Mits Akashi
September 19, 1934- October 22, 2022
Mits Akashi, beloved owner of Moshi Moshi, passed away on the evening of Saturday October 22. Mits had battled various illnesses with a smile on his face for many years. He was 88 years old.
Mits was in an internment camp during World War II. Despite that, he served in the U.S. Army and was a veteran of foreign wars.
His first restaurant was Nikko on Van Ness Avenue, which he opened in the 1970s. Many loyal patrons recall raucous and memorable evenings spent enjoying Mits’ extraordinary hospitality as he wandered around the restaurant with a teapot full of hot sake, making sure no one’s cup was ever empty. Nikko became a hangout for San Francisco 49ers players during the team’s heyday years. Famous local musicians spent long evenings there.
Mits brought the teapot with him when he opened Moshi Moshi in Dogpatch in 1986. The first few years were brutally tough, as the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency torn up Third Street for several years to install the T-Line. Mits hung in there. Moshi became a neighborhood institution, a meeting place for locals of all ages, and races. Mits made his customers feel like old friends.
He’ll be remembered for his generosity, his support of local schools and of the Japanese Cultural and Community Center in Japantown, his constant smile, his warmth…and his teapot of hot sake!
He can be remembered best by stopping by Moshi Moshi and having a drink in his memory.
Kari Marboe
December 26, 1984 – June 14, 2022
An artist and Assistant Professor at California College of the Arts, Kari Marboe was a devoted teacher with a special gift for inspiring students. At CCA, she served on the Oakland Campus Legacy Committee, acting chair in Ceramics, and in the First Year and Upper Division Interdisciplinary Studio programs.
Born in New York, New York and raised in Larchmont, New York, Kari graduated from Mamaroneck High School and studied Art History at Oberlin College, Ohio, before transferring to CCA to earn her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Ceramics, with honors, in 2008. She earned her Master of Fine Arts in Art Practice from the University of California, Berkeley in 2012, where she received the Eisner Award for Art Practice. She was a San Rafael, California, resident.
Kari used innovative research and collaboration across disciplines to create art with compelling human stories. She exhibited at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, The Museum of Craft and Design, Southern Exposure, Mills College Art Museum, St. Mary’s College Museum of Art, Latham Square, the Berkeley Art Center, A-B Projects, Yolo Arts, Pence Gallery and Epperson Gallery in California, and in New York, Ohio, Maine and North Carolina. She was elected an International Academy of Ceramics member in 2021.
She’s survived by her parents, Barbara Hewson and Charles Marboe, and sister, Elinor.
Kari’s family and friends have established the Kari Marboe Endowed Lectureship at California College of the Arts, an annual lectureship to honor her commitment to creative collaboration, exploring curiosities and themes of our common humanity. To support, visit Kari Marboe Endowed Lectureship at California College of the Arts.
