[1] Owner Ivan Orkin was born in Syosset, New York, and moved to Japan in the 1980s to teach English after graduating from college.

[2] In 1990, he returned to the United States with his Japanese wife, Tami, and attended the Culinary Institute of America from 1991 to 1993.

[4] After moving back to the United States, Ivan Orkin announced the closure of Ivan Ramen in Tokyo in November 2015, handing over the shop to his long time chef and manager, Hisao Matsumoto.

[5] Orkin moved to New York in 2011, opening Ivan Ramen restaurants in Hell's Kitchen and the Lower East Side in 2013.

A book about the restaurant, Ivan Ramen: Love, Obsession, and Recipes from Tokyo's Most Unlikely Noodle Joint, was published in 2013.