The Madness- North Asheville — Restaurant in Asheville

Sushi and burger goodness with a few flaws.

First, I love the concept. I’m a big sushi fan, and my husband can always use a good burger, and my teenage son can always use a good burger as well as some sushi. So they’ve got a little something for all of us. There are some wonderful things about this restaurant, but there’s definitely some areas for improvement.

I’ll start with the positives and then move on to areas to improve.

The pros: The food is of consistent quality. I was worried if they made burgers well then they would have a hard time with sushi and vice versa. But they seem to have a handle on both of them. The added bonus of this fusion menu is that it gives the chef an opportunity to play with both sushi and burger ingredients in one dish. So typical accompaniments for burgers, such as french fries, can be topped with sushi elements, such as crab.

The ambience is also on point. I spent my 20s in San Francisco and my 30s in Boston, and this feels like a very city restaurant. And I mean that as a compliment. It feels very sophisticated. The lighting is excellent, the bar area is dramatic. It’s really a nice interior.

The cons: I know we are still in a Covid society with echoes of Covid everywhere, but the Madness seems to be struggling each visit with not only a long wait to be seated, but a long wait for a server, once we are seated. We’ve talked to the server about this. The first issue is that I’m not quite sure that the host knows how to properly estimate a real wait time. We are often told 20 minutes, for it to be well over half an hour. They do give you a little app of sorts to keep track of wait time, but that does not seem to lessen the wait time. Once inside (if there is a long table wait) then the servers do feel a bit harried. However, the servers do seem to be able to estimate what’s happening in the kitchen! Last week we almost left (even after waiting for half an hour for a table) because we were worried that we would not be able to make a movie showtime, and the server was able to really tell us what was happening in the kitchen and give us a true estimate, so we realized that we did indeed have time to eat

The other area of improvement for the restaurant is that it is always cold. If I go in the summer, it’s cold, if I go in the winter, it’s cold, if it’s raining outside, it’s cold. I think they really need to adjust the temperature a little bit.

All the said, I really hope that this restaurant can continue to thrive (they certainly seem busy enough in the evening) because it is a wonderful neighborhood favorite and a welcome addition to...

I really wanted to love this local place but I just think it fell short in all aspects. First there was no kids menu to be found so I had to ask the server who said they have “sliders, nuggets, or grilled cheese” not many choices so I decided on nuggets. When they came out there were these bite size little fried bits with hardly any chicken and it was thigh dark meat. It was so chewy I was hesitant to even let my little ones eat it. Our appetizers came before we ever got our bar drinks. I loved the flavor of my veggie spring rolls but they were very cold in the middle like they had just been thrown from a freezer into the fryer but not heated all the way. After the kids meal arrived and I saw the dark meat I immediately regretted ordering the grilled chicken sandwich for myself. I was correct in my regret because I found out it too was thigh meat (who serves a grilled chicken sandwich out of dark meat??) I believe this should be noted on the menu. I had to order something different and I chose a burger. Sadly this didn’t come out until my husband and both kids were finished eating. So I ate by myself while my little ones were ready to go. The burger was so greasy, as were the kids “nuggets” and had zero flavor unfortunately. Im sad we wasted 75$ on a few burgers drinks and an app. It’s unfortunate to look forward to enjoying a meal and it being disappointing in...

Had super been looking forward to trying this place, since I'd heard good things. We went for lunch on a Wednesday. Not super busy...we were seated within seconds of walking in. Server came fairly quick to get drink orders, then proceeded to argue with me when I asked for Sierra Mist. ( I'm a Coke drinker, but cannot stand Pepsi. So if Pepsi products are the only thing available, I just get Sierra Mist) She came back with our drinks, took our food order & once the food came out, she disappeared. Absolutely the WORST service I've experienced in a long time. Our takoyaki was ok, but kind of soggy & doughy. My spicy kani salad was oversalted & over spiced. I would have sent it back, but our server never returned. We had to flag down a different server for our check & boxes. The kani salad I took home was ok, once I added a few things to it. Mostly a ton of rice to mitigate the salt. I'm not entirely sure why our server never came back. They were not that busy. Perhaps she was angry that I didn't take her advice on my beverage. I do know that our food was dropped at the table & no one ever came back to check if things were properly cooked or to refill drinks. She didn't even speak when she brought the food. Just set our plates in the middle of the table & walked off. Just awful, awful service. I doubt we will...