Ordering the ochazuke special at Mt. Fuji is a bit like peering into the childhood photo albums of brothers Aaron Jackson and Yusuke Jackson, the revered sushi spot’s new owners. They’re new at the helm, but as the West Little Rock institution approaches its 40th year, the brothers are carrying on a tradition they’ve known since childhood.
An economical dish that marries leftover rice and leftover tea, the ochazuke of the Jackson brothers’ childhood is dressed up these days with miso butter grilled lobster and cured egg yolks shaved over the top tableside. The idea with a special like ochazuke, Aaron Jackson said, is to offer the experience of Japanese flavors using dishes they remember growing up eating, but in a way that “no one else is having it,” he said.
On March 31, 2023, just over six months after taking over, Yusuke Jackson stepped outside between the lunch and dinner shift and saw an EF-3 tornado charging right toward the Breckenridge Village shopping center. It would end up devastating entire neighborhoods and business districts in West Little Rock and beyond, but at the time, Aaron Jackson thought his brother was playing around, so he went outside to see for himself.
“It was like ‘The Wizard of Oz’ out there,” Aaron Jackson said.
Both of their cars were totaled by the storm, and Mt. Fuji had to shut down for several weeks for repairs to the roof and HVAC system.
The brothers knew taking over the coveted restaurant would be a lot of hard work, but tornado recovery wasn’t on their list of expectations.
“A lot of chefs told me it was a bad idea,” Aaron Jackson said. “I got a lot of counsel from them saying, ‘It’s going to eat up so much of your time, and it’s gonna break your back.’”
“They weren’t lying,” Yusuke Jackson said with a laugh.
It’s rare, though, Aaron Jackson said, that “someone gets an opportunity to carry on the legacy of a restaurant they grew up in and love so much.”
FAMILY RESTAURANT: Brothers Yusuke (left) and Aaron Jackson used to do their homework at Mt. Fuji while their mother waited tables. Now they own the venerable Japanese eatery. Credit: Sara Reeves
Emiko Biggin opened Mt. Fuji with her husband, Bruce, in the Breckenridge Village shopping center in 1987. Back then, sushi wasn’t as ubiquitous as it is now, and Mt. Fuji gave many Little Rock diners — this reporter included — their first opportunity to experience nigiri, maki, sashimi and sake for the first time. Aaron and Yusuke’s mother, Fusae Jackson — a native of Miyako City in Japan’s Iwate Prefecture — was a server at the restaurant for nearly a decade. The Jackson brothers were close friends with Emiko and Bruce Biggin’s children, and Mt. Fuji was the place where they celebrated birthdays and special occasions. Aaron and Yusuke’s father, John Jackson, built a little Japanese grocery store downstairs beneath the restaurant and a small loft above the store where the kids played video games while their mothers worked in the restaurant. When business was slow, they would run around the restaurant’s mezzanine or do homework.
“Our families grew up very close to each other,” Aaron Jackson said. “Whenever we had Thanksgiving, Emiko-san would bring this platter of sushi. We would have the turkey and ham, but we got accustomed to having sushi for Thanksgiving because it was always on the menu.” Aaron, 30, and Yusuke, 26, grew up in Haskell, just south of Benton. When Aaron Jackson turned 19 and was old enough to run alcoholic beverages to tables, he got a job serving at Mt. Fuji. Their sister worked there, too, and so did many children of the first-generation staff. “It was all about family all the time,” Aaron Jackson said.
ON A ROLL: A rainbow roll is served at Mt. Fuji. Credit: Sara Reeves
The Jackson brothers moved to Dallas in 2014. Aaron Jackson got a job at a ramen shop. As similar restaurants started popping up all over the country, he got a visit from an old family friend.
“Emiko-san came to Dallas to kind of research a new Mt. Fuji ramen program, so she came to the restaurant and some other places in Dallas. She kind of followed my career,” he said.
Aaron Jackson described the Dallas restaurant scene as highly competitive; he worked at restaurants where stacks of resumes from ambitious servers, bartenders and cooks flowed through the front door, right along with hungry patrons. He still has brunch service nightmares.
That cutthroat environment also forced him to learn quickly from his industry peers, and his work as a line cook in 2014 turned into an executive chef position at a steakhouse only five years later.
Eventually, he’d land at contemporary Japanese restaurant Uchi, founded by James Beard Award-winning chef Tyson Cole. The experience at Uchi “opened my eyes to more than just plated steak and potatoes,” he said. “They were doing molecular gastronomy and all sorts of seasonal dishes.” He also met his wife, Shannon, while working there. She now runs the sushi program at Mt. Fuji.
Tasked with creating specials and new menus with every changing season, the gears were always turning for Aaron Jackson in Dallas. In such a high-stakes scene, stasis can be the death of a restaurant — and the death of a chef’s career.
“That kind of pressure makes you do well, and if you don’t, you don’t have a job,” he said.
SUSHI BAR: Aaron Jackson prepares sushi standing beneath the Japanese blue tile that was shipped to Mt. Fuji by boat in the 1980s.
Credit: Sara Reeves
Moving back to Little Rock to take over Mt. Fuji was always a daydream he entertained, but when he heard Biggin was thinking about retiring, the timing wasn’t great. The pandemic had just arrived, along with the couple’s first daughter.
“I kind of wanted something more secure, a paycheck I could see all the time,” he said.
In late 2021, though, Biggin began having conversations with Yusuke Jackson about purchasing Mt. Fuji.
