Seventeen-month-old Asian restaurant Tamashii ended service Dec. 6, but chef/owner Mark Scharaga has plans for a new quick-service sushi restaurant at the former Rita’s Italian Ice and frozen custard shop, 10-B N. Front St. in downtown Wilmington.

“It was a bad location for that concept,” Scharaga said of Tamashii’s 4039 Masonboro Loop Road location. “The support just wasn’t there for it.”

Scharaga billed Tamashii as specializing in sushi and spoons. Besides traditional and unconventional sushi, Tamashii’s spoon bar offered ceviche, poke, tartare and other bites on individual spoons. The restaurant also served entrees.

Scharaga, previously the sushi chef at the late Shallotte Cattle Barn in Shallotte, hasn’t abandoned sushi. He is working with Velvet Freeze ice cream shop owner Karel Blaas to develop Mega Maki downtown. 

“Maki,” or “makizushi,” is the Japanese word for rolled sushi, which Scharaga said will be Mega Maki’s specialty along with Velvet Freeze ice creams available in cones, cups, milkshakes and to-go containers.  

The idea is to provide high-quality but low-priced sushi that patrons could customize in a quick-service setting. Nothing on the menu would cost more than $10, and most rolls would cost about $5, Scharaga said. Take-out would be the focus, he added.

“We’re still doing quality ingredients,” Scharaga said, emphasizing that Mega Maki would not bulk rolls with too much rice or inexpensive vegetables.

Scharaga and Blaas became friends after Blaas began providing Tamashii with custom ice cream flavors, Scharaga said. Both men were interested in another food service venture when Scharaga shared his Mega Maki concept with Blaas, Scharaga said. He said he hopes to open Mega Maki in early 2014.