midWhen you set foot into Mount Pleasant's
Midori Sushi and Martini Lounge, at 105 E. Broadway St., you start to wonder if somewhere between Broadway and Main streets, you unknowingly found a secret wormhole to New York City.
A floor-to-ceiling glass entrance reveals a posh 56-seat restaurant with high-top tables, exposed brick walls and a candlelit bar glittering with a mirrored backsplash. Ambient grooves keep tempo throughout the space, which even includes bathroom fixtures reminiscent of more cosmopolitan locales.
Almost every piece of the restaurant came together at the hands of 25-year-old owner Rich Swindlehurst and his restaurateur father, Rick, owner of Mount Pleasant's
Blue Gator Sports Pub & Grill and
Cheers Neighborhood Grill & Bar. The two worked side-by-side for two years, hammering, grouting and chiseling before the restaurant opened last October.
As for the lengthy delay? There was a tricky state economic development grant to pin down, a business partnership that eventually soured and a liquor license to secure before the Swindlehursts' dream came to fruition. But those hassles seem small in the rear view now.
Sushi lovers in Mount Pleasant counted down the days to Midori's grand opening, when they could finally order their favorite meal without having to travel to far-flung regions to get a California roll. And they didn't fail to show up.
"We haven't had a single night that we've been open that we haven't been full," says Swindlehurst. Clean-cut with a button-down shirt, he wipes the bar down and busily arranges glasses while he talks. "I didn't think we'd be running full capacity on a Monday night."
When the restaurant concept was originally born, the young entrepreneur couldn't tell maki from sashimi.
"I was a novice to sushi," he explains.
Swindlehurst educated himself by traveling coast-to-coast sampling sushi restaurants with his girlfriend and Midori manager Leah Heatherington. Now his mission is to clarify misconceptions in mid-Michigan about what sushi really is, as well as offer something for non-sushi lovers.
"A percentage of our customer base has the assumption that sushi means raw fish--and the thought of it in general intimidates them," he says. "Due to that, our menu is not strictly based around sushi, and there are cooked options."
The most popular item at the restaurant is the Midori roll, which is a tempura fried roll stuffed with spicy crab, asparagus and cream cheese.
"There is not an element in that roll that is not cooked," he says.
And for diehard sushi lovers, the restaurant offers a variety of sashimi and standard favorites like the California and spicy tuna rolls.
Meals average $30 to $50--a splurge by local standards, especially when you add on a martini made from fresh strained berries or unexpected flavors such as basil.
"The beauty is that we are so high-end, we are able to carry all the best ingredients," says Swindlehurst. "Because of the price point, not every place can afford to carry the top ingredients."
Executive chef Jake Wendt is glad for that investment in quality, which includes daily shipments of produce and fish. One supplier guarantees the fish will arrive in the restaurant within 24 hours of leaving the boat.
"It's great because no one around the area really has anything like this," says Wendt, who grew up in Midland and went to culinary school in South Carolina.
"There's also a lot of things on the menu no one around here has ever heard of," he says. "For the most part I think everyone's been pretty open-minded. Sushi has kind of been on the rise for a while--people are hearing about it through their kids and the younger generations. They realize it's not a piece of raw fish on a plate that's going to make you sick. It's an art form."
Midori is just one of the veritable explosion of international eateries to open in Mount Pleasant in the past few months. Tazeh Mediterranean Grill, at 4855 E. Blue Grass Rd., also opened in October and Midland's LaZeez Indian Restaurant is rumored to open a Mount Pleasant location soon. Shin's Korean Restaurant, at 1620 S. Mission St., has been doing a brisk business in Bibimbap and other Korean specialties since July 2010.
Swindlehurst says people compare Midori to restaurants in larger cities often.
"We get Chicago a lot," he says. "We get that all the time."
But he says instead of creating his restaurant in the likeness of other cities, the goal is simply to make Mount Pleasant that kind of city.
Cynthia J. Drake is an award-winning writer, poet, and columnist based in Michigan. Since beginning her professional career in 2001, she has been an entertainment writer, a newspaper reporter, and a magazine editor. She specializes in travel and lifestyle features, corporate public relations and marketing, and higher education writing.
Photography: Avram Golden