Sarku Japan
7650 Birchmont Rd, Markham, ON L3R 6B9
Approximately 95-100% of the Sarku Japan restaurant locations are linked in the Atlas Research Platform.
Enterprise Snapshot
(US & CAN)
Public profile metrics.
Cuisines
3 of 3 shownStates & Provinces
3 of 32 shownSummary
Sarku Japan was founded in 1987 by James Chim, Daniel Chim, Richard Ko and Alex Pang, who opened the first location at a Boston-area mall and helped popularize made-to-order Japanese teppanyaki and teriyaki in North American food courts. The brand later added sushi and street-front Teriyaki and Sushi Express formats while expanding franchise opportunities beyond enclosed malls. Corporate headquarters is listed at 7650 Birchmont Rd in Markham, Ontario. Sarku Japan is the concept, and the company operates as its franchisor. Roughly one third of locations are franchised. Restaurants operate across many U.S. states with a multi-state domestic footprint oriented to malls, lifestyle centers and selected street-front sites. The format is fast casual, serving lunch and dinner with Japanese, Asian and sushi menus built around hibachi-style grilled rice plates, teriyaki and sushi. Typical units are compact food-court and express footprints of about 500 square feet. Sarku Japan remains privately held and continues to blend company and franchised growth while keeping a fast, visible grill-line experience as the brand signature.
Sarku Japan Growth History
Sarku Japan Vector Profile
RestaurantData’s selected archived development trail for Sarku Japan begins with a November 2002 report in Winston Salem, North Carolina. The reports document a multi-state history, with supporting opening-year research adding to later records and extending the selected view through 2026.
For sales teams and investors, these historical windows help compare current development with earlier activity and place individual locations within the brand’s longer expansion history.
Four selected historical windows
- 2007–2009
Early development
10+ opening signals5+ states with signals
- 2011–2013
Multi-state activity
20+ opening signals10+ states with signals
- 2015–2017
Concentrated development
20+ opening signals10+ states with signals
- 2023–2025
Recent arc in development
10+ opening signals5+ states with signals
Sarku Japan: development arc
Selected location history and opening signals, 2000–2026.
Swipe or scroll the chart to view all years.
Vector readout: The 2007–2009 window contains 10+ selected signals across 5+ states. The 2015–2017 window adds 20+ across 10+ states. The 2023–2025 combined history contains 10+ selected signals across 5+ states under broader research coverage, with a partial 2026 segment.
The 2023–2025 window has a broader source mix than the earlier house-report windows. The 2026 segment is partial. Development report years may precede the opening year recorded for a restaurant.
RestaurantData source trail: Archived house reports provide the solid trail through 2019. From 2020 on, the combined records include later house reports and researched opening years, so house reports continue within the dotted segment. A development report year and an opening year can differ for the same location.
Restaurant location examples along the expansion arc
- 2002Development report year
Sarku Japan
3320 Silas Creek Pkwy
Winston Salem, NC 27103 - 2008Development report year
Sarku Japan
112 Eisenhower Pkwy
Livingston, NJ 07039-4995 - 2014Development report year
Sarku Japan
200 Baychester Ave
Bronx, NY 10475-4575
Bronx County - 2019Development report year
Sarku Japan
14500 W Colfax Ave
Lakewood, CO 80401-3287 - 2023Development report year
Sarku Japan
3525 W Carson St
Torrance, CA 90503
Los Angeles County - 2026Researched opening year
Sarku Japan
7599 Mentor Ave
Mentor, OH 44060
Lake County
Contact RestaurantData for full location and development histories.
Source: RestaurantData archived U.S. development reports and supporting restaurant-location research. Headquarters, franchisee offices, unrelated namesakes, renovations, transfers and unresolved addresses are excluded. Signal counts of 10 or more are rounded down to tens; counts from 5 to 9 use that range. State bands of 5 or more are rounded down to multiples of 5. Smaller counts are shown directly.
The latest included dated evidence is 2026. The 2026 segment is partial. Development reports may describe planned restaurants. The six examples use the date basis shown on each card. A report year is not necessarily an opening year, and location verification dates are not used as opening dates. Historical locations may have closed.
The solid segment uses archived house report dates through 2019. Combined records, from 2020 on, add researched opening years and continuing house reports. Markers identify years with selected dated evidence; connecting lines are illustrative between those years. Coverage varies across jurisdictions and years. These selections do not represent complete opening totals, current operating units or net growth. Gaps alone do not establish a pause or contraction.
Last updated November 2026.
Read the Restaurant Vector™ overview for the research method and source definitions.
Historical reference: Sarku Japan in the 2009 Top 122 Fast Casual Chains list on RestaurantChains.net.
For additional historical addresses and source details, see the Sarku Japan location archive on RestaurantChains.net.
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How This Profile Is Built
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About This Enterprise Profile
Research Notes
2025 FDDs in process. Units will be updated periodically as available.
The Restaurant Enterprise Index is RestaurantData’s research framework for organizing major restaurant enterprises, including franchisors, franchisees, multi-concept operators, and parent organizations.
Certain sales and location totals are presented as estimates when companies do not publish single current figures.
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The Restaurant Enterprise Index focuses primarily on companies with a substantial role in restaurant operations. Investment firms, financial sponsors, and other ownership partners are generally not included unless they also play a meaningful operating role; an otherwise qualifying entity may also be omitted when sufficient reliable information is unavailable.
The ownership hierarchy follows the entity structure from the bottom up, showing the profiled entity in relation to its parent organizations, including its ultimate parent. When the entity owns or operates concepts beneath it, up to three are displayed.
Verify Our Data Methodology
- Foundation: Active state business registries form the primary backbone of every record.
- Sources: Publicly available filings throughout, including public Franchise Disclosure Documents (FDDs).
- Integrity: Zero proprietary third-party databases utilized.
- Verification: Entity/concept records are validated at the source by our in-house research team.
Leveraging Human-Verified Connections
- Collection: Filings and public records are gathered through intake procedures.
- Verification: In-house researchers review every record before it enters the database.
- Ownership Chain: Where relationships can be established, researchers work upward from a concept headquarters or single concept through parent, grandparent, and ultimate parent, resolving operators into one connected structure.
Maintaining the Longitudinal Record
- Duration: Continuous tracking since 1997. Twenty-nine years of unit-level history.
- Method: Same methodology applied across the full period so year-over-year comparisons hold.
- Change Tracking: Openings, closures, ownership transfers, and operator consolidation are recorded as they occur, not backfilled.
- Result: Expansion and contraction trends visible over decades, not snapshots.
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