BONUS Episode: Leading with Compassion

Taro Arai has an electric personality. As Chief Dreaming Officer for Mikuni, with nine popular restaurants and sushi bars in Northern California, his enthusiasm and generosity are well known throughout the region.

But it wasn’t an easy road to success. After arriving from Japan, the Arai family opened their first Mikuni restaurant in 1987. Reverend and Mrs. Arai prepared food in the kitchen, while Taro and siblings Noamichi and Keiko worked as greeter, busser and server. After a lot of hard work and perseverance, Mikuni continued to grow and prosper.

Their success has left an indelible imprint on Northern California.

Before the pandemic slowdown, Mikuni served more than 1 and a half million customers a year, utilizing about 20 tons of California rice every month.

Taro said he is continually humbled by their success and vows to maintain their approach of giving back to the community.

Mikuni has supported more than 80 charities. Their rescue rolls have raised tens of thousands of dollars for many who have suffered through disasters. Their golf tournament has raised millions of dollars for charity.

Why do so much?

“Without God and our community, we’re not here right now,” Taro remarked. “We need to give back.  To be here, share the joy and help charity, I’m living a dream right now. The least I can do is to go out every day, spread the joy and help others as much as we can.”

Episode Transcript

Jim Morris: Welcome to a special bonus episode of Ingrained. I'm Jim Morris with the California Rice Commission, visiting with one of my favorite people on the planet, Taro Arai, Chief Dreaming Officer at Mikuni, a fantastic group of restaurants and sushi bars in Northern California. Taro is an author, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and one of the kindest people I've ever met. And I've often suspected you don't sleep, Taro, and now you're planning your daughter, Chiyoh's, wedding. So how do you balance all that?

Taro Arai: Ooh, I'm so excited. I've been waiting. I had a tuxedo ready two years ago, and also a speech for the wedding. I have been ready, so I'm excited about it. My wife keeps telling me, "It's not your wedding," so that's the thing I have to remind myself every day.

Jim Morris: That's awesome. Tractors are working in the fields, airplanes are flying over seed, there's a new season underway in rice country in the Sacramento Valley. You have seen this process firsthand, so what are your thoughts as we're starting a new season for rice in California?

Taro Arai: I love it, and also it’s a new season for my family too. Right? So getting marrieds great, but for me having a grandchildren, next generation of workers, that's exciting too. I love always something new.

Jim Morris: You have more than 50 different sushi rolls, so how important is it to have local, affordable, high-quality rice to work with?

Taro Arai: I mean that's everything. Sushi without sushi rice, that's not sushi! Of course, I grew up in a culture that rice is the most important thing in the food culture. Then I can't imagine without having rice, and also having a rice in our backyard, how blessed are we? We're spreading all over the love of rice to United States too. Right?

Jim Morris: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah.

Taro Arai: I mean I'm so proud of California rice, and I'm so fortunate to be here.

Jim Morris: You have seen the rice fields in Japan and probably have a lot of experiences when you grew up, so tell me a little bit about being a child in Japan and some of your experiences in rice.

Taro Arai: We used to play baseball on the rice field. Oh, I get yelled at because we make it dirt so hard while baseball season. And here when I went there, you see the big truck, the big airplane. I mean it's totally different way of raising rice here.

Jim Morris: And we owe so much to the Japanese culture, not only as one of our big customer bases, but also the Japanese varieties, Koshihikari, Akitakomachi, on, and on, so we are incredibly grateful for that relationship. Let's get to the here and now. We're sitting at your restaurant in Roseville and there's people here eating. It is so refreshing to see. But tell me a little bit about how the pandemic has been. It has just been really tough for restaurants.

Taro Arai: Toughest thing is we had an unknown future, so we couldn't plan anything. That was the hardest things for us. We don't know if we can open the restaurant, close the restaurants, and then all the employee are going through COVID protocol. I don't know. Every day we have a new challenges. It was a really lo