Savvy on sushi in a small town

Sandra Heykamp was ready to find her business feet in Creston—her sushi skills provided just the way to do it

Sandra Heykamp enjoys sharing her sushi and her interest in Asian cuisine. — Kristen Mitchell photo

Creston may not be exactly urban, but it does have several good ethnic restaurants. However, until recently, one notable Asian fare was conspicuously absent.

“My children love sushi and whenever we would travel they would want sushi,” said Sandra Heykamp who recently opened Savvy Sushi in Creston’s downtown. “I was making sushi at home and they would bug me to make it about once a week.”

Heykamp travelled to Japan when she was 19 years old, where she began to appreciate the unique cuisine. Learning to make it involved trial and error, but now she can regularly create beautiful and tasty rolls. One of the challenges, she said, has been getting Creston residents used to the idea of sushi.

“There are so many people who don’t really understand what sushi is,” said Heykamp. “Years ago I asked my one girlfriend, who is vegetarian, if she’d ever tried sushi. She said, ‘Well, I’m vegetarian.’ Exactly! So try sushi. You can have a veggie roll. People just think that sushi equals raw fish, which isn’t true.”

Savvy Sushi has offered “redneck sushi,” made from pulled pork, as a weekly special, which is posted on its Facebook page. Another creation that has been added to the menu has given the town its own namesake sushi. The Creston Roll is made from imitation crab, carrot, local asparagus and spicy mayo.

For now, Savvy Sushi doesn’t offer sashimi—the actual term for the Japanese form of raw fish. Heykamp already finds it a challenge to daily source her fresh ingredients. She is looking forward to expanding the menu, however, as demand allows. Heykamp has already experimented with Vietnamese spring rolls, edamame and kimchi. She learned to make the kimchi from a Korean exchange student—but she had to find the proper red-chili flakes before it came out just right.

Savvy Sushi has a website and Facebook has been a great marketing tool. The business is centrally located at the Living Rock Cafe where Heykamp rents the kitchen. The coffee shop distributes her product throughout the day, even after she goes home to spend time with her kids. People have the option of texting their orders to Savvy Sushi in advance to ensure that the option they want is ready for pickup. Overall, the business is looking forward as it brings a popular cuisine to a growing town.

“Because Creston didn’t have sushi I’d kind of ask around and hear people saying they’d love to have sushi,” said Heykamp. “I was at a crossroads and I’d been working in the health-care field. It worked fairly well when my children were younger, but (with) the shift work I needed to somehow make a change and I just decided to try sushi.”