The new CoCo Ichibanya celebrated its grand opening on September 15 at 3833 Fifth Avenue in Hillcrest. The restaurant is open from 11am-10pm Sunday through Thursday and 11am-11pm Friday and Saturday. The opening marks CoCo Ichibanya's second traditional restaurant in San Diego, joining the perpetually busy Convoy District location at 4428 Convoy Street, which debuted in March 2021. The curry chain also entered Petco Park earlier this year, where it began serving Padres fans from the Mercado on the Field Level.
The new restaurant occupies approximately 2,585 square feet and has seating for about 49 customers. It brings one of Japan's most recognizable restaurant concepts into the heart of Hillcrest, several miles from the Asian restaurant concentration that helped make the original San Diego location such a hit.
CoCo Ichibanya specializes in kare raisu, Japanese curry served over rice with a thick, savory sauce that is generally milder and more gravy-like than many Indian or Southeast Asian curries. But what has made the chain particularly famous is the almost absurd degree to which customers can customize their meal.
Diners can choose their curry, adjust their rice portion and heat level, and pile on toppings ranging from chicken and pork cutlets to stewed beef, fried chicken, sausage, pork dumplings, garlic shrimp, squid, spinach, mushrooms, cheese and vegetable croquettes. The current U.S. menu also includes curry udon, omelet curry dishes, naan, salads and numerous combination curries.
For first-timers, the chicken cutlet curry is probably the easiest introduction to the concept: crispy breaded chicken served over rice and covered with CoCo's signature Japanese curry. The restaurant's current San Diego menu also features pork cutlet curry, stewed beef curry, thin-sliced beef curry, vegetable combinations and more elaborate creations such as garlic shrimp with tomato and asparagus curry.
The chain's story stretches back nearly half a century. Tokuji and Naomi Munetsugu developed the concept in Japan during the 1970s, with the first Curry House CoCo Ichibanya opening in 1978 near Nagoya. What began as a small Japanese operation eventually exploded into an international restaurant empire.
CoCo Ichibanya earned Guinness World Records recognition as the world's largest curry restaurant chain in 2013. Its international expansion eventually brought the company to the mainland United States, where its first restaurant opened in Torrance in February 2011, followed later that year by Irvine.
San Diegans had to wait another decade. CoCo finally opened on Convoy Street in March 2021 after a pandemic-delayed arrival, and the location quickly established a local following. The company's San Diego presence has accelerated considerably in 2026. CoCo Ichibanya opened inside Petco Park this spring, bringing Japanese curry into the stadium's increasingly eclectic food lineup, and the Hillcrest restaurant now gives the company three places to find its food locally when the seasonal ballpark stand is included.
Its new home is part of the Denizen development built on the former site of Pernicano's, the legendary Italian restaurant that once occupied a substantial Hillcrest property before sitting vacant for decades. The redevelopment replaced the long-dormant site with an eight-story, 151-unit apartment building with street-level commercial space.
CoCo Ichibanya is now open at 3833 Fifth Avenue in San Diego's Hillcrest neighborhood. For more information, visit ichibanyausa.com.
Originally published on September 16, 2026.
