Kura Revolving Sushi Bar — Restaurant in Columbus

I have now been here twice, and have been very disappointed on both visits.

To preface, I was extremely excited to try out Kura, and the atmosphere the first time around did not disappoint, so if anything I went in excited and had no doubt the experience would be memorable.

The first time I went, the food was excellent, and the revolving sushi line was well-stocked and tasted very fresh, even with the rush. There was a lot of excitement and bustle, but a lot of that went down the drain when I got seated. Call me ignorant, but no matter how many people have tried to teach me how to use chopsticks, I have never figured it out and I always use a fork, normally this isn't a problem. First, I pressed the on-screen assistance button. 10-15 minutes passed and nobody came, then I asked a waitress, and she said she'd be right back. 10 more minutes passed, and I asked another waiter. 10 more minutes, no fork. Finally, after 35 minutes of my table being full of sushi plates I couldn't eat, I had to get up and walk to the hostess, who promptly brought me a fork. Nearly another 20 minutes later, the waiter proudly showed up with a fork, which I very annoyingly declined. If I hadn't done something, I would have been there for an entire hour before receiving a fork. Luckily, on my first visit, the little robo-AI-water-bros were working, so we got all our drinks fast. The plus side is, that you get water fast, the downside is it will charge you every time you get a soda/special drink, which means if you need a refill you need to get a waiter. So, there was yet another 10-15 minute wait for a refill on my drink. Otherwise, the food was fresh, great, well stocked. Trip 1: 5-star food, 1-star service, 4-star atmosphere.

Now onto trip 2, which flipped all the scales. Let's start with the atmosphere. Arriving was exciting as usual, I was hanging onto the hope that this time the staff would be better, as we came during less of a rush on a less busy day of the week. I was excited until I reached my seat, and realized that almost every single sushi plate on the revolving sushi bar was empty. ALL of them. Funny enough I had the same booth as last time, so it wasn't the location. (booth 20). Every single dish I got that day had to be ordered on the menu, which then came on a separate belt. Normally this would be ok, it takes some of the atmospheres away, but it's fine, fresh sushi is always a plus. But it wasn't fresh. Every single sushi I ordered did not taste fresh. I eat a lot of sushi, I love sushi. A lot of it was warm, the rice was falling apart, the stuffed/spicy sushies were always either too stuffed or too spicy, and most concerningly: a lot of the raw sushi was either warm or room temperature. Luckily, neither I nor my partner got sick, but I did have dread hanging in the back of my mind. Now for service, finally, a decent waiter. Now he wasn't great or anything, in our hour and a half there he only check-in in on us for refills or to take away non-sushi plates (sushi plates go in disposal next to your table and are part of a mini-game on your ordering screen), about 2 or 3 times. Sadly, our friends the robo-AI-water-bros were not working, so my partner had to wait a long time for water between each refill, which I would usually just call from the robots, and I had to wait for my Coke pretty often too.

So it was a disappointing flip of reviews, and now I am significantly less excited when the name 'Kura' comes up amongst friends as a suggestion to hang out at. 2nd trip: 1-star food, 3-star service,...

Another culinary adventure for date night… this time at Kura Revolving Sushi Bar at Polaris. The night started out shaky, as we foolishly put our trust in the restaurant’s app. Being a new location, the wait times are upwards of 1-2 hours, so we downloaded the app to allow us to “check-in” ahead of time and skip the wait. Leaving Newark, the wait time was 3 minutes. About half-way through the 55 minute drive to Columbus, we checked again and the wait time had jumped to 75 MINUTES! We put our name in, and the wait time kept jumping around unpredictably. We killed some time at the World Market until the app told us our table was ready, then notified us 5 minutes later that our table was cancelled as we walked in the door. We were still seated about 15 minutes later. So - the moral is - skip the app (it sucks). After being seated and learning how to manuever the coveyor belt dishes, we ordered our drinks from the touch screen and watched as they were delivered by a cute little rolling robot. Overall the food was good. Not the best sushi, but certainly not the worst. An AMAZING variety of dishes, I’d guess upwards of 30+, constantly rolling past you. One glaring problem with the restaurant being as busy as it was - most of the dishes were empty by the time they got to us. We were sitting in about the middle of the restaurant, and probably 1/2 to 3/4 of the plates passing us had already been claimed. You can order any item at any time with the touch screen, and it’s sent by a special conveyor belt directly to your table. But where’s the fun in that? Watching the food pass by and deciding what looks good is kinda the point. We did try lots of new items tonight including sea urchin (meh) and Warabi Mochi for dessert (I was a fan - Laurie, not so much). The emphesis is definitely on speed and cost instead of quality - the nigiri barely held together as you ate it, the rice being far too loose - rolled in a hurry obviously, with little attention paid to the details. Cheaper cuts of seafood and meats, thrown together hapazardly as fast and as cheaply as possible. But for $3.40 a plate, I guess you can’t expect Morimoto quality. Yes - every single plate was $3.40 each - fairly small servings on each, but only $3.40, and pretty tasty. Probably not the place to try Uni for the first time- I’m pretty sure it’s not supposed to be dark brown and smelling strongly of old fish, but hey - I didn’t get sick! Once you finished a plate, you slide it down a chute and your screen shows your running total. We hit 18 plates between the two of us. I don’t know if we’ll ever be back, but it did make for a very fun date night with my sweetie, and it was worth the drive for the experience alone. We didn’t try any of the pricier entrees - they were available on the touch-screen as well; ramen, fried rice, udon, etc. upwards of $12-$15 each. But even with sticking to the “cheap” plates the meal was $75 with...

TL:DR - Great experience. Fun atmosphere, amazing food, kid friendly and a fantastic time for the family!

We checked Kura out for our anniversary and my wifes birthday. The initial wait was between 30-60 minutes. We initially checked in through the app to hold our space. We learned that we would receive a series of text messages, 3 in total, and after the second we were told to come inside because it was almost our time. We didn't realize we needed to let the hostess know, but she saw us and checked us in (so be sure to check in with the hostess after the second text).

We were sat almost instantly afterwards and a very kind gentleman came over, introduced himself, and explained how it all works. Take a plate from the belt, eat the food, put the plate on the slide to underneath the conveyer belt. That is what counts the number of plates you eat. You can order anything else through the screen above the table or through the mobile app (you have to scan a QR code from the screen so they know what table to send it to).

We ordered our drinks and a few minutes later this little singing robot came over with them. We then started grabbing plates and eating! All of the food was high-quality and most of it was amazing. The only items we didn't like were the Nigiri (raw ground meat on rice) and the fish egg, and those were texture-related and not related to the food itself. Everything else tastes amazing.

After 15 plates we received a free Gochapon with some Dragonball Z stickers, which was really cool! You can also order them specifically if you'd like. When you order anything off of the screen it will come through a belt above the rotating belt of food. It comes within a few minutes and the belt stops right by your table. You have to grab it relatively quickly. It's a great way to get something besides what is on the belt, or get something that is normally on the belt but always gone by the time it gets to you.

We then ordered dessert and they were all great. We ordered the Strawberry/Black Sesame Mochi, Takiyaki Ice Cream, and the Soy Milk Donuts. All of them were fantastic!

When paying you can choose to pay via server or online. We did server because we had a free dessert. It was extremely easy and quick.

All in all we highly recommend going to Kura. The food is amazing, atmosphere is so unique and fun, and it was a great experience...