At approximately 2:30 a.m. on August 31, an employee who worked at Momo Sushi, a sushi restaurant located at 1839 Central Ave. NE, started banging on Sonam Nyorie’s door. Nyorie, the restaurant’s owner, got up and got dressed.
The person was there to inform him that Momo Sushi, a restaurant Nyorie founded in 2018, was ablaze.
“I woke up,” Nyorie recalled in a conversation with the Northeaster, “and I said, ‘What’s going on?’ (My employee) was shouting, and he said, ‘Momo Sushi caught on fire!’”
An August 31 fire at Momo Sushi badly damaged the kitchen and the building’s structure. No one was injured in the blaze, though the restaurant will be closed for at least “four to six months.” (Shara Aatsap)
The fire, which started in the kitchen, spread “all over the restaurant”; the restaurant’s roof now has a prominent hole from fire damage. No one was hurt in the fire. “A lot of people have asked what they can do to help,” Nyorie said, “and we appreciate that. A lot of our employees feel deeply, deeply sad about this.”
Nyorie said he’s hosting staff meetings daily to figure out what’s next.
“I didn’t sleep after that night,” he said. “That afternoon, we had a staff meeting. We’re more concerned about the staff than the restaurant, honestly.” Momo Sushi currently employs roughly thirty people. “It was an emotional meeting. A lot of the staff were worried. They have memories here; they have been working here for a long time.”
In the days immediately following the fire, his first priority was to try to provide jobs at his other restaurant. Momo Cafe, 3035 Central Ave. NE, opened in February 2025. “We’re trying to give (our employees) jobs at the moment,” Nyorie said.
“Momo Sushi is our main (source of) income, and Momo Cafe just opened,” Nyorie said. “It was pretty good, but it wasn’t there yet.”
“A lot of things are dependent on this restaurant. This was my first restaurant, and it was the busiest restaurant and best restaurant that we have here so far.”
The firefighters investigated the site of the fire to determine its cause, but no official determination has been made. “We’re not blaming anyone, but it could be that an employee forgot to put things back. It’s also possible that it was electrical issues as well.”
In a call with the Northeaster, Shara Aatsap, a manager at Momo Cafe, described the fire as “surreal and devastating.”
“I’ve known Sonam and his family for many, many years,” she said. “I was there from the beginning of the restaurant, when it was a food truck, and I watched the restaurant be born and grow. He takes such good care of his workers, so it’s devastating to see the impact on them.
“From the very beginning, his care has been on his workers and finding places for them. That’s what I appreciate about the Momo family, of the three restaurants he has: it really is a family.”
“There’s a lot of crossover” between the Momo Cafe and Momo Sushi, she said. “They go over here; we go over there; we all know each other.”
Aatsap and Page Anderson, another manager at Momo Cafe, have launched a fundraiser to support staff members’ living expenses in the light of the fire.
Nyorie currently plans to rebuild Momo Sushi and reopen the restaurant — but not any time soon. He expects the process to take “four to six months, minimum. A lot depends on (what the) inspectors report and where that goes. Of course, there will be construction. It’s a lot of damage.”
The employees’ fundraiser can be found at https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-momo-sushi-staff-after-devastating-fire/. As of press time they have raised over $11,300 of their $13,000 goal to help employees with immediate expenses.
