The Flying Squid

The Flying Squid is a sushi restaurant located on Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco. It is open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, and is a popular hang out and study spot for Starfleet Cadets. Amelia Waterhouse was a frequent patron of this establishment, and she held her weekly study sessions with Sean Morgan here.

Shimizu Hiroto is the owner of The Flying Squid. His wife, Angelica Watanabe Shimizu, died in the Dominion War. While they were on their honeymoon, she painted the picture of the Flying Squid which serves as the logo for the restaurant. He opened the restaurant after her death, at first for something to do while coping with his loss, but eventually it turned into something that kept her memory alive, and a way for him to meet new people and explore his fascination with food.

One of the things that drew a lot of his regular patrons in is his unique spin on traditional Japanese sushi. He would use the classic preparation techniques, but he would use unconventional ingredients. A favorite of Pond's was the Nigirizushi he'd prepare with gagh used as the neta.

Hiroto has been gradually handing the business over to his grand-nephew, Winston, but still works the overnight shifts multiple times a week. He prefers to meet the people who are out at the odd hours, learning their stories and making friends, leaving the tourists, power suits, and day to day people to Winston and the other employees. This is not much of a change, as he's always preferred the slower pace of only having a few people in the restaurant, and the ability to make orders for people as they sit at the counter and watch him, exchanging jokes and stories as he works and they eat.

Furoshiki for Takeout

With replicators, single use bags are easy to replicate and recycle, but Hiroto decided to go a different route for carry out orders. He had a replicator pattern designed of Furoshiki cloth to wrap orders that features a wave pattern in a range of blues, and the restaurant logo in the center. It comes in a number of sizes to accommodate a range of orders, and many regulars keep them to reuse for future orders, or for wrapping other things for gift giving and daily carrying of items. The Flying Squid is popular enough that it's common to see one or more of these wraps at a given time on Starfleet Headquarters's grounds, Starfleet Academy's grounds, and just around the the city at large.