Location: Thousand Oaks, California
The once thriving sushi restaurant is now so hard up for cash they are re-using yakitori skewers and it's owner is so beaten down by life he refuses to call himself a chef.
Tropes
- Downer Ending: The uptick in business didn't last; Sushi Ko closed for good in 2009.
- Dysfunctional Family: The head chef had become little more than a shell of a man which caused him to almost completely ignore his family as a result.
- Henpecked Husband: Poor poor Akira is constantly berated and verbally abused by his wife, which no doubt added to his depression.
- The Eeyore: Owner Akira was driven to such depression and self-loathing by the restaurant's financial problems that he refused to so much as wear a chef's jacket while working, feeling himself unworthy of it. One of Gordon's therapeutic techniques for him was trying to persuade him to put one on whenever possible.
- Special Guest: The daughter of the owner turned out to be Hana Hatae, who is best known for playing Molly O'Brien from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
- Stopped Caring: Akira had burned out so badly he was one more disaster from becoming an Empty Shell.
