Smoky skewers and Japanese snacks: Yakitori Toriman expands into restaurant and konbini-style market

After four years serving Santa Cruz and the Bay Area, a popular yakitori pop-up is opening a permanent home in Capitola later this year – and adding more Japanese groceries, treats and grab-and-go items to the menu. 

Owners Kaito Akimoto and Yuko Asaoke started Yakitori Toriman as a mobile food stall in 2018 in San Francisco, and began holding pop-ups regularly in Santa Cruz in 2021. The menu of around a dozen different types of traditional yakitori – skewers of grilled meats, tofu or vegetables cooked over hot coals until smoky and caramelized in a savory-sweet glaze – has earned Toriman a dedicated following in Santa Cruz and the greater Bay Area. 

Before the end of the year, Akimoto and Asaoke aim to open their first storefront, in the Brown Ranch Marketplace space recently vacated by New Orleans-style restaurant Roux Dat. The shop will be half restaurant, half Japanese grocery and market, in the style of the konbini convenience stores like 7-Eleven and FamilyMart that are a way of life in Japan, said Asaoke. 

Their version will be a little more high-end, and offer different types of miso, soy sauce, dashi, kombu seaweed, other special ingredients like mirin, sake and Japanese vinegar, Japanese snacks and cooking tools like clay pots, knives and cutting boards.

On weekdays, the restaurant will offer small meals and snacks like onigiri – rice balls wrapped around fillings like salmon, tofu or ground meat – egg salad sandwiches, bite-sized fried chicken karaage and ramen for dining out or eating in the cozy 20-seat dining room. 

The couple will prepare yakitori on the weekends outside in front of the shop, because the inside can’t accommodate the billowing clouds of fragrant smoke created by the grills, said Asaoke.

Those appetizing plumes have become an undeniable lure for those in search of blistered pork belly stacked with scallion ($12), glistening skirt steak ($21) or plump trumpet mushrooms ($8.50). Akimoto skillfully controls the temperature of the glowing coals along the long, narrow grill, efficiently rotating each skewer until it’s tender and kissed with smoke. Pork belly, fried tofu ($8.50) and chicken meatballs ($12) are among the more popular items, but Yakitori Toriman also offers offal like chicken gizzards ($11), hearts ($11) and skin ($11), each with their own delightful texture ranging from chewy to squishy to crispy. The luxurious hamachi collar ($21) emerges with buttery flesh that nearly melts as it’s plucked from the bone. 

“It’s simple – just meat on a stick, but you can enjoy different kinds of meat with different textures,” said Asaoke, who shares pop-up locations and videos on Yakitori Toriman’s Instagram page. “It’s beautifully done, with neat-looking skewers.” 

Yakitori is everywhere in Japan, but hasn’t caught on in the U.S., where sushi and ramen are popular. “There are some, but it’s usually not done correctly, and often by non-Japanese people,” she said.

Asaoke grew up in a yakitori restaurant in Hokkaido, Japan, but she didn’t think it was anything special at the time, she said. It wasn’t until many years later, when she met Akimoto at a restaurant in San Francisco, that his passion for the cuisine reignited her own.  

Her life has revolved around food. When she was young, she worked in a bakery before going to school to become a nutritionist, and later worked at a preschool in Japan, where she cooked meals for the students. 

In 2001, Asaoke moved to New York City to study dance and English, and worked in restaurants. In 2007, she moved to California, where she continued to work in restaurants, at schools and in bakeries in Japantown in San Francisco. She and Akimoto met while working together at Rintaro, a high-end izakaya restaurant in the city, where he was a yakitori chef and she was a server. 

They were inspired to start a business of their own, and began doing yakitori pop-ups in the San Francisco area in 2018. During the pandemic, Akimoto’s love of surfing drew them to the Santa Cruz area, where they eventually relocated. 

Later that year, business at their pop-up was good enough that Akimoto and Asaoke were able to leave their restaurant jobs and devote themselves to Toriman full time. Over the past four years, Yakitori Toriman has popped up nearly every weekend in Santa Cruz in the Westside neighborhood, usually in front of natural wine bar Apéro Club. More recently they have been found at Sante Adairius Rustic Ales in Capitola as well, and had a brief stint in downtown Santa Cruz at the corner of Cedar and Locust streets in 2024. 

The pop-ups will end once they move into their new space, except for private catering. They are dropping “yakitori” from the name; the shop will simply be called Toriman. 

Inside, the couple hired a carpenter to remodel the restaurant with an old-style Japanese look. “The walls will be Japanese plaster, and joined without nails like a Japanese temple,” said Asaoke. “It’ll be really beautiful, with so much detail.” 

They hope to open the doors before Christmas, and could open the retail portion of the store before the restaurant is finished, if necessary, said Asaoke. “When I start small, I get better ideas and I can expand the space little by little,” she said. 

3555 Clares St., Suite G, Capitola. 

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