Shobu Japanese Cuisine thriving despite local challenges

In its first six years, Shobu Japanese Cuisine has faced a variety of challenges that in some ways have been out of its control.

From unknowingly opening four months before a worldwide pandemic to dealing with homelessness and vagrants that has turned off potential customers, Shobu Japanese Cuisine, according to restaurant management, has faced a few “break or make” moments.

Including owner Jerry Yang retiring in September.

Shobu Japanese Cuisine staff, led by restaurant manager John Chang, has worked hard to continue to provide an authentic Japanese cuisine experience with a variety of sushi options and ramen noodles.

Located on Blackstone Avenue a block south of Herndon Avenue, Shobu was voted as the No. 1 Japanese cuisine in the Fresno area, according to the 2025 Fresno Bee Best of Central California — The People’s Choice Awards.

One of the restaurant’s more popular foods on the menu is actually an Asian fusion dish that combines Japanese broth and Vietnamese pho noodles.

“You take your favorite Japanese broth, like tonkotsu broth, which is a rich and creamy mixture, and you add in not ramen, which is traditionally a wheat flour noodle, but you add pho noodles, which are white rice noodles,” said Chang, who also serves as the restaurant’s head chef. “It’s really good. It’s like the pho noodles soak up more of the broth.

“People really like it and order it a lot.”

Of course, Shobu is most known for its sushi.

The restaurant’s Yelp rating of 4 1/2 stars based on 662 reviews backs up the many word-of-mouth compliments it has also generated.

“People tell us all the time that our flavors are different compared to other places,” Chang said.

Yet even with all of its success, Shobu still struggles in some ways to stay open, management said.

That’s partly due to inflation with the rising cost of goods and services, and the fact that people are eating out less.

A January 2022 story in Food & Wine broke down reasons “dining out no longer feels ‘worth the money’ for millions of Americans.”

And Chang said Shobu definitely has had its stretches of both busy and quiet times.

“Some day, you wonder if we might close or we might not,” Chang said.

Last summer, Shobu owner Yang voiced his frustrations with homeless and vagrant people hanging around his restaurant. He said he’d sometimes caught people in his covered patio area after having hopped over the iron wrought fencing.

Yang said he considered closing the restaurant all the time if the vagrant issue in the area wasn’t addressed.

Many other businesses along Blackstone Avenue have had to deal with vagrant problem, too. Some businesses in the area eventually closed for good — like the old Starbucks and Long John Silver’s once located just a block north of Shobu.

Roughly nine months later since Yang publicly considered closing Shobu, Chang said there have been fewer incidents involving vagrants and homeless people.

“It’s gotten better; you deal with it when things happen,” Yang said. “For us, we’re just trying to focus on providing a great Japanese restaurant experience.”