Niu Japanese Fusion Lounge — Restaurant in Chicago

The food was ok, it was not exceptional, just ok. The Kimchi Ramen was entirely too salty.

The wait staff was ok, there were not a lot of patrons so I honestly expected wait staff to tend to us better (party of 5, this is important later in the story).

I brought my family downtown Chicago to watch the Air and Water show. We randomly picked Niu Japanese Lounge for a late lunch after leaving the Air Show.

It was 5 of us, my wife, my adult daughter, my two juvenile children and myself. After reading the menu we made our orders. I really was not upset with the quality of food nor the quality of service, as described above. The problem came when we wanted to pay the bill. The bill was $215.00, I expect high prices downtown Chicago. What I did not expect was a 20% gratuity added to the bill. I expressed my concern to a waitress, her response was she was not the manager, I then asked please bring the manager. The manager explained that it was their policy to charge 20% gratuity. I responded that they cannot charge anyone anything with giving notice, she informed me that it's was on the menu. I asked to see the menu again. When she brought the menu, she showed me their notice of gratuity of 20% will be added to parties of 6 or more. I explained we are a party of 5, then she insisted that they have "put the paper work in to lower the number of patron on the automatic gratuity charge". I informed her that what she is doing is illegal. She insisted that it was their policy. I informed her that her restaurant's policy does not override or out weight the law. It was not until my wife said she was willing to call the police to figure out if we were correct or not, after that she took the 20% gratuity off the bill.

During all of this arguing the party next to us was intently watching it all unfold. A young man from that group walked over and asked "they charged you gratuity?" I said yes at 20%, he was in a part of 4 and said "they charged us a Covid surcharge". Now we became aware of what Niu Japanese Lounge is doing, they illegal charge people extra on whatever they can get away with, there was no covid surcharge on our bill.

Gratuity is define as voluntary because you are happy with service. I enjoy paying gratuity for good, great, and exceptional service. I never tip below 10% and I would never tip them 20% for their level of service.

Food was ok, portions was small, wait staff was ok, prices were high compared to similar restaurants. Arguing with a customer over gratuity is ridiculous. I still gave...

My wife and I had dinner at Niu this evening. The front of house staff was friendly, our server was awesome, and the atmosphere was great. We showed up about 20 mins early for our reservation and were still seated immediately. Our glasses never went empty and our server checked in very often to make sure that we didn't need anything else.

My wife ordered the General Tsao's Chicken and I ordered the Chirashi Sushi Deluxe. We also ordered a few appetizers (The spicy garlic edamame was delicious as was the seaweed salad). The food was phenomenal! My wife's chicken was seriously the best I have ever had, and my Sushi dish was incredibly fresh and delicious.

The only complaint I had (and this wasn't enough to spoil our night overall) was the timing in which our mains were prepared. My sushi dish takes longer to prepare. Obviously with sushi the prep time is much longer especially when there are only two sushi chefs behind the bar on a busy evening. I have no issue with that at all and was more than happy to wait a bit longer for my meal. What does bug me a bit is that my wife's dish was started early knowing that mine would take a while, so she received her food about 20 minutes before I received mine. By the time I started eating, she was ready for a box. At the end of the day, I understand that things happen and it certainly wasn't enough to stop either of us from completely cleaning our plates.

After paying, as my wife and I were walking out I spoke to a manager at the front of the restaurant and gave her my feedback (I purposely waited until after we paid as I was not trying to get my meal for free or any sort of discount). She was super respectful and accepting of the feedback and all but forced us to take a drink to go on the house.

TLDR: This place is great! I will definitely be back. The staff is amazingly friendly and wants to ensure that you have the best experience possible. The quality of the food is top notch, and I absolutely recommend...

THEY ONLY TAKE CASH TO VALIDATE THE $17 PARKING AND IF YOU GIVE THEM A $20 BILL THEY CLAIM THEY DO NOT HAVE CASH TO GIVE YOU YOUR $3 IN CHANGE. I dined there over the weekend. The Resy website (attached) specifically states that if you park in the AMC garage, the restaurant will validate your parking for $17. Which is fantastic because parking is normally $35 plus. We dined… then asked the waitress to validate the parking. She said they only accept cash and it’s $17. Barely anyone carries cash these days, we don’t, and she said we can go to the ATM inside Walgreens to get cash…. I stated that the website said NOTHING about needing cash and she basically had a “it’s not my problem attitude”. We asked if we could Venmo her or the manager $17 and they give us the cash for us to pay and they said “WE DONT HAVE ANY CASH IN THE RESTAURANT” interesting….. I spoke to the manager and showed the website. He was also dismissive. So, we went to Walgreens and got a $20. I purposefully had Walgreens break the $20 because I had a hunch that the restaurant would steal the $3 in change since they “don’t have cash”. We go back. Pay the manager the $17 and I asked him…. “Hey, if we gave you a $20 bill, since the ATM only gives $20s, would you have given us our $3 in change” AND HE SAID NO THEY HAVE NO CASH!!!! SIR. I just gave you $17 in cash. I WATCHED YOU put that $17 in an envelope FULL OF CASH from other people that needed parking validated, and you are going to tell me to my face that you don’t have cash?! Gtfo. It’s was the most bizarre and gaslighting experience I’ve ever experienced from a restaurant… is the food good, yes. But I won’t be coming back because this manager is literally stealing money where he...