167 Sushi Bar is moving, and it's a real upgrade. The spinoff from no-reservations seafood juggernaut 167 Raw is leaving its cramped East Bay Street room for 5 Cumberland St., the downtown space that spent years as the Irish bar Bumpa's. The new home has more than triple the capacity of the current spot.
Why move? Two reasons, both practical. The sushi bar needed the space, and it wanted a full liquor license, which means cocktails alongside the nigiri. Anyone who's tried to get a seat at the current location knows how tight things are, so tripling the room is less ambition than overdue relief.
The 167 brand has been a Charleston success story since chef Jesse Sandole brought it to town more than a decade ago. The original 167 Raw built its name on oysters, crudos, lobster rolls and fish tacos served to a permanent line out the door. The sushi bar followed in 2021. Now it's the one getting the bigger stage, targeting 2027 for the Cumberland Street debut.
The 289 East Bay St. building where it all started won't go dark. It stays in the group's hands and will eventually be reborn as a new concept, which is its own little tease worth filing away. The throughline: a Charleston operator betting on itself in the most expensive part of town, taking a beloved old bar's bones and turning them into something that needs a reservation you still won't be able to get. Some things scale. The wait list, apparently, is one of them.
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