When Emily Wu closed her restaurant, Top Soup Yunnan Noodle, at Overland Park’s Stanley Square shopping center, she had the opportunity to act on an idea that had been brewing for a while.

The new restaurant coming together inside the space came from a frustration Wu had been feeling — one that goes back to her time working in sushi restaurants before opening Top Soup.

“I personally really like sushi, and it’s always so expensive,” Wu said. “Sometimes you go to a sushi restaurant, two people, and you can spend like $100 or something. A lot.”

Her new restaurant, 69 Sushi, in Top Soup’s former space at Stanley Square, aims to help other people who feel the same way. The restaurant will open in the coming weeks, serving all-you-can-eat sushi and other Asian dishes.

69 Sushi is opening at 7948 W. 151st St.

• The restaurant occupies a space at the Stanley Square shopping center at 151st Street and U.S. Highway 69 (hence the restaurant’s name).
• Top Soup Yunnan Noodle occupied that space for roughly two years before its closure.
• 69 Sushi’s regular weekday hours will be the following:
  • For lunch: 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday
  • For dinner: 5 to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday, and 5 to 10 p.m. Friday
• Regular weekend hours will be:
  • 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday
  • 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday

69 Sushi will serve all-you-can-eat sushi and more

The restaurant is primarily designed around a dine-in, all-you-can-eat buffet. While online and to-go orders will still be available, they’ll be separate from the buffet model.

Customers can choose from a variety of sushi rolls, sashimi, nigiri and specials like hand rolls.

For those who aren’t into sushi, though, the buffet will also offer other items like salads and hot kitchen entrees like General Tso’s chicken, ramen and stir-fry noodles — as well as appetizers like dumplings and egg rolls.

“You can get a lot of choices with a decent price, as long as you don’t waste any food,” Wu said. “We’re trying to give people more options if they don’t want to try something new.”

Though the heart of the buffet menu will stay the same, Wu said some dishes will rotate in and out for customers who keep coming back.

Before the space at Stanley Square became the sushi eatery, Top Soup was one of two occupants there (next to a massage spa).

The process of turning two small storefronts into one larger buffet restaurant wasn’t quick.

To transform and grow the space for 69 Sushi, Wu and her partners broke down the wall between the two spaces, expanding the restaurant footprint by roughly 1,000 square feet.

At the same time, the aging Stanley Square shopping center was undergoing a facelift. So naturally, Wu said, there was plenty of time to build up anticipation for the new venture.

“As soon as we put the sign up, people were like, ‘Oh, when do you guys open?’” she said. “They can see (the progress), and they keep asking.”

It’s exciting for the neighborhood, Wu has learned, but the newness of it is also exciting for her.

“It’s a new start for me, (but) I’m doing something I’m really familiar with,” she said. “We will try our best to make this business good for people, for customers. I hope they love it.”

Something else recently opened nearby

Just a few doors down from 69 Sushi, a new locally owned cafe opened its doors this past weekend.

Te Amo Cafe is a familial venture, with parents Sabeen Khaliq and Mehtab Khan and their children, Alysha and Youssouf Khan at the helm.

The cafe serves a wide variety of drinks — from lattes and matcha to boba tea and flavored lemonades.

Want more food and drink news? McAlister’s Deli to expand in JoCo, targeting new Olathe location