru Fukuyoshi was a semifinalist for Outstanding Chef in 2023.