Kitami Japanese Restaurant & Grocery — Restaurant in Newcastle-Maitland

I rang and booked a table for 7 and confirmed it was BYO alcohol. When we arrived we put our wine and beer in the fridge and a young man behind the counter said in an irritated voice “You are not allowed to use our fridge!”. It was a warm night so we opened some beer before they got hot. I went up to the counter and asked if they had glasses we could use for the wine and was told they have a policy that we aren’t allowed to open any drinks until we’d ordered food. I said we haven’t had a chance to look at the menu yet. He refused to give me glasses until we ordered food. I asked him why he was making things difficult and there was nothing said about any rules when I made the booking. He said that if we scanned the QR code on the table it would show the rules. I said we’ll order food, that’s why we booked, we need to open the wine before it gets hot as he wouldn’t let us use the fridge. He refused to give me glasses and repeated that we needed to order food before he would give us glasses 🤯 We started looking at the menu and a couple of minutes later he called out in an exasperated voice: when are you ordering food? We decided it was too hard and went to the Young Street Hotel down the road which was great. What a shame this young man made eating at Kitami so difficult. If you don’t want people to BYO just say so. We won’t...

A good place for takeaway. Food was quite reasonable however service was a touch unwelcoming. No table service at all despite being tiny. The policy of refusing to provide glasses for BYO wine until after you have ordered ensures you do not feel too relaxed, as does the impractical layout of the furniture.

The place is more akin to a diner than a restaurant, harsh lighting with tables jammed in in such a way that tables of four cannot sit comfortably (we were initially made to sit side by side on two sides of a square table to avoid the fridge door & table behind us, then they allowed us to move one chair so our elderly companions were at least somewhat more at ease). There are even notes stuck on the tables requesting that you do not move the chairs to more conventional positions around the tables. It was...unique.

I would say it is much more suited to takeaway or a quick lunch than dinner. I would not advise attending with more than one companion as you will not be seated comfortably. Some friendliness & a little more effort/thought on the interior would...

My daughter bought a take away from there, and after leaving she put it on the car floor and the container of food was sitting on the soup and spilt all through the bag, so I took it back inside and asked the young guy if it would be ok if he could just poor it back into the container and everything would be all good and I'd be on my way, and he flatly refused to and rudely told me to do it myself, so I said that was unacceptable and extreme rude and said bad luck and again refused to put the food back in the container,, so I asked him for the owners number so I could call the owner to complain and tell them what happened and he refused and asked me to leave the shop.. I'm a 63yr old male and "never" before have I been spoken to with such disrespect in my life.. Absolutely bloody disgraceful, and the owners should be ashamed and embarrassed of themselves for allowing the young teenage manager to be allowed to talk to people the way does.....