Ikiru Sushi — Restaurant in Centre Wellington

If zero stars were an option, I would have chosen that. My son and I walked in, having read fabulous reviews and seen pics of cute little seating area. The seating area has 3 booths in not great condition and no other tables at all! We sat in the last available booth and were ignored. After 10 min, I walked up to glassed in counter and mentioned it was our first time there and asked if we had to order at the counter. The girl said, hold on as I don't know if we are taking anymore dine in's. It was an hour and a half before closing. She went to kitchen, came back and told us no more dine in's tonight. I was flabbergasted. Who dies that? Upon reflection, it seems they only want to do take out, which explains the inhospital seating area. Well it doesn't matter how good food might be. Rude is rude and we...

I called to place a take out order and after taking my order, the person on the phone told me it would be a 2 hour wait. I needed to ask my family if it was okay to wait that long, so I asked if I could call back. The person on the phone told me they would hold my pick-up time for 15 minutes. After calling 4 times and not getting through, I finally got through before the 15 minutes were up and asked to put the order through. The person on the phone then told me they gave my spot and we would have to wait another 20 minutes. I understand they're busy, especially on the weekend, but they told me they would hold my spot and then didn't. Kind of ridiculous.

The rolls are overpriced and frankly, the sushi is not very good. The rolls are loose, messy, and...

Let me just preface this by saying that the food is normally delicious here even with the fact that I have quite high standards for sushi and used to work at a sushi bar in Toronto. The Albacore Delight Roll in particular is absolutely amazing!

That said, the hours are terrible and they really seem to be understaffed for the amount of volume they take on. The last time I was here with my mom pre-covid, it took us almost twenty minutes to have our order taken and then another 50 minutes for that food to arrive. Oftentimes if you call for takeout the wait time will be multiple hours.

I will absolutely be back in the future because of the meal quality, but just keep in mind that they are typically understaffed and not equipped...