New sushi restaurant has dishes constantly delivered to diners' tables

FRAMINGHAM — Diners looking for a fully automated experience have a new option in MetroWest, with Kura Revolving Sushi Bar bringing its Japanese-style sushi belts to Shoppers World.

One step inside Kura and what separates it from other area restaurants immediately becomes obvious. Instead of a wait staff, food is delivered to customers on a continuous conveyor belt of plates. There's no need to place orders; instead, sushi and other traditional Japanese cuisine options are readily available for pickup on the belt, with customers simply grabbing the plates they want as they come by.

"You walk in and it's really an eater-tainment experience," said Robert Kluger, chief development officer for Kura Sushi USA. "It can be almost overwhelming — you see the conveyor belt running across the entire store, you see the express belt on top of the conveyor belt, there are tablets at every table, we have robots running around serving drinks."

Most plates are small and contain a few rolls, or a small portion of seafood, vegetables or fruit. Once diners finish their plates, they put them into a slot at the end of their table and are charged based on the number of plates that go through the slot.

The system allows for customers to sample many aspects of the restaurant's 140-item menu, without committing to one dish — something that can help welcome curious diners who have never tried sushi.

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"The great thing about Kura is that if you don't really like sushi, we have tempura, we have ramen, we have oden — something for anyone to sample while everyone else can eat sushi," Kluger said.

Customers can also custom order any food on a digital menu that is available at all tables — if a customer wants a specific item, they can order it and the kitchen will send it out on the conveyor belt.

Due to the automation and the infinite nature of the sushi belt, running the restaurant requires tight coordination between chefs in the kitchen, who are constantly restocking the belt with new dishes, and a staff of bussers who clean dishes, tables and check on guests. The restaurant even uses an automated robot to deliver drinks, similar to those used at another Framingham restaurant, La Cantina Italiana on Waverly Street.

Kura opened June 24 in Framingham. It's the second such location to open in Massachusetts, after Watertown. The chain has 62 restaurants, most of which are in California and Texas. Kura Sushi USA is a division of a Japanese company, Kura Sushi Japan, that opened in Japan in 1977. The Framingham location is at 1 Worcester Road, within a new plaza where TGI Fridays was formerly located.

"The customer profile for Framingham is very much aligned with the sushi-eating customer — a little more affluent, a little more educated, understands what sushi is and and understands the value you get with sushi," Kluger said.

Sushi aficionados praise authentic Japanese experience

John Connor and Stefanie Wong, of Natick, had visited Kura's Watertown restaurant and were excited to have an option closer to home.

"It's very nice to have this new, hot thing closer to home," Wong said. "We've been to the Watertown location and it was lovely, so it's great to have one here."

Connor, who said he has visited similar eateries in Japan, said Kura provided a more authentic experience than most Japanese-American restaurants.

"It's definitely more similar to the experience you have in Japan," he said. "In Japan, they have the revolving plates, and a tablet you can order from, it's very cool. We have taken our kids to the location in Watertown and they love it."

The high-tech nature of the restaurant is popular with children, who can grab their food right off the conveyor belt and interact with robot wait staff.

"The robot said hi!" MacKenna Hibbard, 4, of Millis, said while dining with her mother, Carrie Hibbard.

"We were just up in the area for a mommy/daughter day and she loves sushi, and we saw this place and I had no idea it was a revolving bar," Carrie Hibbard said. "I've seen revolving bars before but never dined at one like this. It's very interesting and she really likes it."

Diners who deposit a minimum of 15 plates in a slot receive a prize, in this case a collectible from the Cartoon Network series "We Bare Bears," which rolls out of a gumball-style machine that rises above every table.

"It's a great tool, it creates this huge desire to get to 15 plates," Kluger said. "If you are sitting at 13 plates, you are so close to getting a prize, I don't care if you have kids at the table or you are a bunch of people in their 20s out to lunch, you are going to get that prize. It's very rare where people are close and they do not get that 15th plate."

This article originally appeared on MetroWest Daily News: Kura Revolving Sushi Bar offers hi-tech Japanese dining in Framingham