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Sumo Sushi Hibachi Japanese Restaurant opened Friday on East Washington Avenue where HomeTown Buffet, once called Old Country Buffet, had been.

The restaurant opened at 1745 Parkside Drive Friday after more than a year of planning and construction, said regional manager Pat Rogo, noting that the target opening date was August.

Rogo is based at a Minneapolis buffet owned by the same company under a different name. She acknowledged a Chicago location, but wouldn't say how many Sumo Sushi restaurants there are, just "there may be a few in the Midwestern states."

It's not really a franchise, she said. "It's just an individual, family-owned style of operation. No affiliation with any other properties."

The restaurant is not a buffet, its food and style similar to the Chicago Sumo Sushi, Rogo said, adding that there's "really no connection."

She said there's no one owner, instead there are many. "It's a family-owned operation, where everyone pools their money together to make a restaurant."

The restaurant's liquor license application with the city lists agent Zueyan Jiang, with the title president. It says that she has been living in Wisconsin for six months and has six years of management experience in Japanese restaurants.