Sushi Ave — Restaurant in Gold Coast City

The food here is quite average—it was not particularly outstanding, but not bad either. However, for how mediocre it is, you cannot justify how expensive some of the plates can be. Many other sushi trains provide significantly higher quality sushi and charge a reasonable flat rate for all of their plates. On top of that, there were also a very limited number of sushi plate options you are able to choose from. I can understand that times during covid is tough so I can forgive the food.

However, this was not the reason for why I am writing this review. The customer service at Sushi Ave is essentially non-existent.

I came in today with my family to get lunch, but because we had our puppy with us, we didn't want to be rude and bring him into the store and cause a disturbance. So we asked (who we presume was the owner) whether we could sit on the tables outside the restaurant, and he told us "yes", then "read the sign" pointing at the sign at the front detailing the conditions for sitting outside when he himself could've explained those conditions to us in person.

Then as I sat down to explain to my mum what he said, he made his way towards us and told us "show me vaccine". And as we were taking out our phones to open up our vaccine certificates, he kept impatiently repeating for us to show our vaccine records. When we finally did present them, he acknowledged it then walked off without a word or even a thank you.

While we were settling down, because we were carrying a lot of things with us at the time. The man came out and said "are you eating or what?"

Throughout our time there, we were very uncomfortable as he stood around watching over us while we served ourselves and ate. At one point he was talking to an employee who just walked in and then distinctly pointed at the outside table where we sat, then directly at my brother and shook his head. There was no mistake that he was talking about anyone else but us because we were essentially the only customers there.

At the end of the day, these are tough times for any restaurant owner so the quality of food may not be up to par, which we can understand. But when you are making customers uncomfortable that they don't even want to eat at your restaurant, why even run a business in...

Extremely Disappointing and Uncomfortable Experience – Not Child-Friendly

We had a very unpleasant experience at this sushi train restaurant and will not be returning.

Firstly, the wait times for our orders were extremely long, despite the restaurant being nearly empty. The sushi train was mostly filled with leftover tuna rolls and chicken that no one seemed to be taking. We waited and waited for fresh ones, but they still took ages to arrive.

When our karaage order finally came out, it was far from crispy. It was just excessively oily and unappetizing.

To make things worse, my mum found two strands of hair in her sushi. We were initially willing to let it go, but decided to raise it with a tall Japanese looking woman who seemed to be in charge. Her response was shockingly rude and dismissive.

The most upsetting part was her behaviour toward my 3-year-old child, who was harmlessly playing by counting wasabi packets on his plate. She snatched them from him and said sternly, “You’re not allowed to do that. I’m too busy!” in a tone that left my child frightened and deeply uncomfortable.

We decided to stop eating and not order anything else. While we were still at the table and not finished, she rushed over and started counting our plates when my wife stood up to comfort our child. She then touched our plate with food still on it, without asking. That was completely disrespectful and unhygienic. It felt like she just wanted us out.

She was also handling food, clearing plates, and taking payments all while having messy, loose hair with nothing to tie it back which is a serious concern in any food establishment.

When we brought up the hair in the sushi, she claimed it came from another customer sitting near us — an unbelievable and unprofessional excuse.

We raised all of our concerns at the counter while paying, but not once did she apologize. We even told her it’s not appropriate to address a child so harshly especially without speaking to the parent first but again, no acknowledgment or remorse.

This is not a child-friendly restaurant. The food hygiene, service, and overall atmosphere were far below acceptable standards. We deeply regret not checking the reviews before dining here.

I would strongly advise others...

Average quality food. Small and squishy environment. Rude front of house staff. I had decided to come here for a quick and easy dinner while on holiday with family and because it was close by to where we are staying. I noticed on the menu “Egg Salad Roll” and I LOVE the egg salad sushi rolls. Considering back home they don’t make the egg salad roll anymore, I ordered 2 along with other items. The man who was taking my order seemed quite rude and didn’t say much. When I received my order I noticed that I received the incorrect order. I returned. I explained to the same man what I originally ordered vs what I received. He didn’t want to listen to me and told me “No you said you wanted rah rah rah” so I started getting a little agitated and made it clear that I knew what I wanted. He then asked me “So do you want another egg salad roll?” and I replied “yes please”. He then tried to charge me for it. I said “If that’s how you’re going to be about a $4.40 sushi roll, I’ll have a refund and will go somewhere else”…..He proceeded to take my order over to his little packing station, took out some rolls and replaced them with an egg salad roll then gave me $1 change. After calculating my original total for the items I actually requested, I should have received $5.40 refund from what I paid but got $1 instead. I couldn’t be arsed arguing with this stubborn human of a being any longer and so I just left.

BEFORE ANY OF THIS HAPPENED……while I was waiting in line, the man in front of me was paying for his food and accidentally gave the worker more money than what his total was. The worker looked quite sly about it until the customer corrected him and said “I gave you the wrong change”. The worker knew damn well what he would have done if the customer didn’t notice....