Paper Cranes Sushi - Bairnsdale

25/09/2026

We are back and open both Saturday and Sunday from 9.30am to 2pm! 🍣 🏉

10/09/2026

It looks like spring has arrived! 🍃 ☀️ You can find us 7 days at week at 127 Main St, or on UberEats! 🚚

21/08/2026

You can sign the petition in store for a new Bairsndale hospital 🙂

27/06/2026

Heading to the market? Empty fridge and hungry kids? Working? We’re open this Sunday until 2pm!
Open 7 days a week from 9.30am! 📆 🍱

05/06/2026

Heading to the local football? Not really feeling like cooking on this long weekend? We are open both Saturday and Sunday from 9.30am to 2pm! 🍱 🏉 🍣

03/06/2026

Winter has arrived 🥶 We are open as usual, 7 days a week with dinner available Tuesday to Friday until 8pm!

22/05/2026

It’s this morning from 10.30am in the middle of Bairnsdale! The 25 year old time capsule is being opened, and it’s also your chance to put a note for the next time capsule which will be open in 2051! 🧭 🧳

Bairnsdale time capsule to be reopened after 25 years.

📸 The Bairnsdale time capsule will be reopened on May 23, 25 years after its last opening.

https://bairnsdaleadvertiser.com.au/19067/bairnsdale-time-capsule-to-be-reopened-after-25-years/

20/05/2026

Open for lunch and dinner! 9.30am to 8pm on Uber and in-store! 🥣

20/05/2026

We’re going to sit this Albo AI trend out. As tempting as making him an AI-generated sushi maker sounds, we’ll pass.

We try pretty hard to stay out of politics. We just want to give people a good meal and somehow make an honest living while doing it.

But like most small business owners, we’d be lying if we said we weren’t a little nervous when the answer to every budget problem seems to involve taking another swing at small business.

As we creep towards ten years of trading in Bairnsdale, we’ve had a chance to think about how Paper Cranes almost never happened.

Driving to Melbourne every time I wanted sushi was getting a bit much. We worked in hospitality… how hard could it be to open our own shop and train ourselves in making one product well?

Minor issue though: we had less than $2,000 in the bank.

I called our accountant. He gave me advice that he made me swear I’d take to the grave (sorry Mark) : get as many credit cards as possible for the fitout, finance the equipment, survive three months, then walk into ANZ and hope someone believed in the project enough to help us refinance.

So Paper Cranes was born — over $250,000 later and fuelled almost entirely by credit cards and blind optimism. I also learnt what financial stress actually looks like.

Five years before regular (any?) wages. Then bushfires. Then COVID. There were many nights scrolling Seek thinking a safe government job and a guaranteed paycheck sounded attractive... before remembering I’d probably last three days in an office.

Since then, it’s been fuel prices, food costs, increasing utility bills, levies of all sorts and shape, compliance costs and everything else small business owners already know too well. We’ve become pretty good at rolling with the punches.

All we’re asking — from this government and the next — is keep the dream alive. Starting a business is already a gamble. Don’t destroy the already unlikely reward by drowning us in taxes. We’ll keep paying our taxes, supporting our staff, locals, schools and all the things small business do, just allow us to dream about a good outcome when it’s all set an done.

And please… don’t make me become a government worker.

17/05/2026

We are open today! We are now trading 7 days in store and on UberEats!
Open 9.30am to 2pm this Sunday 🍱