Kitami Yakiniku & Sushi: A growing Purdue student favorite

EDITOR'S NOTE: The following is part of an ongoing series featuring eateries Boilermaker faithful may frequent before or after a Boilermaker home game. Do you have a favorite? Email Noe Padilla at npadilla@gannett.com.

LAFAYETTE, Ind. — The idea of opening a restaurant in a college town was a challenge that Cheng Pan, owner of Kitami Yakiniku & Sushi, was excited to tackle.

Prior to moving to Lafayette, he had opened several successful Japanese restaurants in Nashville, Tenn., and knew the struggles of a new business.

When he first opened his doors, Pan saw great success. Students were flocking to his restaurant to try out the yakiniku grills and sushi during the weekends, and during the week the restaurant would enjoy a steady presence of customers, but nothing crazy.

“When we opened in March," Pan said, "we had no menus. We did not have a liquor license. We did no advertisements. We just turned on the open sign and people came in. We got busier every day.”

He was sure that this would be another successful business in the books, and that was true, until it wasn’t.

Come May, all of the students who had fueled his success were nowhere to be seen; they had gone home for the summer.

Pan had prepared for this and had reduced his staff accordingly. What he did not plan for was the construction occurring outside of his front door.

The city of Lafayette was installing a new storm drain in Main Street, and construction was planned for all summer. Many businesses along Main Street had to deal with the construction significantly affecting their business for a period of time that summer, but Pan saw his restaurant receive the brunt of it.

The road that sits adjacent to his business had become a parking lot for all of the equipment needed for the project, and the front of his business was basically dug up to gain access to the storm drain.

Pan’s restaurant went from a full house on the weekend, to an abandoned ghost town in the span of a week.

“I have been in the restaurant business for 20 years since I was 18 years old. I owned my first restaurant when I was 19. I have never seen a restaurant drop that fast. Usually, it occurs little by little over time, but a drop like that is jumping down a mountain,” Pan said.

A ghost town

During the summer period of his business, it was common for Pan to serve a few customers a day. He started seeing the restaurant empty for hours on end.

At one point during the summer, Pan even considered closing down the restaurant and letting go of his staff for a period of time until the students returned in September, in hopes of the restaurant surviving.

But Pan and his staff decided to hunker down and hold on to the mast of the ship as the waves of the summer finally started to let up.

The construction outside of his restaurant disappeared one weekend, and customers started trickling in – both out of curiosity and because they were no longer impeded by the wooden bridge that sat for months outside of his storefront.

Although business was still slow, it was just enough for Pan to survive the summer and to see the sunrise of Purdue’s 2022-2023 school year.

As students flocked back to Purdue, they also flocked back to Pan’s restaurant.

“This summer it was really slow,” Pan said. “I had less employees. I had to work harder. And I still do feel worried, of course, because I had so many bills to pay for, but as students returned, it just kept picking up and picking up.

“It feels easier to run the restaurant now. And the positive, the cost of food is going down now, so it’s good, things are getting easier, I’m happy with that.”

Many of the students come to the restaurant primarily for the restaurant’s yakiniku grills. “They like to grill for their friends, or they like to try it for the first time,” Pan said.

It’s become such an iconic aspect of Pan’s restaurant, there are nights when every table in the restaurant would have a grill sitting in the middle of it.

It’s become so popular that Pan started to offer Kobe Beef for customers to order. Kobe Beef is Wagyu beef is known for its flavor, tenderness and fatty, well-marbled texture. The beef is considered a delicacy in Japan.

“People who don’t know about Kobe Beef always say, ‘Why is it so expensive?' But people who know what Kobe Beef is always say, ‘Why is it so cheap?’ I barely make money on it, but I want my customers to have the best experience,” Pan said.

Although the summer was a rough period for Pan and his staff, the busy weekends are a reassurance that the community enjoys their food and come summer next year, they don’t predict that it will be as difficult.

“Every weekend we’re so busy now, it makes me happy to see.”

Noe Padilla is a reporter for the Journal & Courier. Email him at Npadilla@jconline.com and follow him on Twitter at 1NoePadilla

This article originally appeared on Lafayette Journal & Courier: Kitami Yakiniku & Sushi: A growing Purdue student favorite survives