Naru Sushi Japanese Restaurant — Restaurant in Winnipeg

I've been a regular of Naru Sushi for around 7 years, but after having a horrible experience trying to dine in this past weekend, I will not be coming back.

I stopped in on a Friday night and was told that my name would be put on a waitlist until a table became available. There were only two people ahead, so I put my name down and decided to wait inside the restaurant as some diners were leaving. After seating both people ahead and waiting 40 minutes standing, another group of people came in and the waitress said they made reservations online for the same time I was told I would receive a table and the new diners had priority.

I had told the waitress I was waiting 40 minutes, where she told me there was now "another list" for those not on the waitlist for reservations and my name was put on it. The waitress never mentioned this when arriving and she even showed me a paper of people waiting right when I came in. She further went on to say that there is no guarantee for a table after waiting this long indoors, which was never mentioned to me at the time of entering. While waiting, I wasn't offered a seat or nothing, and was literally told to get out of the way numerous times and to leave and come back. This is absolutely unacceptable and I have never encountered such disregard as a frequent customer.

On busy days, there should be a time restriction for 1 hour / 1.5 hours for dining in. If people are done with their meals, have paid their bills, and are sitting around, staff should inform them that other customers need to be seated. Either these measures should be incorporated or the owners should get a bigger restaurant space. As much as I love their sushi and that this was my go-to sushi place, the overall experience has turned me off...

My friend and I went there a few days ago around 9pm so it was not busy and there were only two other people eating already. As we stepped in, no one came up to us even though I made eye contact with the waitress. We decided to just pick a place to sit. We sat down and it took about 10minutes before the girl who was the waitress came up to our table, she didn't say a word, dropped off menus and water for us (even though we wanted drinks) and left without so much as an 'hi'. While we were waiting for our orders to be taken, two couples entered sat down, got a menu and water immediately.

We ended up staying there for 30minutes. The waitress never came back to ask for our order or even to check on how we were doing. We were so ticked off, we decided to leave. By the time we were leaving, the couple that came after us already got their appetizers and were eating when we left. The waitress saw us while we were leaving and didn't even make an attempt to stop us.

I would rather not bring race into it but my friend and I are blacks and if race was the reason why we had this sort of service, then I am awefully disappointed in...

Very good vegetarian options for sushi, and not expensive. So many variations! I would return.

Update: A group of friends and I reserved a table to celebrate graduation. Despite being here a number of times (often when the restaurant was busy), we received good food and service. That changed yesterday, when the service was very poor. It took 20 minutes for someone to come by to take our order- no one came to ask if we wanted drinks or appetizers while we waited for one latecomer. After ordering it took an hour for our food to come out, and the food was served to different people at different times, leading some people to be finished dinner before others got theirs. One of our guests asked when the food would be coming and they just said 'soon'. There were no apologies. Of course, the gratuity was already added, and when one of our patrons noted that service was quite poor - again there were no apologies, we paid the 15% gratuity and left. I will not be going here again out of principle due to the horrible way my friends were treated. If service is slow - apologize, check on your customers, offer them...