🍣 Sushi in Egypt isn’t hard to find — in fact, if you throw a rock in a mall, it’s likely to land on a sushi bar. From 100-piece combos dished out faster than you can say nigiri to 20-minute quick-packs delivered right to your doorstep, what was once a relatively upscale meal in Egypt’s F&B market is now a food item — just like any other — that’s anything but uncommon. We’d know, we’ve pretty much tried them all, with some faring better than others.

That’s exactly the problem one premier Egyptian F&B entrepreneur has been working to fix. Tamer Leithy (LinkedIn), who brought some of Egypt’s biggest F&B names to life, including Tamara, Mori, Mince, Ted’s, and The Grocer’s, introduced his experimental Japanese restaurant: Hara Hachi Bu. EnterpriseAM sat down with Leithy to ask: Why go against the grain? Why now? Did it pay off?

“I realized a gap in the market for high-quality sushi. I noticed that around 95% of the market is working with frozen ingredients,” Leithy tells EnterpriseAM. “It’s all about offers, [markdowns], and ‘all-you-can-eat’ options — which limits a restaurant’s ability to provide high-quality sushi, which is the whole idea.” For that model to be sustainable, restaurants need to compromise: either hike the prices to cosmic levels or risk quality. “You can’t have both,” Leithy says.

But was it always like this? Not quite. Sushi was first introduced in Egypt in the late ‘80s, courtesy of Japanese expats who brought professional chefs to help popularize their country’s national cuisine, according to Al Ahram, citing Egyptian sushi chef Ahmed Kamal. In 1995, according to Kamal, a single roll could cost EGP 10 — quite the number back then. Until that point, sushi was confined to high-end restaurants in upper-class neighborhoods. It has skyrocketed in popularity over the past two decades.

“It wasn’t always this way — this shift [toward offers] happened sometime over the last six to seven years, but the market unfortunately shifted,” Leithy tells us. As the top players began their pivot, everyone else followed suit, and everyone just got used to it. “That form of consuming sushi has become a way of life for Gen Z. As they grew up, they got used to that. So now you have a gap for really good, fresh sushi, where all the ingredients are fresh.” Leithy then notes that all the existing sushi brands have — more or less — “the exact same menu,” saying he wanted to do something entirely different.

That’s exactly what Leithy did with Hara Hachi Bu. A Japanese Confucian proverb that translates to “eat until you are 80 percent full,” the concept — with its debut location in District 5 — sought to bring back a (literally) fresh, mindful approach to the Japanese delicacy. Through different recipes, new introductions to the menu, and a strictly fresh approach, Leithy brought back what it truly means to enjoy sushi.

Egyptians love a good bargain — exactly what traditional sushi spots serve up — but we love good, fresh food even more. “Our entire approach to marketing the restaurant was based on the fact that we were all about freshness, and while the Hara Hachi Bu concept was a part of it, to us it was always about offering something literally fresh.” Leithy’s mission to offer a fine-dining sushi experience in a casual setting paid off. “We had high expectations, but reactions went even beyond that.” Guest reactions were overwhelmingly positive, Leithy tells us, with patrons — including us, when we stopped by for an unplannedreview in May of last year — praising the freshness.

Hara Hachi Bu’s strictly fresh approach comes with risks — especially amid regional tensions. “We get our salmon flown in by plane multiple times a week — and most of our ingredients are sourced from abroad as well,” Leithy says. With the ongoing tensions, Hara Hachi Bu found itself in a bit of a pickle: “When it came to fish, we found ourselves almost completely out of fresh stock. We didn’t know what to do because we couldn't serve frozen salmon, and if we were going to serve it, we would have had to declare it to the customers.” By some miracle, before having to make that decision, a shipment came through, and business carried on as usual.

With 12 tables over approximately 60 sqm, the District 5 branch functioned as a stepping stone for Leithy — a way to build the name and reputation. A little over a year later, Leithy took his experimental concept to the west of the capital with a brand-new branch at Hale Town Mall in Sixth of October. “My friends, family, business partners, and I always felt that West Cairo was missing a prime sushi destination — but I just couldn’t find the right location. The second I did, we opened up.”

Looking forward, Leithy has his sights set on expanding the nascent concept. “The new location is highly accessible to everyone — between New Giza and Palm Hills, you have over 12k homes, and we see very strong potential there, especially on the delivery front.”

The takeaway for up-and-coming F&B entrepreneurs: When a good chunk of the market converges on the same offerings and pricing model, the biggest risk isn’t trying something new, it’s sticking to the old, what everyone else is doing. Hara Hachi Bu’s early success demonstrates that breaking away from the well-trodden path — while requiring operational discipline — pays off.