“Yoshi’s Cafe’s last day will be Dec. 12,” said owner Nobuko Katsumura. “I had somebody approach me to buy my property and it happened so quick. The closing will be Dec. 15.”
Katsumura opened the restaurant in 1982 with her late husband, the acclaimed chef Yoshi Katsumura, who died in 2015 at age 65 of cancer. (Windy City Times noted his passage at http://www.windycitytimes.com/lgbt/PASSAGES-Yoshi-Katsumura/52342.html) Their son, Ken Katsumura, took over as chef; daughter Mari Katsumura joined with restaurateur Michael Olszewski to open the West Loop restaurant Yugen as executive chef. (Yugen closed earlier this year.)
The restaurant started as a luxury spot, but became a more casual spot in the mid-1990s.