Ever since Godfather Pizza was forced to close to make way for an expanded Disneyland Resort (and eventually a parking lot), no restaurant closing has been so sad for me to hear about. But we knew it was coming. Last year Yamabuki at the Paradise Pier hotel closed for lunch due to lack of traffic and this year it will close for good on April 11.
Yamabuki is actually a leftover from when the Paradise Pier hotel was the Emerald hotel (and later the Pan Pacific) owned not by Disney but by a Japanese firm that then booked in lots of tours from Japan. It made sense to have a restaurant there that provided some comfort to those tourists.
More recently the local had been a favorite watering hole for Disneyland executives who could put the expensive meal on their expense budget. But as the Paradise Pier hotel increasingly became a family destination, the high costs of Sushi made the restaurant increasingly irrelevant.
Thankfully it sounds like Disney will try to find homes for some of the 39 employees. But that won’t be easy seeing as how Disneyland has just laid off quite a number of employees this week.
It’s a shame. Yamabuki has long been one of my favorite restaurants at the resort. The prices didn’t seem out of line to me. If anything Yamabuki delivered a better meal (“dining experience” if you must) for the money than most/all the restaurants at the resort. Napa Rose, Brennen’s, Tortilla Joe’s, and Uva are all good, but not exceptionally so considering their high prices. Yamabuki was always excellent.
Oh this breaks my heart. Mike and I went to Yamabuki right after we got married at the Park.
I always wished we went there more often.
Yamabuki to close April 11th – http://is.gd/pbvg – thus ends the last remnant of the original Japanese owners of the hotel.
NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!
Bloody hell… where else am I going to go now for my sushi and tempura? Koji’s? I only go there for the shabu shabu… O_o
Am cranky now…
That’s a shame! Our BEST dinner while we were at the resort in December was at Yamabuki. Now we’ll have to find an off-site Japanese restaurant!
honestly, i had a bad less than pleasant experience there. i only went there once… but the food was decidedly subpar. i think, though, the problem for us is that we are vegetarian…. and they really only had one main course for us — this ‘traditional japanese vegetable stew’ that was about 70% large soft tofu chunks…. needless to say we left hungry. but sushi is probably another story.
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