Gogi Korean BBQ Observatory Halaal — Restaurant in Observatory

The service at this restaurant was absolutely disgusting. And for the price that you pay, the service you receive is so poor it will make you never want to go back despite the food itself being a winner. Half the menu was unavailable to start with. We opted for the bbq and received our food (which is all raw ingredients that don’t need prep) an hour later and after having to ask for it. There were only 4 other tables with customers and they were fully staffed but mostly chilling in the back office or joking about in front of the kitchen area. We had a waitress that disappeared never to be seen again. Then the next waitress took our order and also disappeared. Then we had to call anyone who looked up and made eye contact for assistance. The bottomless sides you pay for were not readily available, so our meat all got cold while we waited for sides that the waitresses kept forgetting to bring. After a while we requested to speak to the manager and was told she was too busy to come out. When we finished our meal we requested her again and lo and behold she was one of the shoddy waitresses that served us and disappeared. She also said she was aware that the customers were unhappy but she was busy at the time and wasn’t informed that we requested to speak to her. We paid R700 for our meal that took 2 hours to receive and braai before we could eat. Despite the food being tasty I will never return to this restaurant again and wouldn’t recommend...

Arrived for a booking today that was messed up by Gogi after confirming on Wednesday. They botched up 2 bookings and were not accommodating at all. 6 weeks of waiting only to receive pathetic service upon arrival and having to listen to excuses about having made bookings for multiple people with the same name and that they don't know how else to say sorry. Definitely not worth the hype. I would actually give this place a minus rating if it was an option. Very disappointing.

We were invited back and this is my update on my previous review.

Seah, our waitress, was great. She was very kind and helpful in assisting us with the menu as well as Claudia, and Armien with the grill as well. Staff was very friendly.

I highly recommend the Spicy Korean Fried Chicken. Delicious! The dumplings were tasty. But it is a matter of preference. Of the BBQ items, I enjoyed the ribs due to flavour. It's a fun experience. They definitely went the extra mile to change our initial bad experience due to the error and it was appreciated.

I can confidently say that you will enjoy it if you looking to try something new.

Thank you James for all your effort you put in to making it...

Before I get attacked by the person who responds to these reviews - I MADE A BOOKING! Lo and behold when I arrived at the restaurant after driving almost 40km I get told there was an issue with the booking because they had 3 people with the same name who made a booking for this week and that my booking doesn’t reflect on their system. Seriously???? So you can’t even get bookings right when people have the same name??? But you attack people for not making a booking before coming to the restaurant? No accommodation was even made to get us seated despite having made our booking 6 weeks ago.

Update of previous review (08/10/2023): So after our last botched visit James, the owner, gave us a call to apologise and try to determine what had gone wrong. He graciously requested that we come back so that they could make up for what had happened and so that we can experience Gogi as it was meant to be. We are so glad that we went. When things run smoothly (🫣🤭) it is quite an experience and the food was really delicious!

We will definitely be back😊 Thank you to James, Sia, Claudia, Armien and the rest...