UMI Hot Pot Sushi & Seafood Buffet opened September 12 at 4650 King Street in Alexandria, bringing a sprawling all-you-can-eat format to a building that had been dark for nearly two years after TGI Fridays closed there in fall 2024. The new restaurant combines a seafood buffet, sushi and sashimi, individual hot pot, made-to-order ramen and a more familiar hot-food line under one roof.
Adult weekday lunch is $25.99 through 3:30 p.m. Dinner is $39.99, as is all-day dining on Saturday and Sunday. Drinks are included for dine-in customers, and opening-day reporting found a broader selection than the usual fountain-soda setup, including milk tea, taro milk tea, Thai tea and fruit or slush-style drinks. The restaurant also posts a two-hour dine-in limit and adds 15 percent gratuity for parties of six or more.
The seafood side is substantial. Opening-day offerings included snow crab legs, oysters, steamed shrimp, blue crab, crawfish, clams and razor clams. Lobster and king crab also appeared on opening morning, although neither was listed on the printed menu, so they should not be treated as guaranteed everyday buffet items. Snow crab on the menu is one thing; king crab is the sort of detail experienced buffet travelers learn to verify before organizing the carpool.
Beyond the seafood, diners can build an individual hot pot from sliced meats, seafood, vegetables, mushrooms, tofu and noodles, then choose a broth and dipping sauce before cooking at the table. There is also a sushi and sashimi selection, a separate ramen counter with multiple broth choices, and hot-food offerings that opening-day coverage said included lamb chops, ribs, pork belly, chicken dishes, dim sum and lo mein. Desserts include cakes, flan, ice cream and fruit.
UMI markets its broader concept around more than 200 items, although that is a chain-level claim rather than a verified count for the Alexandria restaurant. The practical takeaway is simpler: this is not merely a seafood buffet with a sushi corner. It is several all-you-can-eat formats operating together, giving a table the option to move from sashimi to hot pot to ramen without changing restaurants or, more importantly, surrendering the buffet plate.
The King Street address had previously been occupied by TGI Fridays. Alexandria Living reported the Fridays closure on October 29, 2024, and the restaurant appears to have stopped operating several days earlier. City records show a $150,000 new-tenant upfit permit for the property was filed in July 2025 and issued that November, followed by additional electrical and kitchen fire-suppression work in 2026. From the confirmed Fridays closure to UMI’s opening, the building sat without an operating restaurant for just under two years.
UMI itself is a comparatively young but fast-expanding buffet chain. The concept was operating in Brooklyn by early 2023, and the company’s current website describes a footprint of more than 30 locations. Its location directory stretches well beyond the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, with restaurants or announced sites in markets including Texas, Florida, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, California and Arizona.
Alexandria is currently UMI’s only open Virginia location while the chain continues adding markets. Its current directory also lists a Henrico, Virginia, restaurant as coming soon. For Alexandria diners, however, the more immediate development is already open on King Street: a former Fridays has reemerged as the kind of place where snow crab, ramen, hot pot and milk tea can all reasonably become part of the same lunch decision.
