SURA Korean BBQ — Restaurant in Richmond

This is the kind of service you can expect when you arrive and wait in line for almost an hour to eat. This place is VERY serious about their 9 pm cutoff. Even though their website says they are open for dinner service from 5-9:30 p.m, if you are seated close to 9 p.m. they WILL enforce the 9 pm order cutoff. Don't expect any type of customer service or thorough answers if they are rushing you to order.

Also, once your order is put in, do not expect ANY followup. Our server didn't even come by ONCE to ask how our food was. Even though we asked for some more hot water for our tea, we had to ask multiple times, and even then, that was all we received. None of our plates were cleared and the only additional interaction we received was a comment saying they are closing in 6 minutes.

I understand a restaurant has hours, but they should be consistent in their messaging and service. We had a table of children and when two of the parents were helping them with their order, the servers said one of the parents had to leave. They cited covid protocols, and even though there was spacing between some tables. They turned around and sat a couple down between two other large parties. There was no consistency in how they seated people or justified their actions.

Also, the level of service the other tables received looked reasonable. But our server sat down with two other girls, and they were sitting down for at least 30 minutes. During this time they did not even walk around the restaurant and check on either of our tables.

We spoke to a different server who was walking around and letting everybody know that the restaurant was closing and when we asked why the service was poor he mentioned he was part time and apologized and said he didn't really know why. We weren't offer a chance to speak to management and when we asked who management was he pointed to the table of three girls that were sitting down.

If those were indeed the supervisors for the evening they were setting a very bad example, contradicting themselves, and also didn't even check on their tables.

We won't be going back again as this location certainly deserves the lower ratings relative to the other Sura locations.

I have been to this location two other times and although the food is good, the service was beyond poor this visit and if all this restaurant is concerned about is taking your money without putting in any effort, I would strongly suggest trying a different Sura location, or avoiding this...

I was extremely disappointed with the service of the manager at Sura Korean Restaurant located inside the Aberdeen center in Richmond. We went yesterday to have my birthday lunch with my sister. We requested to have a window seat upon arrival, but the manager said he couldn't let us have that seat as it was not yet time to let customers use that area. We were quite disappointed but we understood that it was the restaurant policy due to COVID-19. We sat down where we were designated. Then, we looked at the menu and we decided to order their lunch set, which cost $25 per person. Roughly two minutes after we placed the order with the manager, my sister realized that she couldn't eat the pork belly that was a part of that menu. We quickly let him and his staff know that my sister would like to exchange the pork belly for something else. The lady staff was very helpful, she reached out to her manager and explained our request. The manager came to our table saying that we couldn't exchange to other dishes, either you want it or just cancel the pork belly. My sister found it was so ridiculous, we couldn't replace to other dishes, and couldn't even cancel our order because he said the order had been prepared by the chef. It was within that two-minute time frame, so we couldn't even cancel or change to another menu. Because of this, we were so disappointed we said that we were going to leave because we were too disappointed with their service. The manager threatened us that if we were to leave the restaurant, he would to call the police unless we paid the bill. The problem was, we hadn’t even eaten anything yet, the food wasn't even served yet, and we were forced to pay so that we could leave! I was too disappointed, he couldn't stop arguing, stared at us with a very mean-looking face, his tone was horrid, and he kept asking us to pay the bill and we could leave. We just didn't feel like eating at that restaurant that's why we wanted to leave. The staff lady was very kind, she apologized to us, but the manager didn’t. Not long after our argument ended, there was a couple that came into the restaurant and they were put into the window seat that we were requested earlier. What kind of service is this? I'm very sorry to say that we would never go back to this restaurant. Me and a lot of my friends would like to support other restaurants in Richmond, just not Sura. I hope the owner of Sura can look into this matter in...

We overlooked that you have to sit on Japanese tatami-like mattresses with no back to lean on. It may be customary for Japanese and Koreans to sit like that, but not for us. We vacation in Japan and South Korea quite often, and whenever we see a restaurant that uses that, we go elsewhere. No matter how good your food may be, no suffering is worth it.

just before we ordered, we asked one of the waitresses a very simple question. Pointing at #21 "Beef Short-Rib Soup" and #23 "Spicy Beef Soup," we asked: "Do both of these come with rice or noodle?" She couldn't answer. She stuttered for a few moment and spurted out two words: "potato noodles." Thinking of the potato noodles offered at the "Champion Potato Noodle" stand at food court upstairs, we thought, "Oh. Cool. We like those. Let's order those two."

What do you know, it turned out their "potato noodle" were very thin strands of Chinese equivalent of rice vermicelli 粉絲. WTH! That chopstick full is not enough to fill the stomach, babe. Luckily, both soups each DID came with a bowl of rice. You could have just said the one word, "Rice!" Sheesh.

Need more training, babe, especially in English. Just by a cute smile is not enough to be a waitress. 😅

The $22 "Spicy Beef Soup" was pretty spicy, kimchi-like spicy. The taste was okay, but the ingredients were disappointing. They used shredded beef that had no meat taste and looked more like leftovers from soup after draining all its flavor. Big thumbs down on this!!

The $22 "Beef Short-rib Soup" was surprisingly quite worth its price. We counted that there were exactly 12 pieces of ribs in that little bowl. It was quite a surprise. The broth, however, was too mild; a bit more flavor would have been better. This, I could recommend. But be sure to ask for salt.

FYI, upstairs Man Ri Sung and the nearby H-Mart's cafeteria offer similar dishes for half the price, minus the suffering due to the unforgiving seats. 😅

The menu footnotes mentioned that a "15% auto-gratuity" would be added to the bill, so we expected not to give a tip. When the bill arrived, however, no tip had been compulsorily added. Phew! They must have initially backfired when they forced tips on patrons and had to revert. 😅 Just be careful, peeps. Just in case they are trigger-happy, always check your bills!! These nasty tactics are becoming increasingly prevalent in GVA...