Japanese restaurant Watami opened this week in the Commercial Street space that once was home to Sapporo.

Located at 230 Commercial St., the new Watami is the restaurant’s second location. Watami originally opened in downtown Brunswick in 2021.

Watami takes the place of Sapporo, a Japanese restaurant that was in that space for nearly 40 years before relocating to Falmouth earlier this year.

Owner Kevin Chen said his Brunswick customers had urged him to open a Portland location. The Portland space has room for about 80 customers inside and an additional 20 seats on the outdoor patio, about twice the capacity of Watami’s 50-seat Brunswick restaurant.

The Old Port Watami has the same menu as the Brunswick location, with some additional offerings like hibachi grill dishes. Chen said Watami prides itself on its large selection of house specialty sushi rolls with unconventional ingredients and flavor combinations. The menu also features ramen dishes, poke bowls and a selection of boba teas; Chen said they’ve also added Cuban coffee.

“Portland definitely has a lot of competitors in the market, but we think we can bring something different to the table,” Chen said.

Watami is open seven days, from 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and from 11:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday.