UMI Hotpot Sushi & Seafood Buffet opened Aug. 22 at 12499 Foothill Boulevard in Rancho Cucamonga, California, bringing the chain’s oversized seafood-and-hot-pot buffet model to the Inland Empire one day after another UMI opened in Cary, North Carolina.
The Rancho Cucamonga restaurant occupies an approximately 11,500-square-foot former Claim Jumper at Foothill Marketplace. UMI signed a 10-year lease for the freestanding building, reusing a large casual-dining shell that already had the square footage required for a sprawling buffet operation.
UMI Converts an 11,500-Square-Foot Claim Jumper in Rancho Cucamonga
UMI advertises more than 200 menu items across seafood, sushi, sashimi, hot pot, ramen, grilled dishes and desserts. That breadth needs physical room for food displays, production areas, guest circulation and seating, which is why former large-box restaurants have become natural targets for the brand.
The Claim Jumper building was created for the oversized casual-dining era. UMI is repurposing the same capacity for a newer kind of abundance: more stations, more categories and more individualized cooking within one fixed-price visit.
The Opening Extends UMI’s Rapid Push Into Southern California
Rancho Cucamonga joins UMI’s City of Industry restaurant in Southern California and underlines how quickly the company has moved beyond an East Coast footprint. Back-to-back openings on opposite sides of the country make the expansion strategy hard to miss.
The Inland Empire location is now operating, so the real-estate story has become a dining one. A building that once served enormous plated meals now supports a buffet that seems determined to use every available square foot.
