KPOT Korean BBQ & Hot Pot — Restaurant in Columbus

I had visited this restaurant at least twice and both times, I had left incredibly disappointed. It’s very unfortunate since I was excited to hear about an “all you can eat” kbbq place in Novi. I will sum up my experiences in depth below. TL;DR service is horribly inconsistent and mediocre at best, constant wrong orders and wrong charges on the receipt. Food was average but came out slow. Not worth the 2 hour+ wait times imo. Ventilation is not adequate so the whole restaurant is filled with smoke (fire hazard). Bathroom and general sanitation was sub standard.

The first time I visited this place, there was quite a wait time to get a table so I approached the counter and was going to ask to put my name down on the wait list. The 3 ladies working the counter were incredibly unprofessional as they were hugging each other and joking around as I tried to tell them what I wanted to do. I asked for the wait time which was 2 hours for a party of 3. As I asked to put my name down for the wait list, none of the ladies at the counter put my name down and ignored me to serve another customer. I got a bad impression of the place and decided to take my business elsewhere.

The second time I came back and decided to give the place another try, thinking the first time was a fluke. Again the wait time was close to two hours for a party of 2, which was fine as I expected a high quality dining experience worth the wait. Sadly, I got the opposite. As we sat down, nobody came to greet us and get us beverages . We were patient and waited another 5-10 minutes before flagging down a random staff member to have a waiter come over to our table.

Finally, a waiter came and took our order. This place served both hotpot and kbbq so we opted just for the bbq. We ordered 1 plate of the dinner items and a few veggies, roughly 6-7 plates of meat portions. The waiter had bought us the wrong order which included items for hotpot (tofu, fish cakes and pineapple slices) which made no sense at all. The wrong orders were consistent during our stay, happening at least 4 other times. We never got the full order and had to correct the staff many times. Food was average/good but service was definitely lacking. The bathrooms were not clean as there was garbage on the sink countertops, greasy/slippery floors and urine puddles under the urinals. As I passed by some staff, I overheard one waiter say to another staff member, “what would they do if we all just walked out?” (Which is Incredibly unprofessional to say out loud in front of customers and indicating that there could be some management problems).

The overall dining experience was not bad until it was time to pay the bill. They had charged us incorrectly as a 2 person buffet should be about $30/person for AYCE kbbq so the estimated total should be around: $70 including tip/tax. The check we got had a final total for $85-90, which we knew was wrong. It turns out we were charged for a $12 sake which we never ordered. When we informed our waiter, he surprisingly took money out of his own wallet and handed us the difference, which is entirely absurd.

I could only assume he didn’t want to deal with correcting all the errors on the bill and just decided to handle it in his own way. This was a huge red flag for me as no hardworking employee should have to pay out of his own pocket to fix problems that the restaurant management should handle. Our waiter was truly one of the only redeeming part of the service. He was courteous and responsive but had a hard time correcting so many inaccuracies with wrong orders and serving the rest of the customers.

Overall, this was my second and last time at this restaurant until the management can fix some of these major issues. I was initially very eager to see the “soft opening” of the restaurant but now I don’t think I will recommend it to anyone. My friend dined here on a separate day and had a completely different experience saying the food was fast and service was excellent and friendly. My only hope is they learn and improve...

A waste of time and money! I was excited to bring my daughter to her first hotpot experience and after spending $100 for two people to eat, I can say it was the first time in my life I left a restraunt hungrier than i was when i got there!!

The szechuan base was spicy, as in baking spices! There was no heat what so ever, even my daughter who can't handle buldak spicy noodles said there was more spice in the mini sausages! Our grill was cranked WAY up so no matter what we did it burned everything and they made us feel self conscious about all the smoke by tryin to make it seem like we didn't know how to grill anything so we just stopped grilling anything even though we was enjoying it as the beef bolgogi was the best part of the entire meal, After fighting back nausea from the (cinnamon? cardamom? weird?) flavor the szechuan base had I asked for the Miso, a great choice in almost every case! Sadly not today, the miso base was like eating straight miso paste, it was so strong It over powered everything you put in it. The clencher for me was when I ordered goyza, I have a mild shrimp allergy so I avoid shrimp but when I ordered goyza they brought out raw shrimp piled on top of the goyza with it and acted offended when I asked them to take it all away so I said nevermind about the goyza, paid for the meal and we left after that.

