Sushiya, the former University Avenue sushi restaurant, recently reopened in Cupertino, ending its nearly two-year hiatus from the Bay Area sushi scene.

The Palo Alto Sushiya closed its doors in mid-2007 after more than 20 years of supplying Palo Altans’ sushi needs. The Cupertino Sushiya is still owned by Tomiko Koja, who cofounded the Palo Alto establishment and eventually became its sole owner.

The new restaurant, situated in a shopping complex across from De Anza College on Stevens Creek Boulevard, is more spacious than the Palo Alto restaurant but seats roughly the same number of people. The new restaurant also exudes a more relaxed atmosphere than the old one.

The food is still superb, tastefully presented by courteous waiters and waitresses, and the pricing is reasonable: a more-than-filling meal costs about $15.

Koja designed the new restaurant’s interior herself, enlisting the help of her cousin and her cousin’s husband to set everything up. The tables in the new restaurant were made by one of the sushi chefs from the old Sushiya who has since become a carpenter. Koja says she is pleased by the result.

“We went to Home Depot and we tried to buy everything inexpensively, and right away we had to make it [the restaurant’s interior],” Koja said. “I think we did a good job.”

Koja runs the Cupertino establishment with little assistance — typically a waiter or two and sometimes an assistant chef — but she takes the pressure in stride, because she is familiar with it. According to Koja, from the time that the Palo Alto Sushiya’s original sushi chef left the restaurant in the early 1990s until the restaurant’s closing in 2007, she simultaneously held nearly every job in the restaurant.

“[Before the chef’s departure,] I had to do everything except make the sushi at the counter: manager, kitchen helper, waitress,” Koja said. “To me, it [becoming sushi chef] was a good thing; I could run everything.”

In this case, Koja, who had little knowledge of how to prepare sushi, apprenticed herself to a friend who is a veteran sushi chef and became proficient enough to assume the position of sushi chef within months.

At the Cupertino Sushiya, Koja goes about her job with an extraordinary amount of energy, just as she did at the Palo Alto restaurant. Koja spends her whole workday zipping back and forth between her kitchen and her customers, laughing and joking in both English and Japanese all the while.

According to Koja, her relationship with her customers is one of her job’s perks.

“If I have the time to talk to the customers, I prefer to talk to the customers,” Koja said. “That’s my favorite thing.”

Koja, who grew up in post-World War II Okinawa, Japan, seems to be smiling at all times.

“Of course sometimes I’m down, but right away I climb [back] up,” Koja said. “[Bad] things happen.”

The closing of the Palo Alto Sushiya was one such bad thing, so Koja did her best to move on. She will be the first to say, however, that she misses working in Palo Alto.

“I miss the Sushiya in Palo Alto, of course,” Koja said. “Of course, so many customers, I miss them. I wanted to stay over there.”

Unfortunately, it was not to be. By 2007, the rent on the small University Avenue property that Sushiya occupied had become too high for the restaurant to remain there, according to Koja. Koja says that the issue of rent combined with that of commute length — Koja has lived in Cupertino since 2004, when she moved from Redwood City — prompted her to close the Palo Alto establishment and reopen in Cupertino.

On the bright side, Sushiya has survived, and, in addition to expanding into its new Cupertino market, it will continue to serve its die-hard fans in Palo Alto, if from a greater distance.

Sushiya is located in Cupertino at 21265 Stevens Creek Blvd., #205, and is open Monday through Saturday from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. for lunch and from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. for dinner. The restaurant’s telephone number is (408) 973-0370.