FUSIAN, a restaurant that focuses on customizable sushi, opened on North High Street last week.
“If you like rice, we guarantee you will like something here,” said Josh Weprin, co-founder of FUSIAN and 2006 Ohio State graduate.
The goal was to introduce something different to campus-area dining.
“We want to give students a fun experience, with healthy and good food,” said Stephan Harman, co-founder of FUSIAN.
FUSIAN offers sushi with meats such as crab, shrimp, chicken and steak. Customers can also choose between a seaweed wrap and a soy wrap.
“The soy wrap offers a less powerful taste so the customer can focus on the taste of the protein and vegetables,” Harman said.
With tables seating more than 16 people, FUSIAN is dedicated to bringing a social experience to the restaurant, Harman said.
The restaurant’s goal is to appeal to all five of the customers’ senses, Harman said.
“We want the taste of our product to be the highlight for our customers, but we also want to be more than that,” he said. “This is a fusion of ideas, people, food and music.”
Customers who stopped by on opening day on Friday could enter a drawing to win free sushi for life.
A roll of sushi from FUSIAN contains 10 even slices for about $7.
Zach Weprin, another co-founder of FUSIAN, graduated from OSU in 2008 and always dreamed of owning a business on campus.
“Since we started three years ago, our dream was to come back to OSU,” Zach Weprin said.
Kwame Christian, a third-year at OSU’s Moritz College of Law, was impressed with his sushi but even more so with the customer service.
“I really liked it,” Christian said about his PB&J sushi roll. “It is a pretty outside-the-box concept. The customer service was the bomb, the people that work here want to be here.”
The Ohio Union added a sushi stand to its market this semester that gives people an on-campus sushi option, but Lillian Wuin, subcontractor of Sushi With Gusto, the company OSU contracts to make the sushi, isn’t sure how it will affect business.
“I am not sure how it will go,” Wuin said, “but business is strong.”
Cole Ledford, a first-year in political science, said he would rather eat on campus.
“I would get (sushi at the Ohio Union) again because I can use blocks instead of cash,” Ledford said.
Elliot Leventhal, a fourth-year in marketing, said he sees FUSIAN as a place students will flock to.
“I feel good after eating here,” Leventhal said. “After eating at other places on campus you can’t say that.”