Tsunami, the iconic Cooper-Young restaurant at 928 South Cooper will close February 21, announces owner/executive chef Ben Smith.
In a February 7th Facebook video post, Smith says, “As you all know these past six years have been extremely challenging times for the restaurant industry. This past year in particular has been especially challenging and difficult. Rising costs across the board combined with gradual decrease in business has lead me to the conclusion that this is no longer a sustainable business model for Tsunami restaurant.
“After much deep introspection and consultation with my attorney and accountant, I’ve decoded to close the restaurant permanently. Our last day of business will be Saturday February 21st. While there were thousand small reasons behind this decision, the overriding reason was just that I simply can’t afford to do this anymore.”
In a 2018 interview in Memphis magazine, Smith says, “I wanted Tsunami to be the kind of place where people look at the menu and say, ‘This is exactly what I wanted to eat tonight.’”
And his Chilean sea bass, which has been on the menu since they opened more than 25 years, ago is a legend in itself. “I liked the way it seared,” Smith says in a 2020 Memphis magazine interview. “It got a nice caramelization on it. I went with that when we opened up. It was on the original menu, very first menu.”
He says the original name of the fish was “Patagonian” toothfish. “That’s not really a marketable name, so somebody came up with the name ‘sea bass’ and it sounds way more sexy than ‘Patagonian toothfish.”
According to the 2018 interview, “Even his business partner at the time, the late Thomas Boggs, encouraged him to locate the restaurant in a more affluent ZIP code out east, but Smith held firm, serving fish with names most customers didn’t know in a Midtown building both quirky and historic. “I knew there would be a learning curve, but people were intrigued and excited.”