Saku Broadway — Restaurant in Vancouver

Best idea coming here on Thanksgiving Monday. Beware: they opened at 11:30 and when we got there at around 11:15, there were already about 15 people in front of us in line. We were among the last to be seated, and the rest behind us had to wait until the first wave was finished eating! The good thing is they had a server go through the line outside and take our orders so the kitchen could get started on them before we even sat down. I also appreciated how they started to let us in at exactly 11:30. It’s the little things that count.

Thankfully the Zenbu set was available. According to the server they only serve it on evenings and weekends (?), but something about it being a holiday made it available? Not too sure but I have no complaints. For $27, you get such a generous portion that’s definitely enough for two people. The two of us ordered the Zenbu plus the Rosu Curry and we took home equivalent to the entire curry and some leftover from the Zenbu! It was a really good way to try pretty much everything they have. The scallops were surprisingly super soft and tender despite being deep fried. Same with the ebi. The pork fillet was also soft and juicy despite being super lean, but our favourites were the pork loin and chicken thigh. You know that heavy sluggish feeling you sometimes get when you eat too much deep fried food? Didn’t happen here. Win!

Rice wasn’t the best japanese rice, but I was super pleased with how thinly sliced the cabbage was and how there were actually large strips of meat in the miso soup! My only wish is that their soup was served way hotter. Their condiments are also great. You have unlimited tonkotsu sauce, which itself is on point and not too sour or salty, plus a tasty sesame sauce for the unlimited cabbage salad. There was lemon salt and sesame seeds as well on the table. Curry sauce was good. Didn’t taste like glico curry like other places haha.

Service was quick and attentive and the ambience is clean looking. I was very pleased with how little time it took between asking for the bill to paying with the machine despite the place being full. When we asked for a to go container, they also gave us little containers of tonkotsu sauce to take home as well! I was so impressed, they’re definitely not stingy with their sauce like other places would be. When we left, over 20 people were waiting. The line was longer than when we were in it. Definitely plan to either get there early or to wait....

I’ve been to Saku in Robson St. with my friends and it was a great experienced,great food and service and the ambiance is so nice. When I saw that they open Saku in Broadway I was excited and decided to celebrate my birthday dinner with my family there because they didn’t go to Saku yet. My Mom is meeting us at Saku so she arrived 15mins. earlier as I was looking for parking, so I asked her if there is a line up she said no line up. But I still asked her to tell the waitress to sign us in waiting list because there are 7 of us. The waitress told my mom we cannot be in the waiting list because we are not there yet and that it’s 18% tips because we are 7 people dining in,even though we are not there yet. I told my Mom to tell them we are walking towards the restaurant at the moment. As we walked closed to the restaurant that’s when I received a text that we are in the waiting list. When we arrived I was going in the door when waitress came and ask us to wait outside because the table is not ready but I said there are empty tables. She said the table for 7 is not ready. So we waited outside. The waitress asked us to check the menu outside. So we did. She then asked us for our order while we wait outside. I ordered 2-Zenbu Katsu which is for 2 people each order,1-seafood and Udon but the waitress still insist that we need to order 7 meal in total to get refill for salad and soup. So I ordered 1 more Zenbu Katsu. She said one more because there 7 of us I said I ordered plenty enough for everybody because we are 4 adults and 3 kids and my niece has disability and don’t eat that much and we will refill only if we need to. The 3-Zenbu Katsu is for to 2 people each order already. The waitress said she will ask the manager if what we order is enough. Then she came back to say that the manager said ok.

That is not nice she was so demanding taking our orders outside and reminding us twice that we need to pay 18% tips. I find it rude and poor customer service at the beginning. We waited another 25more minutes. The ambiance inside the restaurant is ok. The presentation of food is very nice. But the beef katsu and rice is dry. When we refill the salad and soup they don’t take away the empty bowls so we have to put it on top of each other. The washroom is clean. The other servers are nice and attentive asking us if we want refill. For the whole restaurant experienced I give them 2 star. I would recommend the Saku in Robson...

Dear Saku Management: the food is great, servers are professional, but your process for the dine in waitlist is terrible. Please please fix it!

I dine at Saku frequently, usually on weekday evenings. I’ve observed two things:

1. your estimated wait times on the yelp waitlists are always completely wrong
2. you excessively down in-person dining to accommodate food delivery services

I have young kids, and these two inter-related problems make it a nightmare to dine at your restaurant.

Example from this week: I added my family to the waitlist at 5:45, estimated seating time was 6:30 (45 min) I arrived at the restaurant at 6pm we didn’t get seated until 7:15 (90 min - double the estimated) we ordered immediately because the kids were hungry, but the food didn’t arrive until 7:50 I observed that tables were ALWAYS kept empty for 20-30 minutes even though the full party that was eventually seated at the table was waiting outside the entire time (we all talked outside). The restaurant was usually half empty inside while the crowd was outside waiting there were 4 servers for 11 tables so you were not understaffed during the 2 hours I was at the restaurant, I observed that food orders were being picked up every 10-15 min

When you have a huge crowd of hungry people waiting outside (there were probably 20-30 at any given time), you need to either stop your food delivery, or extend the waiting time for food delivery, otherwise it is very unfair to the people waiting to dine in at your restaurant. This will also get your wait time closer to your estimated. It is absolutely infuriating to see half of the tables deliberately kept empty when you have a hungry crowd of people...