Ichiban Japanese Hibachi and Sushi Bar says it is open again in East Asheville, returning after Hurricane Helene flooding closed its former Biltmore Village home. Its current website lists the restaurant at 130 Hospitality Way and offers menu, reservation and online-order links. WLOS reported on Oct. 1 that the restaurant had announced an Oct. 12 grand opening at the new address. The site’s current “open again” notice is a fresh update for diners checking the restaurant’s status after the planned reopening date.
The old Ichiban operated in Biltmore Village, where Helene’s flooding destroyed the restaurant, according to WLOS and the restaurant’s own account. WLOS said it had remained closed since the storm. Ichiban’s website describes the flood as the moment its former restaurant was lost, and says the owners kept planning a return with the same chefs and recipes. The closure lasted from September 2024 into the fall of 2026, leaving a gap between the Biltmore Village restaurant and the new site.
The return unfolded in two steps. WLOS reported that Ichiban planned a limited soft reopening from Wednesday, Oct. 7, through Sunday, Oct. 11, with dinner served by reservation from 4:30 to 9:30 p.m. The station said the restaurant described that limited period as a chance for the team to prepare for the grand opening. WLOS identified the new site as 130 Hospitality Way, off Tunnel Road, in the former Cracker Barrel building. The station’s report documented the announced plan; it did not claim to have attended the Oct. 12 opening.
The restaurant’s current website now gives guests a way to check what is available. It lists lunch and dinner hours, menus, table reservations and online ordering. Its header and location sections name 130 Hospitality Way, Asheville, matching WLOS’s address. The restaurant’s page includes one older narrative sentence naming 34 Tunnel Road, so this story uses the address repeated in its current location listings and in WLOS’s report. That distinction matters for anyone navigating to a new location after a move.
Ichiban describes the new location as a return to the restaurant’s familiar hibachi format. Its website says chefs cook at the table, using spatula routines, shrimp tosses and an onion volcano as part of the dinner experience. It lists meats and seafood including filet mignon, ribeye, shrimp, scallops and lobster tail, served with hibachi vegetables and fried rice. These are the restaurant’s own descriptions of its menu and service, rather than an independent review of meals after the reopening.
The website also describes the sushi bar as a quieter option, with made-to-order rolls, nigiri and sashimi. It highlights several house rolls and lists vegetarian choices as well. For hibachi tables, the restaurant says each grill seats eight. Smaller parties may share a grill with other guests, and groups larger than eight may be seated at neighboring grills. Those details show how the business is presenting the new dining room to returning guests and people who did not visit the former Biltmore Village location.
A section of the site called “Flooded, Not Finished” frames the relocation as a continuation of the restaurant rather than a complete restart. Ichiban says its regulars kept asking when it would be back, and says it held on to its chefs, recipes and memories of birthdays celebrated at the old site. That is the restaurant’s own account of the connection it hopes to carry forward. The page also invites guests to mention birthdays when booking, a tradition the business says it has offered for years.
This reopening is one specific business return after Helene, not a measure of how much of Asheville has recovered. It gives the restaurant a working location again and puts its chefs, menu and dining format back in front of local customers. The old building and new address are different, but the business says the people and food at the center of Ichiban remain familiar. As of its current update, the restaurant is inviting diners to check its posted hours and reserve or order through its site.
Reader responses