I still can't believe I spent $100 and left looking for place to eat.

Seriously the worst meal of 2025, hands down. (not sure if that's true, the worst snack of 2025? As all I ate was 2 mini sausages some.enoki mushrooms and 1 piece of radish, but then I was too embarrassed to make anything)

I spent $100 to be frustrated, talked down to and left the restaurant VERY HUNGRY and because my daughter is a picky eater all this left me trying to explain to my daughter that this wasn't a good hotpot and not to judge them all on this experience, it's going to take some time to convince her to try another hotpot place now, if i even can at this point. So thanks for that?

We should have just gone to panda :(, at least the food there is a step up and is 'mediocre' and it doesn't cost $100 for two and a meal form there has never left me hungry.

Update: whilst at a supercharger yesterday we walked over to the local mcdonalds to give the relaunch of the snack wrap a try, after the first bite of the spicy snack wrap my daughter said " why is this spicier than that soup base?" I said because that soup base wasn't spicy, we had a good laugh about that. Also the reply from the owner lacks any conviction or sincerity, it's nearly copy pasta from all their other replies, no attempts to contact me to make it right or anything. We WILL NOT be back. I don't understand how they have such a high rating based on my experiences, the worst panda I ate at was still better than this place. I seriously want a refund, I'll never get it because they clearly don't care as they've not attempted to reach out to me and literally copypasta the response

p.s. - why has Google removed "suspicious high rating reviews" from this restaurant chain???

Edit: made hotpot at home this past weekend with a spicy base from Amazon and a plain base, 100 fold better!! The Szechuan base was soooo good, so spicy and flavorful, absolutely nothing like the toilet water they served me here .. seriously the 4.7 is a paid score there is no way that many...

It was my first time going as I had heard nothing but great things about this place.

Atmosphere ⭐️⭐️ First, the amount of excessive space between the seat and the table was so uncomfortable. Sitting on the edge off my seat, I STILL had to lean forward to eat. It not only made my back hurt, but there was a mess in the end everywhere. Other than that the atmosphere was nice with decent music in the background.

Service ⭐️ Just, no... Even though our server had asked if we'd ever been there before and KNEW that we hadn't, she rambled on about the entire process so fast like it was the 1,000 time she's said it, and it COULD HAVE BEEN... But it was my FIRST time hearing it and I still had no clue what to do because I couldn't understand her. The food came out quickly and they just dropped it off with NO explanation of what was what. When the server checked on us (as we were still trying to sort out the food and burners) she seemed annoyed that we wanted her to explain what food items were what. She tried to say that we could share, and it doesn't really matter who ordered what, but I don't eat/like seafood and I didn't know what was and wasn't. ALSO...!! If I eat something that I really like (or don't like) I know what to order again and what not to order. After explaining this to her, she did (reluctantly) help up sort through everything, and helped us work the burners. I didn't like the soup base that I ordered (tomato, TOTALLY my fault) but was afraid to ask for something else instead because I didn't want to be charged extra for "waste". Even though we went during lunch, we were charged for dinner prices (which WAS explained before hand) but I only ordered one item from the "dinner" item and it was SOOOO not worth the extra $20 ($10/per person) for the 8-10 thinly shaved meats 🙄

Food ⭐️⭐️ This would've probably been rated higher had I actually had a different soup base and had I remembered what was supposed to be grilled and what was supposed to go in the hot pot. I ended up just doing a bit of both, trial and error, but I didn't want to ask for help again because out server already seemed like she didn't even want to be there. The veggies seemed a bit dried out, more specifically the zucchini. Also, the portion side for the pho and bean sprouts were CRAZY SMALL! We actually thought we were missing a portion, turns out it was actually for TWO! We just ordered another, no biggie. The best thing was the pork belly, could've just had that and no other meats and saved some $$

Overall, I don't think I'll be back. At least not to that location and someone else will have to suggest it because for the horrible service and the $100 (2 $35 dinner portion, 1 $10 drink, 2 $7 lemonades, plus tax) I spent there for 2 was NOT worth it...