54 JANUARY 13 - JANUARY 19, 2017 BROOKLYN MEDIA GROUP All-you-can-eat sushi restaurant to open in place of shuttered Rocco’s Calamari BY MEAGHAN MCGOLDRICK MMCGOLDRICKBROOKLYNREPORTER.COM An all-you-can-eat sushi restaurant will open in place of a South Brooklyn staple that shuttered over the summer. An Asian restaurant named Rakuzen is in the works for the now-vacant property at 6408 Fort Hamilton Parkway, according to a new red sign that decorates the building. The space, located on the border of Boro Park and Dyker Heights, was home to Rocco’s Calamari — a family-owned and well-respected Italian eatery — for more than three fruitful decades. In early August, Rocco and Lucy Bruno, owners of Rocco’s Calamari, announced their retirement — and the ultimate closure of the famed and iconic restaurant — a er 35 years of dedicated service. “This is truly bittersweet,” Lucy Bruno told this paper when news of the closure fi rst broke. “What I really took away from this are the people we have met. We met people from all walks of life and a lot of them became our good friends. We really feel that we brought the community together.” While it is unclear just when Rakuzen will o cially open, a December 6 post on a Facebook page for the business promised that it would be “coming soon.” Though it is certainly the end of a chapter, the opening of any new business in the neighborhood, Dyker Heights Civic Association President Fran Vella-Marrone said, is something worth celebrating. “Rocco’s Calamari was there for many, many, many years,” she said. “It was an institution, and it was owned by people who lived in the community, and who had the business for many years, which was very successful and loved by all. But, the fact that we’re getting a new business in that space is great,” Vella Marrone continued. “We welcome SPRING 2017 HIGHLIGHTS! BROADWAY BACKSTAGE ELLA! IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT THE STEPCREW CHE MALAMBO …and More Bringing World-Class PerformanCes Home (718) 368-5596 | www.OnStageAtKingsborough.org Kingsborough Community College, 2001 Oriental Blvd., Brooklyn A new all-you-can-eat sushi restaurant will open in place of Rocco's Calamari. new businesses, and we want those new businesses to come into the neighborhood and be able to fl ourish and be BROOKLYN MEDIA GROUP/Photo by Helen Klein as successful as places like Rocco’s.” Rocco’s Calamari had been open since 1981.
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