A new sushi and hibachi restaurant is slated to open in the ground floor of a downtown parking garage by the end of the year, bringing the flamboyant flat top grilling style to a long-vacant space on the edge of the Central Business District.
Uni Sushi & Hibachi is set to occupy the 3,700-square-foot space at the corner of Roosevelt Way and Common Street next to the Orpheum Theater after city officials this month issued a permit for a more than $1 million buildout of the property.
The space was home to Cleo’s Mediterranean Cuisine and Convenience from 2013 to 2017.
The new restaurant will be operated by Lin and Sky Huang, relatives of Florida-based property owner Thomas Gigliotti, whose company Parking Management Services owns seven garages and handles valet services for 58 different hotels in New Orleans.
The ground-floor space in the parking garage at the corner of Common Street and Roosevelt Way that formerly housed Cleo’s Mediterranean Cuisine is being converted into a sushi and hibachi restaurant.
Gigliotti said the space has been designed to make the cooking visible to passersby.
“We’re wrapping glass all the way around the building,” he said. “It’s going to open that whole corner up beautifully, so when people are stopped at the red light, they’ll be seeing flames going up and it’ll be a little showtime.”
Plans for the restaurant call for more than 100 seats spread across three dining rooms and a bar area, with four hibachi tables and a sushi counter. The restaurant plans to serve alcohol and operate from 11 a.m. to midnight, seven days a week, according to documents filed with the city.
The ground floor remodel coincides with more than $1.2 million in separate renovations Gigliotti has planned for the University Parking Garage.
It also comes as developer Kailas Companies is converting the upper 18 floors of the former Bank of New Orleans building at nearby 1010 Common St. into the 250-room Fairmont New Orleans.
The future home of the Fairmont Hotel, under construction at 1010 Common Street in New Orleans.
Set to open in mid-November, the new Fairmont will include two restaurants from Emeril Lagasse — a second location of Delmonico’s Steakhouse and a more casual spot called The Cafe by Emeril.
Second concept
Gigliotti said he had long wanted to bring the former Cleo’s space back into commerce and effectively offered to provide a free restaurant build-out to attract a tenant.
“I interviewed so many people,” he said. “Nobody would take me up on it.”
But that changed after a visit with his wife’s niece, Lin, and her husband Sky, an experienced hibachi chef.
“He came to my house and did the show for us,” he recalled. “I was like, ‘You know what? I think that would be very nice.’”
Uni Sushi & Hibachi’s management team is also in line to open up a second, faster-format sushi spot in the lobby of the Fulton Place parking garage, which is also owned by Gigliotti.
Unlike the former Cleo’s space, there has been significant interest in the vacancy at the garage in anticipation of the planned Omni convention center hotel to be built across from the garage, Gugliotti said.
“I’ve had so many people approach me to build out that one little 1,100 square feet,” he said. “Whoever’s in the restaurant, obviously, they’ll do a lot of business as that hotel gets developed.”
Last month, the City Council signed off on zoning changes to clear the way for construction of the $600 million, 1,000-room Omni New Orleans. A series of tax rebates sought by the developer has yet to win the approval of state legislators or Superdome commissioners.
Currently, the ground floor of the Fulton Place parking garage is home to several restaurants, including a Joe’s Italian Bistro, Two Chicks Cafe and a Subway sandwich shop, as well as offices of FedEx, Hertz and the Mexican consulate.
