Kona Sushi - Tecumseh — Restaurant in Tecumseh

EXTENSIVE REVIEW

2-star formulation, not 5.

First time here. Probably the last.

Relatively, it is a professionally questionable establishment to layering degrees at worst. At best, it is a breakage underpass to a lifeless local, in a geographical domain with an unconfident fog of assimilating a tucked serenity—if mediocrity was a quality approach.

It is cozy inside while being audibly intrusive. It is tidy, yet careless, with food being dropped by employees and left on the floor to gaze at customers. Additionally, there is no warning about appetizers being boiling hot in preparation, causing burned palates on all dimensions.

I watched as a waitress and another employee looked down at the food on the floor, glanced back up, disregarded its mention, and ignored accountability for cleaning it. They re-engaged in an outstanding social calling with the entire staff over the Sushi Maker, delaying the process of customer orders for the duration of a flight to the United States. This forced customers to wait and listen without acknowledgment of their honest impatience.

The formality and demeanor of the waitresses are akin to robotic corporate drones: inattentive and putting in minimum effort. Their outward expression suggested repressed depression and carried tonal notes of nihilistic cadence, with hints of forced politeness that resulted in an artificial and impersonal customer service experience. To no surprise, they were preschool teachers in their previous profession. I am not sure to what extent they no longer are, nor the statistical influence on provincial homeschooling alternatives. Your children are likely subject to these individuals on a daily basis.

Perhaps they had a bad day—or a bad life, with deep afflictions scored into their demeanor. The latter seems more likely, originating from the manager’s reactions. I don’t recommend taking it personally if you decide to dine here; certainly, I have not, outside of my thorough observations and unimpressive experience. Neutral overall. The waitress manager was somewhat courteous, at least.

I might go again, though only with the preface of having two or more additional people, to draw attention away from the lively yet obsequious nature of the environment’s impressionable ambience—dull and depriving of soul. I do not suspect this was a singular event, based on the faces of the employees and their non-verbal language when engaging with the manager away from customers. An overall off-putting individual.

Kohima Tecumseh is not dissimilar to a room full of Dementors—except Harry died.

Turn down the music. I can’t hear myself talk or think. Reinstate employee training to include more interpersonal personality dimensionality when implementing interactions through inward socializing. Or, replace the manager with a holistically brighter individual. The male cook responsible for the mess was a sweet boy, though clumsy. He requires operational attention.

The Sushi Maker appeared focused but was equally disenfranchised in efficiency by the overbearing unpleasantness and interruptions from the waitresses and staff in her work environment. Despite her cordial responses, the talkativeness was consuming. Excellent sushi, though, Sushi Maker girl. If you didn’t indulge your coworkers careless impulses, your effective value would not be compromised through faster delivery. To the extent I could taste her sushi at all: Cook Boy, warm your customers with a warning of hot items prior to boiling them in a steel pan with the intent, or not, to kill tongues.

As a relevant and helpful resource for the waitresses, I recommend the Jordan Peterson personality course utilizing the Big Five Factor Model—especially for managerial growth, corporate training, and its applicable application in your restaurant environment.

As the employer and franchisee, heed this—or not—at your own expense. The cost of due diligence either comes from supporting and listening to invaluable, empathetic customer feedback or from the inevitable...

This was our first dining experience at Kona Sushi Tecumseh and it will probably be our last (this was about a month ago). Our initial first impression was good. We got seated immediately and our drinks came out quickly and the appetizer came out in a decent time. Then it was over an hour for us to get any of our main dishes. We weren't offered drink top ups either. We had SO MUCH TIME to observe how the restaurant is run. We noticed that this location over-prioritizes online orders and pickup orders. Those were pumping out SO MUCH FASTER than any of the orders for the dine-in clientele. There were sometimes 3-4 pickup orders completed before they would bring out 1 dine-in order and then we noticed other tables who arrived after us were getting their food before us. We mentioned this a couple times to the waitress who kept apologizing and thanking us for our patience. When the food finally arrived, we had already gone beyond our hunger so we were trying to eat all the rolls in a quick period of time. The waitress tried to make things right by offering us dessert on the house (free) but we did not have room for dessert as we were trying to eat all the rolls that finally came after an hour or more.

The actual quality of the food is great. Everything we had was delicious. We were a little surprised how HUGE the rolls were for all you can eat. Often all you can eat places will offer a half size roll so you can order more types. This isn't necessarily a complaint, just an observation. The food quality was great but we will try another sushi place next time since we will never want to wait that long again. I've heard great things about the Kona Lakeshore location and that they are much more efficient in their service. We will try that location next time. Or try another business for sushi.

I really don't like leaving reviews like this because I love supporting local businesses and celebrating great food, but the experience was so clearly slow that I feel forced to comment so others don't have the experience. Please, Tecumseh location, reprioritize your dine-in clientele. We were there when there weren't even any tables open on the patio or rooftop so it wasn't at full capacity. There aren't even that many indoor tables so we were shocked how...

For context, I've had Kona takeout at least 15 times over the years at both the Walkerville and Tecumseh locations, and consider it one of the better sushi restaurants in Windsor. On a whim, we decided to get all you can eat here for the first time.

The rolls I normally get were great and tasted very fresh. The Green Dragon was wrapped a bit limply this time causing the julienned cucumber to fall out but that's a minor thing. In the end, it was still tasty.

Unfortunately, the fried food was an absolute miss. Kona's tempura-battered foods are normally nice and light. This time around they were absolutely sopping in oil and made my girlfriend and I kinda queasy from the first couple bites.

It's a shame because the tempura normally doesn't taste like this but this experience absolutely destroyed my insides over the course of the night and into the morning to the point where I don't think I will ever dine in at Kona and I have a feeling I'll be less inclined to order take out as well.

They had the best green tea ice cream I've ever had which was creamy and earthy with no graininess or large ice crystals. They also had the worst coconut ice cream I've ever had which tasted like frozen sunscreen.

No complaints about the service. The waitress was friendly and we were not kept waiting long for water refills or other requests such as the one below.

The music was absolutely blaring above us for about half of our meal until I had to politely ask them to turn it down since I couldn't hear my girlfriend speak right next to me due to Justin Bieber rapping in "Baby" at seemingly 110% volume. I get it, front of house wants to chill and listen to their preferred songs louder while they work but the glare we got through the glass at the bar after they turned it lower was unnecessary.

I ate here around 14 hours ago yesterday and my stomach is still making noises I can hear while just sitting here. This isn't something that happens when I order takeout from Kona.

Regardless of the bad experience I just had, if you order strictly rolls, you can definitely get your money's worth for $38.99+tax eating...