Sumo restaurant closes; senior homes planned
More than two years ago, reports were swirling about Atlanta-based Sutherland Capital LLC seeking zoning and other changes to transform Sumo Japanese Steak House into a senior living development.
The property is perched above the Martha Berry Boulevard intersection with North Fifth Avenue.
The concept for the sevenplus acres at 1301 Martha Berry Blvd.: A 55-and-older campus with 64 units in a four-story residential structure on the lower side of the tract and three stories on the higher side. It could grow to accommodate 80 units.
A deal to purchase the site closed late Friday; we’ll have specific details on that later this week (it will be senior residential). But one absolute is official: Sumo is closed. The Kims posted this note on Facebook Friday evening: Dear Guests
Thank you for your patronage over the past 2 decades.
It is with a heavy heart that we have decided to retire.
As of April 29, we are permanently closed.
We are sadden that we were not able to say our farewells to everyone.
Thank you for the wonderful memories!
The Kims
The restaurant and property owners, Kyi Mun Kim and Kyung Soon Kim, took over the spot in 1990. The end of the 32-year-old restaurant spread quickly. Two hours after the post, more than 50 comments and 60plus shares had been logged.
The site was first listed for sale in 2016 with an asking price of $1.4 million. In June 2020, the Rome News-tribune reported the update about a sale yielding a seniors-geared residential community with perhaps up to 80 units. According to that report: The parcel was home to the Rome Elks Lodge for at least five decades before it was sold to Wada-shin and converted into a restaurant in 1990. Wada-shin was an outgrowth of the Japanese-owned Wada Metals that built a fabricating plant in Rome in the late 1980s. Wada-shin sold to the Kims in September 2000.