To Yoshiki and Naoko Sakane, owners of OCO TIME and IT’S TIME in downtown Ukiah, the OCO is a symbol of growing up in post W.W. II Japan. The OCO parlors were warm, friendly places and the OCO snack was yummy and cheap. Hiroshima had become a center for peace education and celebration. As children, Yoshiki and Naoko visited the Hiroshima Peace Park and were immersed in a peace curriculum at school.
They eventually traveled to the U.S. landing in the Bay Area and continued to be involved in peace activities. Yoshiki worked for five years in a Japanese restaurant in Berkeley before the young family moved to Upper Lake to try out country living.
When it became clear that a real plan for family income was needed, Yoshiki drew upon his childhood heritage of peace education and comfort food to create OCO TIME, a peace café project that features the Okonomiyaki, the soul food of Hiroshima. The Sakanes changed the spelling from OKO to OCO as part of their embrace of living in California.
Their first idea was to run a simple OCO parlor with 2-3 employees. If you have been to OCO TIME, you will know that those simple plans have evolved into something else entirely. The café has a full sushi menu, noodle dishes, tempura and dinner platters. Wine, beer and sake are served.
The Sakanes have created not just a café, but a place to be and the community has taken notice. Many customers return again and again. During the first five years of operation, several other restaurants have opened in downtown Ukiah; yet OCO TIME continues to be full for lunch and dinner most every day that it is open. By the end of the 4th year, demand for take-out sushi, bowls and Japanese snacks led them to create IT”S TIME which caters to the lunch and early dinner crowd.
Today their community extends to the far reaches of Mendocino County and they seat customers from all over the world, including Japan, in their peace café project.
By Sheilah Rogers from The Ukiah Daily Journal