Conveyor belt sushi at Watami Credit: Watami Sushi Facebook
Instant gratification is the name of the game at Watami Sushi (7426 Broadview Rd., 216-232-1161) in Parma, billed as the first revolving sushi restaurant in Ohio. Waiting on servers to take and deliver food orders is so last year. At Watami, the food is right there for the taking, flowing through the dining room on a seemingly infinite loop. Simply snag covered dishes of food as they pass by on the belt. The color-coded plates are tallied at the end of the meal.

“As the first revolving sushi bar in Ohio, we are committed to bringing quality food and services to our customers,” says management.

Gliding by are plates bearing soups, salads, spring rolls, gyoza, cooked and raw sushi rolls, nigiri sushi and special rolls. Prices for most items are $2.50, $2.95 and $3.75. In addition to the overall fun factor of the experience, the locomotive buffet lets diners spy before they buy. Also, since most plates contain just a few pieces of any item, it allows for a wider sampling of dishes.

Diners can request made-to-order hot dishes from the kitchen like tempura and bowls of udon and ramen.

Customers who manage to stack up 15 different plates by meal’s end receive a token for the capsule toy machine.

And if you thought grabbing plates off the conveyor belt was a hoot, wait until the restaurant deploys its new train delivery system, which currently is in the works.

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This article appears in Jan 11-24, 2023.

For 25 years, Douglas Trattner has worked as a full-time freelance writer, editor and author. His work as co-author on Michael Symon's cookbooks have earned him four New York Times Best-Selling Author honors, while his longstanding role as Scene dining editor has garnered awards of its own.