Sushi Aria Japanese Restaurant — Restaurant in Richmond

Very frustrating experience. I have never written any negative reviews about restaurants because I understand it is a very high-paced environment so problems are bound to happen.

I've been to Sushi Aria a dozen of times (no complaints prior to this incident). Anywho, I ordered takeout at Sushi Aria, the staff that took my order was fairly nice and he mentioned that the order would take 15-20 minutes.

I came back in 20 minutes and waited for an additional 10 before I asked them to check on the order. They said they were still waiting for the 2 pieces of Tamago Nigiri Sushi to be ready. After another 10 minutes of waiting, I tried to get the other waitresses' attention and ask about the orders but they completely ignored me. Finally, after a total of 45-50 minutes wait, I told the original staff that took my order to just cancel the tamago because it has taken a ridiculous amount of time. So at this point, I see that they're finally packing my bags (noodle and soup that been sitting on the table for 30+ minutes mind you).

Then the most frustrating part happens, they made me wait another 5 minutes before somebody with the capability to cancel/refund can come and cancel my Tamago. I had to explain that it has taken 40 more minutes than expected and the waitress gave me this extremely unpleasant look and said, "who told you it can be done in 20 minutes". I told her they have two options, either refund me or get me the remaining order within 5 minutes. I figured that was fairly reasonable but she refused to do a partial refund as I paid through credit card. This conversation pretty much went on for a few minutes before she finally said "Oh but your tamago is in this box already" (which was packed 10 minutes ago).

I was pretty speechless and just left. When I went left, my gf who speaks korean overheard the waitress say (in korean) "What's wrong with that guy (me)".

Went home, the fried stuff, the soup udon and everything's cold (home is pretty much next door too).

Extremely disappointing customer service experience. If they had told me it was going to be a 40 minutes wait, I would be okay with it. But the baffling part is the lack of attention they give you, lack of willingness to follow-up and provide answers.

Lost a...

This place used to be a place I would pick when I wanted sushi. But when I went yesterday evening, we had the worst service experience.

Shortly after we were seated, the server tossed the menu's onto the table, not placed, and told us that we needed to wait to be seated. That server was not the person that led us to the table when we entered, and so we were quite shocked at the attitude. Naturally, I responded with "excuse me?" And to my shock, the server, in a more hostile tone, repeated that we needed to wait to be seated, despite us being brought to the table from the door.

Logically, I requested to speak to the server's manager, and the server retorted with "I am the manager" in a very condescending manner. I've worked in the sales and customer service industry for over 3 years and one of the first things we are taught is to never negatively engage any customer.

At this point, I was quite furious with the service and decided to leave. Given how horribly I was treated by this "manager", I requested a contact method with the owner of the restaurant from a different server. While I was requesting this information, the "manager" pretended to answer phone calls and act busy to avoid eye contact.

The sushi chef saw how disrespected we felt and came out after us to apologize. I feel sorry for the chef, as he was very friendly and wanted to try and rectify the horrible customer service we just encountered. He even demanded the "manager" to come and apologize for the abysmal attitude towards us. I would have let bygones be bygones, had the "manager" not scoffed and eye-rolled during, what could only be described as, and appalling effort of an apology.

I'm sure the food quality is still as good as the many times I've gone here, but unfortunately, the horrible service ruined any appetite I had...

Prior to yesterday, this place used to be my top 3 neighbourhood sushi place. After encountering extremely disappointing customer service, I’ve decided to never return.

Had a horrid experience with an eye rolling, self-proclaiming “manager”. We were led to table by the first waitress. Then, another waitress came and welcomed us with a comment of “next time, please wait to be seated” and threw the menus on the table. I was shocked and she repeated the same phrase once again, this time, enunciating each word clearly, in a condescending tone as if we did not speak English. Upset by this type of service, we requested to talk to the manager and she shocked us with saying she is the manager.

At this point, we started to leave as there was no reason to pay for this type of attitude. The manager “smirked” and said ok! I requested to then talk to this manager’s boss and was in disbelief when she glared at me and ignored me, pretended to be on the phone for a full 10 minutes.

My family and I were in absolute disbelief of what just happened. Thankfully, the sushi chef did try to resolve the problem by asking the manager to apologize. Of course, the manager gave us a very well deserved apology. But her poor attitude when she apologized also reflected on her reluctance of doing so.

We thank the sushi chef for making us such great food over the years but unfortunately we will never return to this restaurant again.

I highly recommend this business to train their staff (especially their managers). Great service is the key to having a good restaurant business. Otherwise, why not just stay home and eat?

So dear “manager”: next time we won’t wait to be seated cuz.. sorry there’s no...