Kuma. — Restaurant in California

I love the food at this place. The ramen is still my favorite ramen that I've had... but the last few times (at LEAST) that I've gone, the customer service wasn't that great. They take a VERY long time to ask for drinks, meal orders, and if you ask for anything extra it takes them a long time (if they bring whatever you've asked for at all). Recently I went with a friend who ordered sushi and I ordered ramen. They brought her sushi out and she finished her meal, an hour later and they forgot my ramen altogether. They gave me a coupon for a free ramen on my next visit. OK. Previously the mess-ups that happened were more annoying than anything, but this was the first time we had a mess-up that was actually very inconvenient.

The next time another friend and I went and ordered a bunch of stuff. We always split the bill evenly. When the waiter gave us the check, we gave two cards and asked them if they could split it evenly (as usual). When they brought the receipts back, they charged her twice. Because it took so long to get the waiters attention we didn't even try and rectify it with them--we instead had to go to an ATM to get cash so she wasn't out that half of my bill. Another inconvenience.

Two days ago I took a friend who had never been there before. We were seated, waited for a while, then they came to ask what we wanted to drink. We asked for matcha tea, some sweetener packets, and straws. When we saw the waitress she brought us water. We waited another 10-15 minutes, got the tea. We asked for sweetener and straws again. The waitress disappeared and we didn't see her for the rest of our meal. A waiter came out and asked if we needed anything. I asked again for straws and sweetener. 10 minutes later he brought me sweetener. No straws. At this point I thought OK, forget the straws. At least we got sweetener.

Our combo tempura plate came. The tempura sweet potato was burned. Like, couldn't bite through it. It also didn't have tempura shrimp, which is part of the plate. After we finished our tempura and told them about the shrimp, they brought us two pieces of it -- about 15-20 minutes after we had our tempura. Even though we received our ramen, it was almost another hour until we were able to leave because of the slow service.

The second waiter we had was so nice and really great, but we still didn't get everything we wanted. And when we were trying to leave we asked for one of the ramens to be boxed up, the bus boy dumped the ramen out and we had to wait for a new one to-go. This wouldn't have been so bad if my friend didn't have a plane to catch in SLO, but the amount of time we spent there was uncalled for. I like this place but if you're impatient or extremely hungry, I don't recommend unless you have a snack. And you're OK with not getting what you order...

I order takeout from here fairly often. The consistency of the dishes- ingredients, how they're put together- varies wildly and lately portions have been quite small, with tiny rolls much smaller than you'd normally see at a Japanese restaurant. But its usually tasty and fresh. The one time I went there in person I found the counter service lacking, the employee was rude and unfamiliar with the menu, but ordering through an app seems to work mostly ok. But 2 days ago I took my family from out of town there to eat in, and the experience was not only awful, but I was embarrassed for talking the place up. The young woman working the counter was so unbelievably rude and unhelpful. There were signs up in several places about a Ramen special, which my sister tried to order for my niece, only to be told they were out of it. When she tried to ask about something similar to order, she was snapped at "I already told you were out of that" but wouldn't say if it was all ramens, or just a particular ingredient. It went on like this, we are asking questions and trying to figure out what to order and getting rudeness and hostility from the counter person. One person in our group ended up not ordering at all because she couldn't find something that was actually on the menu AND available. We were given our saki but counter girl never brought our waters even though I went back twice over the next 10 minutes to ask for them, along with the included kids drink that was never offered. We finally got waters from the guy running food after we asked for them. And then our 3 items of food came out, one at a time, over the next 20 minutes. The crispy rice appetizer came out last, and it was so overfried it was barely edible.

We left and went to Beerwood and ate the rest of our meal with friendly service off of tables that were not sticky. I'll NEVER take people to Kuma to eat again, and it's probably going to be a while before I order takeout again either. There is a huge disconnect here regarding what it means to serve the public and do it well. The food comes closer but the people you're choosing to interact with your customers are...

Used to be perfect, but in the last few years the service and quality have tanked.

It's no longer a sit down restaurant with wait staff. Now you order at a counter, take a number, and try to find a seat somewhere. It may be harsh to knock them on this, but it does take away from the atmosphere.

Kuma has always been a bit slow getting food out, but it's significantly worse now. I think the issue is they've expanded the number of seats but not the kitchen. We were there in December 2023 and everyone that got hot food (meaning not sushi) got their food and finished before everyone that ordered sushi. It wasn't like a few minutes, but closer to 30 minutes.

One of our appetizers came out after our mains. And we had to ask numerous times or remind them when they brought the next portion of food we were still missing an app. When they did come, it was as if they burnt the bottom of the dumplings and scraped them out of the pan because they had NO bottoms. When you picked up the dumings all the filling states on the plate or fell onto the table. To top it off they were cold.

They never checked in on tables unless they were bringing food. It would be nice to have some of the five person staff that were just standing around check in on water or tea refills. I guess because they've already got your money they just don't care.

Lastly, they were quite quick to clear things away from the table, which is nice, but they tried to take away a dish we hadn't finished, and just took away someone's plate and utensils before they were finished. On both occasions they never asked if it was ok.

It's sad such a great place is cheaping out on portion sizes, and food and service quality. I'd recommend the place for the miso ramen alone, but there are too many other negatives about the place to even mention the restaurant...