Gen Korean BBQ House — Restaurant in Alhambra

I finally was able to try Gen Korean BBQ - I can definitely see why people enjoy coming here as the ambience and location seem to set Gen apart from most other KBBQ places in the SGV.

Expect a very long wait on Fridays and the weekends. The weekdays can get busy, too but the weekends - you might find yourself waiting up to an hour! And the parking is horrible. When the new structure opens up, it might allow for better parking, but even with the limited parking, people are still willing to wait up to an hour to eat at Gen!

The restaurant is incredibly loud. There are two stories - I think the upper story is more for bigger parties, birthdays, etc. while the bottom story houses the individualized tables that only have 1 grill at each booth. With the atmosphere, it's pretty impossible to have a nice place to eat with a relaxed vibe. And because people are waiting, there's a huge crowd at the front of the restaurant, loud chatter - just very noisy.

Service is really good. The workers were efficient and quick to respond to any items we needed to add or order. They constantly changed our grills and didn't pressure us to leave.

And the food - it is pretty good. The sauces are just okay, and the banchan aren't anything special, but the beef tongue, brisket, ribs, intestines were some of my favorites. The tofu soup was also pretty tasty. The only thing I didn't really like was the shrimp.

Prices aren't too bad. I think you get what you pay for. I don't know if I would return, just because the setting and atmosphere is too busy for me. And with parking being such a hassle - I'd just go somewhere else for KBBQ. But if I had to return to eat KBBQ at Gen, I...

The food is ok, but service was hot garbage. He introduced himself as our waiter for the night, then disappears for 45 minutes before coming back. For 25 of those 45 minutes, we didn't even receive our food until another waiter asked if we got our food yet. Then he started putting sauces and everything that should've been prepared before the meat came out, but wasn't. Then our original waiter comes back and asks if we ordered food, but we already did with the other server. Man walks past our table four times because I guess he had better things to do than to change a customer's pitch black grill. I guess I'll just sit here and watch the grill burn instead of actually eating because that's what I came out to do. Couldn't even flag him down because he was being too busy for customers to ask anything from him. I definitely didn't see him handing some money to a co-worker and having a fun time while my girlfriend and I were waiting for both our food to come out and our grill to be changed. It was very ironic that the server who introduced himself to us spoke less AND provided less (worse as well) service than the one who didn't even introduce himself to us. Other than asking us what food we wanted the one time, he asked if we "want anything else" the final time he spoke, and we said just the check. Man instantly slides the check towards my girlfriend and quickly walks away without saying a word. He then disappears for another 15 minutes before coming back and taking the check before asking if it was ready. Then again, 5 minutes later, he slides the check towards my girlfriend and leaves without a word. Thank you for your fantastic...

Disappointed with Last Night’s Visit – Poor Service for a Big Group

My friends and I have been long-time customers of Gen KBBQ for years, and we’ve never had any issues before. Unfortunately, last night’s experience was incredibly disappointing and frustrating.

We came in with a group of seven, expecting the usual good service and portions. However, our server seemed inattentive from the start. He never offered us refills on our drinks so we had to keep reminding him, which is something you shouldn’t have to do at a restaurant known for its service.

What made things worse was how long it took to get our food. Every set of meat we ordered took about 10-15 minutes to arrive, which completely slowed down the dining experience. And when it did arrive, the portions were laughably small for a table of seven adults. It felt like we had to keep flagging him down just to get enough food for everyone, which completely defeats the purpose of an all-you-can-eat KBBQ.

To top it all off, before we were even done eating, the server came to our table and told us our time was up and that we could pay our tab “whenever we pleased” even though we were still hungry and clearly still waiting on food. That felt incredibly rushed and dismissive, especially for a large group that hadn’t even been seated that long.

We’ve always enjoyed Gen in the past, but this experience left a bad taste. If management is going to limit dining times or cut back on portion sizes, they need to communicate that upfront not rush guests out mid-meal. This visit was a huge letdown. Not going to lie, we did leave a minimum tip as a...