Jason Wallenta and Riley O’Brien were hungry for something Colorado Springs just didn’t have. So they built it: the new lines-out-the-door super-contemporary Japanese place Sushi Row.
It’s understandable that Wallenta and O’Brien had a hankering for great sushi. Sushi dates had been their jam since they were just friends and coworkers waiting tables in Denver.
“We selfishly create restaurants we want to go to,” Riley says.
Now, with the addition of Sushi Row, the couple has built a diverse culinary empire of places they — and everyone else apparently — want to go. The list includes Dos Santos, Dos Dos and White Pie in Colorado Springs and Denver, which Jason co-owns with his brother Kris.
Unlike the other places, Sushi Row will not have a Denver location, they say. That’s because the power couple has changed residences and allegiances (to some degree) from Denver to Colorado Springs.
It wasn’t love at first sight. When a friend opening Denver Biscuit Company in downtown Colorado Springs tried to get them to consider opening Dos Santos, a hipster taco joint, around the corner, they laughed at the idea.
“Denver was already boring enough,” Jason recalls. “Like we’re going to move somewhere even more boring than that?”
But standing off Moreno Avenue where their parking lot would be put smiles on their faces. They planned to stay only a year while launching Dos Santos. But they soon discovered how easy it was to get around in the Springs, how quickly they could get from downtown to a mountain biking trail, and what a healthy place this would be to raise children. (They now have two.)
After Dos Santos, part of the trendy, growing Trolley Block’s restaurant row, Jason and Kris (with Riley working behind the scenes) opened White Pie, a few blocks northeast on Nevada Avenue. It’s a bright, family pizza parlor featuring the kind of pies Jason and Kris loved growing up in New Haven, Connecticut. (I’m a New York pizza snob, but I must reluctantly admit that New Haven has become home to the best slices on the planet.)
Dos Dos, the sequel to Dos Santos on Tejon Street near Acacia Park, leaned more into traditional burritos and offered a pickup counter.
Their Denver restaurant counterparts have continued to thrive, but they’ve found their receptions in Colorado Springs even more enthusiastic.
“I love Denver,” Riley says. “That’s where we got our start, but the appreciation that we got here was something that we’d never gotten in Denver, where you’re just another restaurant and everyone’s pretty jaded.”
That appreciation spilled overboard in the community’s instant embrace of Sushi Row. There’s nothing like this in Colorado Springs. It’s not that we don’t have good sushi here. We do. (Looking at you, Dozo, one of our 30 Best Restaurants in Colorado Springs!). But there’s ambition and ingenuity here that would be rare in any city our size.
Take the atmosphere: an elegant, contemporary Asian motif, with walnut slab tables and sushi bar, and garage doors that open to a spacious firepit-bordered patio.
Riley, who has a background in design, worked with the hot local firm Echo Architecture + Interiors to create what Jason and Riley call a “hip-hop sushi” vibe.
And the food …
Riley and Jason wrangled their favorite sushi master, Batzaya “Zaya” Altbish, from Denver’s Sushi Sasa, to develop the menu and serve as their chef partner.
Zaya’s rolls ($12-$23) are, as expected, colorful works of art, featuring some unexpected ingredients, such as “garlic butter seared tuna.” In addition to the traditional nigiri offerings ($9-$12 for two), Zaya does variations with mini crispy rice cakes topped with generous dollops of spicy tuna, spicy salmon and creamy scallops ($18 for six).
Rounding out the menu are several grilled items, such as a prime tenderloin ($44) and hamachi kama (a yellowtail collar that’s among the most savory dishes at any sushi bar, even when it’s not on the menu). There are also salads, oysters, buns, temaki tacos (a variation on hand rolls), vegetarian rolls and an extensive cocktail, wine and sake list. Lunch and a pricey caviar service ($150) are coming soon.
“With the opening of Sushi Row on North Tejon, Jason and Riley have proven that with a well-tailored menu and drink options, attentive staff and investment in placemaking to create an energetic, welcoming atmosphere, restaurants can succeed in numerous locations around our downtown core,” says Austin Wilson-Bradley, economic and community development manager of the Downtown Partnership. “And our community is ready and willing to support them.”
No doubt. Their success can be attributed to smart business sense, strong work ethic and tremendous strategic partnerships. But some of it also has to be their outgoing, likable personalities. When you see Riley in an elegant dress and Jason in a black Sushi Row-branded baseball cap animatedly greeting diners at the bar or the patio, you can see how committed they are to making every diner feel special.
You can also see the couple’s stamina and endurance. Not surprising, both are former athletes: he a semi-pro soccer player, she a competitive downhill ski racer.
They should be exhausted from the recent frenetic opening of Sushi Row, but the couple is already working out details for their next concept. They won’t say what it’ll be, but they are looking at a location on the east side of downtown. If I knew the address, I’d start lining up now.
Coming Attraction
The block with Sushi Row is becoming one of the hottest restaurant rows downtown. It already hosts Odyssey Gastropub, Kelley’s Spiedie Shop, Josh & John’s, Supernova, Tony’s, Poor Richard’s and Rico’s, Four by Brother Luck, Louie’s Pizza and the Wild Goose on the next corner. The empty space just to the south of Sushi Row is slated to be La Loma, a damn good Mexican restaurant with locations in Denver and Castle Rock.
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