Kula, a new conveyor belt sushi spot, just opened in Doraville

The restaurant, part of a Japanese chain, serves sushi, tempura, ramen, dumplings, and dessert
The front of Kula in Doraville

Photograph courtesy of Kula Sushi.

When flying out of Tokyo’s Narita airport, one of your last options for food before making the long trek home is a conveyor belt sushi restaurant. “Kaiten-zushi,” or rotating sushi, is a subset of Japanese cuisine common all across the country. Rotating sushi bars first gained popularity after one was shown off at the Osaka World Expo in 1970, and the trend has since spread across the world. Conveyor belt sushi bars have come and gone in Atlanta, but Kula Revolving Sushi Bar, which opened on Friday, is the newest. The Doraville restaurant joins 400 plus locations worldwide (the vast majority in Japan, with a handful in the U.S. and Taiwan). Kula chose its latest spot well because it caters to a shopping center area of Doraville light on restaurant concepts beyond Shoya Izakaya and the awesome food court in nearby Super H Mart.

The seating at Kula features two conveyor belts, a slot for finished plates, and a prize machine that rewards you for eating 15 plates.

Photograph courtesy of Kula Sushi.

Kula’s menu is based on “washoku culture,” or traditional Japanese recipes, and has over 130 items including sushi (nigiri and rolls), tempura, ramen, udon, dumplings, even desserts like mochi and banana tempura. To drink, the restaurant serves sake, Japanese beer, green tea, and sodas.

How does it all work? From your seat, you can either grab a plate of sushi (with a special domed lid designed to keep it fresh) off the constantly moving conveyor belt or input an order into a touch panel located above the table, which is then sent down another conveyor belt straight to you. Once you’ve eaten your food, drop your finished plates into a slot on the table. There’s a system that keeps track of the number of empty plates you drop in and displays the count on the touch screen. (You’ll probably want to keep an eye on this number—each sushi plate costs $2.25 and contains two to three pieces of sushi, so it’s easy to try new things but also easy to rack up a small fortune.) For each series of five plates, the screen lights up with an animated video, and if you reach 15 plates, you get a little prize capsule from the Bikkura Pon machine above the sushi bar.

The restaurant is open daily for lunch and dinner. 6035 Peachtree Road, Doraville, 470-255-2071