Business Already Picking Up at Northfield's Tokyo Grill

It won't be a well-kept secret for very long.

The Tokyo Grill opened on the south side of Northfield on Wednesday, and business has steadily picked up since, according to restaurant manager Gui Qiu.

“So far things have gone pretty smoothly,” Qiu said Thursday afternoon. “We didn't advertise, so it was pretty slow (at lunch) the first day, but it got a lot busier for dinner.”

Qiu said word of mouth advertising must be working, because the dining area was mostly full for the lunch hour on Thursday, and he expected business to pick up even more Thursday night.

“We had one customer who came in three times yesterday, and I saw another girl who came in with her mom for lunch and brought back two friends for dinner.”

Customers who ate lunch at the Tokyo Grill on Thursday enjoyed both the food and the prices.

“It was wonderful,” said Northfield resident Deb Graber. “Everything else (as far as) Japanese steak houses are in the Twin Cities.”

Kevin Schirmer was part of a four-man work crew from Faribault that was doing some work near the golf course and decided to give the Tokyo Grill a try.

“It was all right,” said Schirmer, who said he was trying Japanese food for the first time. “It was reasonably priced.”

The restaurant, located at 1301 Bollenbacher Drive, just south of the Northfield Ice Arena, is open 11 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday.

The menu includes a number of appetizers, dinners, combination platters and lunch specials, as well as five types of sushi, 10 varieties of sushi roll and eight specialty rolls.