On May 26, 2026, downtown Ypsilanti welcomed Penny Roll Sushi, an Australian-style sushi restaurant emphasizing affordability, generous portions and fresh, convenient rolls for Washtenaw County.
“I lived in Australia for 11 years, nine of which were spent running a per-se American-style burger truck," owner and founder Dan Mendleson said. “That went pretty well, and we got into some fixed premises … but we were always trying to catch our tail.”
After nearly a decade on the road and in brick-and-morter kitchens, Mendleson decided it was time to come back to North America. Originally from Toronto, Mendleson landed in Ann Arbor to pursue an MBA at the University of Michigan and briefly tried his hand at management consulting. But the corporate world didn’t feel right for him, he said.
As Mendleson weighed his next move, he kept coming back to a style of food that had become an everyday staple in Australia: grab-and-go sushi rolls that were affordable, protein-heavy and served at room temperature instead of straight from the fridge.
“One of the things that I really didn’t like about a lot of American more accessible-style sushi is that it is always stone cold,” Mendleson said. “Yes, absolutely, for food safety rules you have to refrigerate it, but it completely destroys the rice; there's just no coming back from that.”
The model for sushi, Mendleson said, is less about fancy fish and more about how the sushi is prepared.
In Australia, most shops use similar-quality salmon and tuna, but the difference comes from keeping rolls at room temperature and moving them quickly rather than refrigerating them for hours.
Penny Roll’s menu follows what Mendleson describes at the Australian tier of sushi: big, filling rolls with more protein and plenty of cooked options instead of rice-heavy maki packed with cream cheese and sauces; he aims for rolls where the fillings drive the experience.
“The good shops there tend to be the opposite of what people are used to here, where the rice is the vast majority of the roll,” he said. “The protein, or whatever the filling may be, ends up being almost a majority of the roll, and more than half the menu is cooked or vegan to suit a more Western palate.”
When it came time to pick a location, Mendleson said he knew he wanted to be near a university, drawing on his experience running shops close to campuses in Australia.
Ann Arbor’s rent, however, made Mendleson quickly rethink starting the business near the University of Michigan, mostly because he wanted to keep his product affordable.
“I wanted to do a really simple pricing model, as humanly possibly affordable as I could, and I couldn’t do that in Ann Arbor, at least not initially," he said.
In downtown Ypsilanti, he saw a strip that lacked quick, relatively healthy grab-and-go options — the kind of place where students and nearby workers could get something fast that wasn’t “more calorie dense in the kind of fried or cheesy way” he saw dominating lunch.
Even as he settles into the new space, Mendleson is already thinking about how Penny Roll might reach students beyond the lunch rush.
Mendleson’s long-term dream is a direct-to-student delivery system built around Penny Roll’s compact 4-inch cylinders, with employee couriers on bikes staging from the shop to campus, keeping food at room temperature and cutting out the extra fees.
Currently, Mendleson’s menu has all of his rolls starting at $4, with salmon, tuna, teriyaki chicken, spicy tuna, spicy chicken, California and avocado styles available.
For now, Mendleson is focused on getting the basics right, and slowly building his customer base.
“I’m very happy for the slow ramp-up,” he said. “Hospitality is about making people have a wonderful experience, especially when they are excited for it.”
Penny Roll Sushi is at 12 W. Michigan Ave., Ypsilanti. Its menu is available on the restaurant website.
