ZUBU Ramen - Park Royal — Restaurant in West Vancouver

Just had an awkward dining experience.

First, food was excellent. Ramen was on point. Thank you.

Unfortunately, can't say the same for the service.

We came in with a party of 8 (1 baby). The first half of the party showed up and we were seated at one of the large tables in the middle of the restaurant. There were no other 4 seat tables, no booths available. When the second half of our party came, they were seated "next" to us, but with the plastic COVID divider in between us.

Our server finished taking our order. When she came back, she notified me of the automatic gratuity of 15% on partiers 6 or larger. I told her then, we were "not" a party of 8, and that we would eat separately (since the COVID divider was in the way anyway).

She half obliged and then came back shortly after with the manager or "person in charge" who I then had to have the same discussion about the automatic gratuity. I told her that our party did not come at the same time, nor were the orders taken at the same time. Furthermore, there was a divider in place so essentially, the restaurant has forced us to be divided anyway.

Here is where I'm conflicted.

1. If we were truly a party of 8, then why not take down the COVID divider?
2. If there was another party of 4 that just happened to be seated beside my party of 3, would they then charge the entire table the automatic gratuity?
3. Is it not customary to tip 15% anyway, regardless?
4. Regardless of the customary tip, this for sure in my opinion, NOT how to get it. I was going to tip anyway, but because you've now involved the manager, I'm more inclined to NOT tip, or reduce my tip amount because you're being petty.
5. Looking around the restaurant, nobody was ordering more than just the ramen. My party of 3 ordered 2 combos AND a drink. Judging by what we've ordered compared to others, I would be tipping more anyway simply because of our higher meal amount. Should there not be some discretion of when to apply this "automatic gratuity"?

I know we're still in the middle of the pandemic but ordering "extra food" as well as having the intention to generously tip was my way of supporting the restaurant business as well as the staff.

I hate nickel and diming, but this experience "forced" me to do so. If this is how ZUBU at Park Royal is running their business, then I'll be glad to take my...

I really wanted to like this place, another local ramen place in West Vancouver would've been nice but sadly I was disappointed.

There were more servers (not including kitchen staff/the manager) in there than customers at the time, and the one that was serving us was still insanely slow with the service and didn't seem to care. I'm not asking for someone insanely passionate or someone that goes above and beyond, but something above pure apathy. An ounce effort on behalf of the server would've been appreciated, the service was below par to say the least. The server took 7 minutes to make us a tequila cocktail and a sprite, the servers are also the bartenders and it shows they have little to no cocktail experience, it took him forever to get our orders in and he failed to do the many things he said he would; never brought a happy hour menu after saying he would, didn't quality check the table once, rang in kaedama for later (it even showed he rang it in properly on the receipt) but brought it all at the same time in the bowl (if you know anything about ramen you know this ruins the integrity of the noodles) needless to say the service is the most lacking part of this business in my opinion.

Proportions were small, but that is expected in West Van, same with the high price tag. The ramen is lacking all additional fun toppings, even teh simple addition of an egg will cost you to add it, this is the fault of the menu as it encourages upselling by stripping their menu of many basic toppings on the dishes. The pork in the ramen was honestly bad relative to other places in Vancouver, they were small and lacked flavor. The noodles and broth were decent but it was an extremely expensive dish for what you got. There are countless other better ramen places even on the North Shore (not even considering downtown).

I'd definitely recommend other ramen places, not an awful experience, but overall very unimpressed would be an apt way to describe my visit. Would not return or...

What a weird experience today. We’ve been talking about this place for so long and wanting to go here. Was so disappointed today when we sat down. We had no waters brought to us and when it was time to order, we asked if we could sub the chicken chashu for pork which turned into a whole ordeal where the server nor the staff could do it. Ok that’s fine whatever. Then we ask for add ons and we asked about 3 people and they said it wasn’t even on the menue anymore. They brought us the iPad to look through which didn’t even have the prices for add ons…. Strange. Then, after giving our order and looking at the order iPad to make sure all was good, they still brought us the wrong ramen. When the ramen arrived, I asked the first guy if it was chicken broth as we asked for pork specifically ( and we KNOW what pork broth looks like) he said yes it was. I took a sip and it was clearly NOT pork. So i asked another server and he said it was chicken. It was all horrible service to begin with and even the egg looked weird and I’m a huge egg ramen fan. We just asked for the bill from our sofa and two appies and left but they should’ve docked it anyways as that was a complete waste of time

Very disappointing. There’s like two ramen places in North van and the prices that this one is, is ridiculous when you don’t even have knowledgeable staff. I Will continue to go downtown for ramen in the future. It was as if the servers just got hired and had no idea what was going on although this place has been up...