Tsukiji Fish Market and Restaurant will close after service Saturday, after its owner was unable to reach new lease terms with Ala Moana Center management.

The restaurant, on the center’s Ho‘okipa Terrace, was purchased from its original owner some years ago by locally based Paradise Inn Hawaii LLC, led by Ronald Kim.

Kim had been “operating all this time on the contingency of getting the lease,” said Jacob Li, the restaurant’s former director of operations.

Li has been authorized by Kim to speak on his behalf, Li said.

There were three years left on the lease, plus two five-year options, Li said.

Unable to reach new lease terms, Kim no longer wants the restaurant, and the original owner, Venfu Inc., “is not in a position that they want to run the restaurant anymore,” Li said. Venfu was led by Daisuke Matsuura.

“Ala Moana wants the keys Monday morning.”

The restaurant will serve customers tonight and Saturday, and Sunday will be spent cleaning up.

Li estimates that the restaurant may employ roughly 80 workers, though he did not have an exact headcount.

The restaurant was in the news last year when Paradise Inn was assessed more than $57,000 in tips and unpaid wages for some 68 employees by the U.S. Department of Labor. Investigators for the Wage and Hour Division found that Tsukiji servers had been required to contribute tips to what the Department characterized as an illegal tip pool.

On the ‘Net:

http://tsukijis.com/