Sushi didn’t stay in Japan. It hopped to the U.S. in 1966, landing in LA’s Little Tokyo with the Kawafuku restaurant. Americans weren’t sold on raw fish at first—World War II vibes lingered, and the idea of uncooked seafood was a hard pass. Enter the California roll: avocado, crab, cucumber, no raw stuff. It was sushi’s gateway drug, easing Western palates into the game. By 1970, Hollywood celebs were hooked, and sushi spread like wildfire.
Today, it’s everywhere. Japan’s kaiten-zushi conveyor belts—dreamed up by Yoshiaki Shiraishi in the ’50s—make it fast and fun. Plates roll by, color-coded by price, and you grab what you want. The U.S. has $2 billion in sushi revenue yearly, from grocery store rolls to high-end omakase. Even space got in on it—astronaut Koichi Wakata munched sushi on the International Space Station in 2008. Talk about a cosmic bite.