Blaze — Restaurant in Camden

Run. Eat anywhere else. So many red flags about this place. First of all their “Blaze” listing kept linking to a place called Hoxbill which is I’m guessing the prior name and what most of the positive reviews were for. We called to make a reservation for 2, were told we couldn’t so we went down there. Then we were told the wait was 45 mins because they were “the only restaurant open”. Um, not true, I counted a total of 9 restaurants open in Camden alone including Fresh next door. So we put our name down. We were called after 35 mins and offered a spot at the bar to eat, right in the broiling hot entrance (record temps). I asked if we could pass and wait for a table further in and was told once again that they are the only restaurant open (lie) and it would be another 35 mins for a table. Basically we would have to start over at the bottom of the list if we passed up the bar. So we took the bar out of lack of options. Before we even ordered an older man who came in at the same time as us kept asking for our bar seats. He was told to wait and mere minutes later was kindly brought to a table. When I questioned this the manager accused me of “harassing his wait staff” and expected me to bow down to him because I had snagged a lucky bar seat. Later he offered to buy us an appetizer but by then my mood was ruined. Never seen such horrid customer service and the hostesses were clearly teenagers with attitude who had no clue what they were doing.

Menu wasn’t exciting. They don’t know what the heck they are: Japanese? Pizza...

This place was unpleasant on multiple occasions. My first time there they asked for my preferred seating when putting my name on a waiting list, I told them inside or outside was fine because their outdoor seating had heat lamps. When I was called for a table 30 minutes later they offered two seats at the bar outside and away from the heat lamps. I let them know multiple times I and my wife were unhappy with the seating and the hostest responded rudely and clearly did not care. After ordering we became too cold during the wait and had to take our food to go. The next day my wife wanted to try the sushi restaurant next door Karafuto that is owned and operated by the same people, so we went to have lunch there and were greeted by the same Blaze hostess from the previous night, she let us know that the Japanese restaurant entrance is next door. When we went to the door it was locked but someone opened and let us know that it opened at 4pm. Later (around 5) I called to make reservation to “the Japanese part of the restaurant” and was told that it was first come first serve. My wife and I walked to the restaurant just to be told by the bar tender that the sushi place wasn’t open on Mondays! Why couldn’t any of the three people I previously talked to during the day let me know this, or why not list that info on google?! Come on. Good food plagued by...

We waited to be sat, then waited for 2 hours only to be told by our overworked and obviously very stressed server that our food order had not even been put in. Then we were told they were out of most of the items on our orders. From the very beginning, our server couldn't answer our questions about the menu, but then again neither could the manager when she asked him to come over. One of our original wine choices was unavailable and we had to choose another more expensive one. Then after waiting another hour for food, we received the news that no order had even been placed. It would be easy to blame the inexperienced server, but she was clearly in the weeds, and at no point was she supported by her manager at all. She came over and apologized for her mistake, apologized for the experience and was clearly devastated. We chose to pay for our drinks and leave with no food and go to another restaurant to eat. At no point did the manager come to our table except to tell us he didn't know what the special was... As someone whose relatives have been servers, and managers in a restaurant, I feel qualified to say this restaurant was unorganized, and had a lack of responsible management and leadership. They ran out of food and didn't really care that people left unhappy....