Unique New Restaurant For Thunder Bay:
Tokyo House
by Scott A. Sumner
Steven Li likes to place his own mark on restaurants and the result is a brand new concept for Thunder Bay called Tokyo House! Li, age 42, owner of Tokyo House was born in China and came to Toronto. He started restaurants with partners in Toronto at St Clair and Dufferin called the Sushi Teriyaki Bar and then the Tokyo Marquis Sushi in Brampton. In 2007 he decided to move to Thunder Bay and the well-known China House restaurant on Memorial Avenue was
born. In 2007 they did the renovations for China House and opened in 2008. The restaurant has done very well. The new Tokyo House was opened June 6, 2012 on Arthur Street here in Thunder Bay.
“ I like to be different in each restaurant with a new concept. The building we are in is 5400 square feet with a 198- seat capacity but I put in 180 to make it more comfortable. The interior has been totally redone,” said Steven Li. “ We started working on this site in January and it took 5 months to complete. My wife and I and J Cho who is a designer engineer designed the layout. We had a very professional Chinese contractor from Toronto to do the work with local sub trades. The local sub trades helped us get excellent prices on the work.” “ We have a new style here from the traditional menu in our restaurant as you can try everything at the same time. In my style people can choose any kind of item on the menu, picking a few and if they like that they can choose more. They can try every item. What they like the most they can order more,” smiles Li. “ In our new style of fine dining we offer a nice place to sit down and you can order here. You can try the whole menu. We also have the traditional buffet in front. You can choose small portions of many foods on our menu to find out what you like the most. We have an open kitchen style to provide a cooking show. I don’t think there is a restaurant like us. We have the open kitchen, the traditional buffet and you can order as well along with the salad bar and ice cream bar.” Everything is straight up with one price at Tokyo House with the lunch buffet $13.95, weekday supper $23.95, weekend $25.95 and major holiday $26.95 all day. “ Since we opened it has been more than I expected. Usually for the grand opening of a Japanese restaurant it is slow and you have time to organize. This time we had tons of people. The people don’t know what we have yet so we have to let people know what we are all about.” smiles Li. Tokyo House is open 11am to 3 pm for lunch, then closed for 1 hour until 4pm and open until 9:30 weekdays and until 10 pm on the weekend.
Li knows the business in Thunder Bay and when people come and it isn't after 9pm.“ My style is family style. I have family here in Thunder Bay. The staff come mostly from Toronto because you need a special skill to do Japanese food,” said Steven Li who likes Thunder Bay because it is a
safe city and quiet. “ Nobody bothers you here and it's much safer than Toronto with less traffic. In Toronto it is harder to do a restaurant because of the robberies that happen there. Thunder Bay is a good place to live and I think Thunder Bay is a good place for our type of restaurant.
Five years ago I found there was no real Chinese buffet here, only on a small scale. I toured all around Canada and chose Thunder Bay to offer the real Chinese restaurant with fast service, quality and a good price. I wanted to open another restaurant here in Japanese style.”
Be sure to try out the new Tokyo House on Arthur Street. It offers a great addition to the Thunder Bay dining experience.=
