A Midtown building that has housed the sushi restaurant Hatsuhana for decades has a new owner: Minsun Kim, the founder and president of the Long Island Conservatory of Music, who paid $14 million for the property at 17 E. 48th St.
The sale was reported by Crain’s New York Business, which described Kim as a music school executive who snapped up the home of what the outlet called the city’s oldest sushi spot. The building sits in Midtown and has long been identified with Hatsuhana, the sushi specialty restaurant that occupies it.
Kim’s primary role is running an educational institution rather than a restaurant empire. According to the Long Island Conservatory’s own website, she founded the conservatory and has served as its president since 1992, overseeing six campuses across Long Island, New York City and New Jersey. She also holds the title of president of the LISMA Foundation, with both organizations described on the conservatory’s site as nonprofits.
A Sushi Spot With Decades of History
Hatsuhana’s own account of its history, posted on its website, states simply that the restaurant has operated as a sushi specialty spot since the first day it opened its doors in 1976. That half-century-plus run is the basis for the characterization, in the Crain’s headline, of Hatsuhana as the city’s oldest sushi restaurant — though that broader claim about the title itself has not been independently verified beyond the restaurant’s own description of its 1976 opening.
What exactly the ownership change means for the restaurant’s day-to-day operations is not addressed in the available reporting. There is no public information yet on Hatsuhana’s lease terms, whether it plans to keep operating at the address, or how the sale might affect its future there.
Context From a Busy Midtown Retail Market
The purchase lands in a Midtown retail corridor that has seen other recent activity. Just a few blocks away, a retail building at 3 E. 48th Street traded for $9.5 million in a transaction reported by The Real Deal earlier this year. More broadly, a report from the Real Estate Board of New York, known as REBNY, found that Manhattan retail momentum had been extending beyond prime corridors in the first half of 2026.
Long-running restaurants changing hands, or their real estate drawing fresh buyers, has echoed elsewhere this year. In London, the storied restaurant Rules was the subject of a plan by the National Trust to safeguard the landmark, as The New York Times reported. And in New Orleans, the shuttered former Emeril’s Delmonico building on St. Charles Avenue was purchased by a local real estate investor, according to nola.com. Those cases, like the Hatsuhana sale, show how real estate tied to long-established restaurants continues to draw attention well beyond the dining room itself.
Dining and Cooking