For eight years, from 2012 to 2020, Shunji occupied the wildest, most only-in-Los-Angeles location for a sushi bar possible: the Sawtelle restaurant operated out of a stuccoed 1930s-era building shaped like a soup bowl. Mr. Cecil’s California Ribs
was the previous tenant before Shunji Nakao took over the space, though over the decades it had also been home to a Mexican restaurant, a bar with the on-the-nose name of Roundhouse, a toy store and a real estate agency. It was originally constructed