{"id":411016,"date":"2025-11-28T17:19:22","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T17:19:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/411016\/"},"modified":"2025-11-28T17:19:22","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T17:19:22","slug":"blue-fin-japanese-restaurant-remains-a-phoenix-staple-after-45-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/411016\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue Fin Japanese restaurant remains a Phoenix staple after 45 years"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lyn Yee sits on the patio of Blue Fin<\/a>, the long-running casual Japanese restaurant that\u2019s served downtown diners hearty plates of yakitori, teriyaki and katsu for nearly 45 years. The light rail shooshes by, chiming its arrival at the McDowell-Central Avenue stop. People breeze past, heading to the station or across the street to Burton Barr Library. Several step into Blue Fin\u2019s patio and pull open the glass door, letting the faint smell of charcoal waft out.<\/p>\n

Blue Fin is a bright, twee counter service restaurant. A handful of tables with yellow and blue metal swivel chairs fill the small dining room. A painted bluefin tuna, crafted by a customer, hangs next to neatly organized images of menu items and articles about the restaurant, which opened in 1981.<\/p>\n

An article that has caught customers\u2019 attention and brought some to tears over the last month is about the death of Blue Fin\u2019s magnetic matriarch, and Yee\u2019s mother, Betsy Mae Quan Toy Yee. Betsy died on Oct. 18; she was 91 years old.<\/p>\n

Lyn is the second generation of her family to steward the restaurant over the decades. She has worked at the Central Avenue spot since 2006 and started running the place amid the pandemic. The Yee family has held its ground through plenty of challenges and changes. Shiny new high-rises have shot up around them, and the light rail initially threatened their building.\u00a0 With a laugh, Lyn likens herself to the old man from the Pixar movie \u201cUp.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tWe\u2019re thankful for you. Are you thankful for us?<\/strong><\/strong>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tWe feel thankful for our staff and for the privilege of fulfilling our mission to be an unparalleled source of information and insight in Phoenix. We\u2019re aiming to raise $30,000 by December 31, so we can continue covering what matters most to this community.
Help us continue giving back to Phoenix.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\u201cI plan on keeping it going. I\u2019m trying to keep innovating but also keeping prices reasonable, keeping the hometown feel,\u201d she says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018Good food, affordable prices\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lyn\u2019s mother took over Blue Fin a decade after it opened. She was technically retired from a career in education but had dabbled in real estate, including the building that housed Blue Fin.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cShe just had all this energy, and she needed to channel it somewhere,\u201d Lyn says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This wasn\u2019t Betsy\u2019s first time working at a restaurant. Her parents opened Toy\u2019s Shangri-La<\/a> on 16th Street and Camelback in 1950. At the time, it was Phoenix\u2019s largest Chinese restaurant.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At Blue Fin, Betsy focused on hospitality, stopping by diners\u2019 tables to ask them how their food was, refresh drinks, bring out more of Blue Fin\u2019s housemade sauces or just chat. The restaurant became a staple among city officials, politicos and journalists working downtown, with lines snaking out the door at lunchtime.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s good food, affordable prices, but a lot of people came in just to see her,\u201d Lyn says. \u201cShe had that personal touch. It\u2019s nice to go into a restaurant where people know your name, people know your order.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mid-conversation on the patio, Lyn is approached by a man who shares his condolences. He\u2019s visited Blue Fin for more than 20 years and called Betsy a \u201cbright spot\u201d on those days. Her voice catches as she reflects on these little moments so many people shared with her mom.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is neat to see that,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Valentino and Grace Orosco have visited Blue Fin at least once a week for more than 20 years. The couple sits at a table filled with plates of teriyaki chicken with fried rice, salad and egg rolls. Valentino had never eaten Japanese food until he visited Blue Fin, now he thinks he\u2019s tried just about everything on the menu.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The food isn\u2019t the only reason they visit so often. They got to know Betsy, who Valentino called his \u201cBFF.\u201d They\u2019d chat with her over their meal, including her last visit in August.<\/p>\n

\u201cHer legacy will live on with Lyn and her other family members,\u201d Grace says.<\/p>\n

\"ExteriorBlue Fin has been a downtown destination for fast, fresh Japanese food since 1981.<\/p>\n

An engineer turned restaurateur<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lyn didn\u2019t intend to follow in her mother\u2019s entrepreneurial footsteps. She worked as a mechanical engineer, then in strategic planning and finance for Disney. When none of her other siblings showed interest in taking over the family restaurant, she jumped in.<\/p>\n

Though Lyn took a \u201csignificant\u201d pay cut, she says being closer to her family was priceless, even if it meant the occasional butting of heads over business decisions.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce we figured that out and I realized my mom was pretty much right on most things, then it worked out great,\u201d Lyn says with a laugh, crediting her mom for her \u201cinnate business sense.\u201d<\/p>\n

While she isn\u2019t the extrovert her mother was, Lyn says that she\u2019s heeding Betsy\u2019s advice to continue to look at the restaurant with fresh eyes. Lyn has updated the dining room with new floors and sleek stone countertops. She\u2019s added direct online ordering through Blue Fin\u2019s website. The team creates specials that change with the season, such as a cold noodle salad and tempura Brussels sprouts. Right now, Lyn is developing a winter ramen with scratch-made bone broth.<\/p>\n

\u201cI tried to change up every month,\u201d she says, \u201cjust to make it more innovative.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lyn also won\u2019t let Blue Fin lose the personalized touch that\u2019s become its hallmark. That\u2019s easy, in part because she has a team whose individual tenures stretch 25 years and longer. It\u2019s something that customers notice.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe feel like we\u2019re family,\u201d Grace says.<\/p>\n

Before they retired, the Oroscos would visit Blue Fin on their lunch break. Over the last two decades, Lyn has seen diners\u2019 habits shift. Now, most folks order online and pick it up on their way home from work. In spite of that change, the owner works to maintain connections with her customers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI do like feeling as though my work has meaning,\u201d Lyn says. \u201cYou feel like you make a difference in somebody\u2019s life. You can get to know them, or say a prayer for them, or just give them a smile.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lyn won\u2019t retire anytime soon, and she\u2019s hopeful that when she does, one of her nieces or nephews will take over the restaurant. Blue Fin\u2019s regulars want that, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just hope it never closes,\u201d Valentino says.<\/p>\n

Blue Fin<\/p>\n

1401 N. Central Ave.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lyn Yee sits on the patio of Blue Fin, the long-running casual Japanese restaurant that\u2019s served downtown diners…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":411017,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5131],"tags":[5229,5643,1587,7236,1589,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-411016","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-phoenix","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-arizona","10":"tag-az","11":"tag-downtown","12":"tag-phoenix","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-united-states-of-america","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115628472680307676","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=411016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411016\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/411017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=411016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=411016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=411016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}