“I didn’t have as much experience as Aaron,” Yusuke Jackson said, but he did have connections, having worked front-of-house gigs in Japanese restaurants in Dallas. And he’d always expected to return to Little Rock with his family someday. So he approached his brother about going into business together. Aaron Jackson knew other buyers would be interested, and that this might be their only chance.
So he used up his vacation days and the brothers got their Arkansas business license in June 2022.
If they hadn’t moved back to take over the restaurant, Yusuke Jackson said, Mt. Fuji probably wouldn’t be here anymore, “or it would be something way different than what we remembered.”
The brothers had experience running kitchens and working busy front-of-house positions, but they’d never owned a business. Fortunately, they had a family friend who could show them the ropes. For eight weeks during the summer of 2022, they went to work at Mt. Fuji, waiting tables, cooking in the kitchen, and observing Biggin as she handled the business side. When they took over in August, the transition was almost seamless.
“She was very excited to retire because she’d been trying to do it for two years,” Yusuke Jackson said. “Literally, the day after that training period for us ended, she was in California with her kids and her family and enjoying some well-deserved time off.”
LOVE BOAT: A spread of Mt. Fuji’s offerings including geso karaage, matcha-cotta dessert, rainbow rolls, an assortment of nigiri and sashimi.
Credit: Sara Reeves
The brothers weren’t aware at first that the shopping center had been purchased for a revitalization project by a group of owners that included JTJ Restaurants, the Keet family powerhouse behind Petit & Keet, Cypress Social, several Arkansas Tazikis’s outlets, and four local Waldo’s Chicken & Beer locations.
“I think we came in at the right time because they wanted to keep Mt. Fuji, but they didn’t want to keep it in the shape it was in,” Aaron Jackson said. “That old space was really run down.”
The Keet family gave the brothers two options: close down and wait for the old space to be renovated, which would’ve taken several months, or keep working out of the old space until a brand new spot in the complex could be developed. The latter option made the transition more seamless, and the newly designed 3,600 square-foot space in the former Greenhaw’s clothing store is both new and familiar. It has a courtyard feel with high ceilings, an inviting sushi bar, and the same blue Japanese tiles from the old spot, delivered by boat from Japan in the 1980s. They debuted the new location in November 2023.
“It would have taken a lot longer to get where we are now without [the Keets],” Aaron Jackson said. “Definitely appreciate them. They have many restaurants, us being brand-new, they gave a lot of good information, taught us a lot.”
With all those changes, guests might assume that Mt. Fuji isn’t what it used to be. But most of the classic items remain on the menu. It’s still affordable, and the staff includes first- and second-generation Mt. Fuji workers.
Yusuke Jackson’s wife, Sofia, works with him in the front-of-house. Kenji Koga — a first- generation Japanese chef responsible for some of the traditional items on the menu — is still working at Mt. Fuji. Rey Antipolo, one of Little Rock’s most tenured sushi chefs, was a staple at Mt. Fuji, and his daughter Richelle is now a part-time server.
It was important to the brothers to retain longtime menu staples like katsudon and sukiyaki — dishes they ate there growing up. “Some people come for that one thing,” Aaron Jackson said.
“It’s authentic flavors and Japanese soul food you don’t get anywhere else,” Yusuke Jackson said.
But that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for Aaron Jackson to introduce new, creative dishes or for Yusuke Jackson to use his position in the front-of-house to educate guests about Japanese food and culture. A newer menu item, hamachi crudo — which Aaron is quick to point out landed on Mt. Fuji’s menu before it appeared on Carmy’s “chaos menu” in Season Two of “The Bear” — is a wonderful appetizer featuring yellowtail sashimi in a delicate citrus dressing served atop slices of orange with ponzu and ikura (salmon roe).
Aaron Jackson also introduced miso saba (miso marinated grilled mackerel) to the menu, a common home-cooked dish in Japan. It’s a favorite among the staff, but some customers are hesitant to try it, Aaron Jackson said, because mackerel has a reputation for being oily and having a strong fishy flavor. That’s what the miso marinade is for, he said. To make it a more composed dish, he pairs it with ponzu, pickled watermelon radish, crispy leeks and house chili oil.
STAFF FAVORITE: A common home-cooked dish in Japan, Mt. Fuji takes miso saba (marinated grilled mackerel) to new heights with the addition of ponzu, pickled watermelon radish, crispy leeks and house chili oil.
Credit: Sara Reeves
The brothers celebrated their first anniversary in the new location with an omakase dinner, a popular Japanese dining experience that includes several courses of a chef-selected menu for guests typically seated around a sushi bar. It’s something the brothers had been talking about doing for a long time. For the special event, they brought in A5 wagyu, madai (Japanese sea bream), kanpachi (amberjack) and hon maguro (bluefin tuna), all from Japan. When word got out, many longtime fans of the restaurant expressed interest in attending. Some omakase restaurants will have a limited guest list with only one or two seatings a night. Mt. Fuji ended up seating 110 people.
“We should’ve kept it at 40,” Yusuke Jackson said, but “it was a great learning experience.”
As for the marinated mackerel, it hasn’t been a big hit, Aaron Jackson said, but he keeps running it anyway because it feels authentic. It was, after all, only a few decades ago that Little Rock diners found themselves squinting at a 1987 Mt. Fuji menu trying to pronounce words like nigiri and sashimi, terms that now roll off the tongue with familiarity. “Staying true to what our identity was” is important, Yusuke Jackson said. “Everyone loved it, we loved it, so why change it?”
AloJapan.com