The brick passage still runs from Throckmorton Avenue through to Sunnyside. What has changed is the menu. On a weeknight at 17 Throckmorton there is ceviche, tiradito, robata and katsu, with sushi coming out of a kitchen that has also turned out French food, steakhouse plates, Spanish dishes and seasonal California cooking. The restaurant is Lima Nikkei, and it serves Peruvian-Japanese food in the historic El Paseo space.
The address has been a restaurant since 1947, as Mill Valley Briefing noted this summer, and every operator since has kept it one, even across long closures. The cuisine has changed many times. The building and its stubborn brick have barely changed. And in a downtown where some storefronts have sat empty for years, this one went from closing to reopening in less than a year.
What is at 17 Throckmorton now
Lima Nikkei was founded by Edwin Sandoval. The restaurant's own site says the menu draws on "the meeting of Peruvian and Japanese culinary traditions": sushi, tiradito, ceviche, robata, katsu and cocktails. Nikkei is the name for that style. It grew out of Lima, where Peruvian ingredients and Japanese technique came together over generations, and the restaurant took its name from the city.
The restaurant website lists dinner hours of 4 to 9 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 4 to 10 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. Reservations go through OpenTable or by phone at (415) 384-8197. Lima Nikkei runs as a family operation. A Marin Magazine restaurant profile published October 19 says that after Sandoval turned the existing restaurant into Lima Nikkei, he handed his vision to his grandson, Lukas Sibrian, who manages the restaurant, and to the rest of the family. The profile is partner content.
The restaurant was already in front of a local crowd before most people had booked a table. The Mill Valley Chamber of Commerce announced in September that the October 18 Milley Awards reception at the Mill Valley Community Center would open with appetizers from Lima Nikkei. The Chamber called it "the new Peruvian-Japanese restaurant in Mill Valley's historic El Paseo."
A building assembled from the old Mountain Railway
Each new operator inherits a building with a history. The Mill Valley Public Library's history collection, available through Calisphere, says El Paseo started as a three-story wooden building. Edna Foster later remodeled it in a Spanish style, using materials from Mexico and Fort Cronkhite along with railroad ties and spikes from the old Mountain Railway. The library also holds a 1967 photograph of the lane entrance and the storefronts beside it.
The building has also limited how much each operator could change. When Paseo Bistro's team was preparing to open in 2020, its general manager, Kevin Pacotti, told the Mill Valley Chamber that "the vast majority of the historic exposed brick space" stretching between Throckmorton and Sunnyside would stay as it was. His team was "adhering to the classic motif and ambience of this place" and planned only a light remodel to bring in more daylight and update the bar. The menus have changed far more than the bones of the building.
Six menus at one address
Here is how the menus have followed one another at 17 Throckmorton, as reported by local and food press:
| Period | Operator and menu | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 1947 | El Paseo opens as a French restaurant | Eater SF, 2018 |
| 2009 | Sammy Hagar and Tyler Florence announced as new owners | Eater SF, 2009 |
| 2011 | Reopens with Florence as a steakhouse | Eater SF, 2018 |
| After the partnership ended | Hagar switches the menu to Spanish cuisine | Eater SF, 2018 |
| Through mid-2018 | Chef Todd Shoberg cooks Northern California food; Hagar closes El Paseo in July 2018 | Eater SF, 2018 |
| July 2019 | Ki Yong Choi's Cathedral Hill Associates takes over | Mill Valley Chamber, 2020 |
| Dec. 10, 2020 to Dec. 20, 2025 | Paseo Bistro, New American | Mill Valley Chamber, 2025 |
| 2026 | Lima Nikkei, Peruvian-Japanese | Mill Valley Briefing, 2026 |
The Eater SF report on the 2018 closure quoted Hagar saying the restaurant had become "far too time consuming" while he finished an album and kept up his performances and TV series. The Mill Valley Briefing reported that Hagar sold to Choi in 2019. Paseo Bistro opened on December 10, 2020. The Chamber wrote that the team had waited out the pandemic and then served "a packed house Saturday night." Five years later, a December 2025 Chamber post announced the bistro would close on December 20.
This handoff took months
After El Paseo closed in July 2018, the space stayed dark until Paseo Bistro opened in December 2020, almost two and a half years later, with a pandemic in between. The most recent handoff moved much faster.
- December 20, 2025. Paseo Bistro serves its last night, according to the Mill Valley Chamber.
- By July 12, 2026. A Lima Nikkei sign is up at 17 Throckmorton. The Mill Valley Briefing reported that the state's Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control lists Edwin Raul Sandoval and Ana Antonia Sandoval as owners of the liquor license.
- By September 24, 2026. The Chamber calls Lima Nikkei "the new Peruvian-Japanese restaurant" in El Paseo.
That puts Paseo Bistro's last night and Lima Nikkei's first mention as a new restaurant about nine months apart. On the rest of downtown, some storefronts have taken far longer.
The block around El Paseo
In mid-August, the Mill Valley Briefing walked every block of downtown and counted 93 street-level storefronts. Sixteen had no open business. Seven of those had no tenant lined up, which the Briefing put at a 7.5 percent "real vacancy rate." That compared with a national retail vacancy rate of 6 percent in the second quarter of 2026, as reported by Cushman and Wakefield. The other nine had signed new tenants that had not opened yet. The Briefing also reported that 57 and 60 Throckmorton, just up the street from El Paseo, had sat empty for years before tenants were confirmed.
These were the signed tenants listed in that August survey, apart from Lima Nikkei:
- Treehouse MV, retail and co-working, in the old Bank of America at 60 Throckmorton
- Indoorra, a kitchen systems retailer, on the Throckmorton block near 55 Throckmorton
- Wonderhouse, a family co-working space at 55 Sunnyside in the former post office building, expected this fall
- Delphine, preparing to open in the former Gravity Tavern on Miller Avenue
- Bootjack bakery, taking over the former Urban Remedy storefront on Miller Avenue
- Milkweed, a kids' clothing store, in the old Sprout space
Milkweed Kids has already opened. It held its grand opening at 12 Miller Avenue on September 12. Delphine's website still says "coming soon," with a menu of mezes, seasonal vegetables, seafood and grilled meats.
The Briefing tied part of downtown's pace to city rules that changed this year. A November ordinance dropped new parking requirements for most changes of use under 5,000 square feet. A zoning rewrite that took effect May 20 replaced the old Conditional Use Permit with a faster Administrative Use Permit for most ground-floor businesses. Senior Planner Daisy Allen told the Briefing the new administrative permit fee is $1,954 and the standard use permit fee dropped from $7,339 to $5,647. Jim Welte, executive director of the Mill Valley Chamber of Commerce, described another obstacle to the Briefing: "Developers who have money to purchase, but don't yet have a vision for their space."
El Paseo has not had that problem. Even after its longest closure, the space came back as a restaurant, and every new owner since 1947 has taken it on as one. That held through the steakhouse, the Spanish menu, the bistro brunches, and now Lima Nikkei's ceviche and robata.
If you've been meaning to try Lima Nikkei, I'd love to hear what you thought of the room. I'm also glad to talk through which storefronts on Throckmorton and Miller are filling in next. I follow downtown Mill Valley closely, and if it's useful, Holly Welch is always happy to hear from you. Let's Connect.