A new sushi bar called Kōbō is set to open this fall at 4222 Duval Street in Hyde Park, bringing together restaurateur brothers Ryan and Wade McElroy with chef Moto Seto for what will be Seto's first restaurant as an owner. The corner spot has sat at the center of the neighborhood's food scene for years, and its next chapter is a dedicated raw fish counter in a stretch of Austin that Wade McElroy says has never really had one.
“There's no great sushi restaurant in Hyde Park,” Wade McElroy said, according to the Austin American-Statesman. He added that the ownership group wanted to work with Seto specifically and build a concept that would fit the unique character of the space, per the same report. The menu will center on nigiri, sashimi, temaki and maki, with a handful of prepared dishes rounding things out.
A Storefront That's Changed Hands Before
The Duval Street address isn't new to reinvention. Before Uncle Nicky's Italian Specialties took over the corner, the site was known as Dolce Vita, a neighborhood café, according to So Much Life. Uncle Nicky's opened there in February 2019 and occupied the address for about seven years. The McElroys and Seto have chosen the site for their new concept.
Kinsho, which opened on Rainey Street in 2026, is Wade McElroy's second sushi concept. That track record suggests an appetite for planting focused, frequent-use sushi counters in distinct pockets of the city rather than one flagship destination.
An Expanding Portfolio Across Central Austin
The McElroy name already carries weight around town. Wade McElroy is a co-owner of Rocco's Italian on Airport Boulevard. He's also a partner in Love Supreme Pizza Bar, the Manor Road pizzeria he co-founded with his brother Ryan in 2021 that took its name from John Coltrane's 1964 album “A Love Supreme,” per the same outlet, and in Teddy's Cocktail Bar.
Ryan McElroy, for his part, is a co-owner of Bird Bird Biscuit. Seto brings a different background: a chef with two decades in restaurants, the past eight of them at Soto, the sushi restaurant that expanded from its Cedar Park roots to South Lamar Boulevard in Austin and Westheimer Road in Houston with his help.
A Chef Who Designs With Fish
Seto, a native of Japan, brings his Soto experience to Kōbō, his first restaurant as an owner. He described his approach to the craft in straightforward terms to the Statesman: he keeps fish and simplicity at the center of his sushi.
That philosophy traces back to an earlier career path. Seto studied architecture before becoming a chef, and he says he still approaches sushi the way he once approached a building: as designing a work of art. It's a fitting mindset for a chef about to reshape a storefront that has already lived several lives on Duval Street.
Austin's Sushi Projects
Kōbō is one of several intimate sushi projects taking shape in Austin in 2026, alongside Foodie + Tina's planned South Lamar takeaway counter. Hyde Park's version, it seems, will carry the added weight of filling a storefront that neighbors have watched change hands more than once.
