Women of the Mississippi: Reiko Weston
By: Trinity Ek, Volunteer and Student at the University of Minnesota
In 1953, Reiko Umetani Weston moved from Japan to Minnesota with her husband, Norman Weston, and her parents. That move would eventually lead to the redevelopment of Minneapolis’s riverfront.
Upon moving to Minnesota, Weston enrolled in classes at the University of Minnesota, Twin-Cities. To keep her parents occupied, she opened up a restaurant called Fuji-Ya, meaning second to none in Japanese. Eventually, business picked up and she took on a more involved role. After the quick success of the restaurant, Weston began scouting out new, larger locations.
She was particularly attracted to a location near the riverfront among abandoned mills and railroads left behind by the great milling industry of the 1800s. Upon seeing the site of the 1870 Bassett Sawmill and 1882 Columbia Flour Mill for sale near St. Anthony Falls, Weston immediately contacted the real-estate company and made an offer. People told her she was ridiculous for wanting to move there, but she could see that beyond the industrial landscape, the mighty Mississippi would bring her and the restaurant luck as was believed in Japanese culture.
After acquiring the location, Weston, alongside architects Shinichi Okada and Newton Griffith, decided to build on top of the historic mill instead of destroying it. They designed the space by combining traditional Japanese style with mid-century modern elements. They also incorporated the sound of St. Anthony Falls into the experience by facing the entryway toward the Falls. Restaurant goers described their experience at Fuji-Ya as being transported to an “exotic place” crediting the traditional Japanese music, design, and of course, the food.
In addition to introducing Japanese food and culture to Minnesota, Weston hired women for what usually were men’s position back in Japan. Both her head chef and teppanyaki chef were women. Further, what is especially notable is the success she and Fuji Ya experienced in spite of opening during a period of anti-Japanese sentiment. Two of her many accolades include being named Minnesota’s Small Businessperson of the Year in 1979 and being inducted into the Minnesota Business Hall of Fame in 1980.
In 1988, Weston passed of a heart attack and soon after, Fuji Ya’s presence on the riverfront came to an end in 1990. After an ongoing dispute over the land that Fuji Ya sat on, the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board paid “$3.5 million in exchange for the building and the roughly two acres of land” to develop West River Parkway (Tanaka and Moore 108). Although Fuji Ya is no longer within an ear’s reach of St. Anthony Falls, its legacy remains.
Through Fuji Ya, Weston reintroduced the beauty, value, and power of the Mississippi River to Minneapolis. In 1968, Barbara Flanagan wrote in the Minneapolis Star and Tribune, “Nobody looked twice at the riverbank site until Mrs. Weston got there. Leave it to a woman to show the way. Now everybody’s interested in the river” (Tanaka and Moore 108). Since Fuji Ya’s establishment, millions of dollars have been poured into the development of the riverfront near St. Anthony.
Today, Fuji Ya has moved to uptown and its old location has been razed. Remnants of the old restaurant are located in the Japanese Garden at Como Park in St. Paul and some elements are to be incorporated into the new park, Water Works which will complete the existing Mill Ruins Park. In the old space where the critically-acclaimed restaurant once stood will soon become Owamni, a restaurant run by Sean Sherman, also known as The Sioux Chef. There, Sherman seeks to revitalize and reintroduce Minnesota to Native American cuisine.
Reiko Weston catalyzed the riverfront redevelopment that Minneapolis is still experiencing today by preserving historic elements of the city, inspiring others to do so, and ultimately sparking a lasting interest in the river.
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