Now Open: Sakura Buffet mixes Chinese and Japanese favorites

A funny thing happened to Grace Chen while she was visiting China last month. While she was gone, Chen says, her family turned their restaurant — Happy Star Chinese Buffet — into a different kind of buffet with a different name.

The venue at 6743 West 75th Street — the old Taco Via space next to Fritz’s Chili — is now the Sakura Buffet. The Japanese word sakura means cherry blossom, and it’s such a pretty name that two other restaurants in the metro — neither connected to this location or to the Chen family — are also using it.