Konomi Japanese Restaurant — Restaurant in Coralville

Everything is bought frozen, including sushi fish. Workers not paid overtime.

Up until recently, I worked for Konomi. There's a lot of things people need to know and don't know about this place. For starters, besides the salmon and occasionally the red tuna, all other fish is shipped in frozen in vacuum sealed bags supplied by Chicago's True World Foods. This includes all of the scallops, specialty items, roe, everything. Of course the sushi guys are told by Andy to always say it is fresh cut daily. He himself will tell customers its fresh. There's been times when Andy would come into our kitchen and cut open a yellowtail loin thawed overnight and put it on a metal plate to bring out to customers and his friends and pawn it off as freshly cut.

Let's talk kitchen food. The yakisoba noodles? Frozen thawed instant noodle packets stir fried with a hearty squeeze of Japanese mayo. The udon soup? Frozen udon noodles boiled in the same complimentary clear soup with some mushrooms and liquid "seasonings." The cheesecake? Frozen from Chicago. Everything is either already made and shipped in frozen or premade days before, then charged a hefty premium. This is no problem whatsoever. It is a problem, however, when the owners brand and blatantly lie to the customers that their items are made in-house and fresh.

Let's talk working conditions. WE ARE NOT PAID OVERTIME. Or at least not until they recently switched to a new bank that requires them to. I know at least one of my guys that works over 60 hours a week in the kitchen for close to 2 years and not paid any overtime. This shouldn't come as a surprise, especially when they chose to pay the fine for Obamacare instead of providing employees with health insurance. Getting raises is also a rarity. They tell new workers they give $1 raises annually, but will just forget and find excuses not to when the time comes. They turn over so many kitchen, sushi, and servers because of the stress and constant verbal abuse. They would rather fire and hire new workers so that they can keep paying everyone $10/hour. They once fired a dishwasher on a Saturday evening over a promise to give him a raise that was 6 months overdue. They called him back saying they'll talk the next morning and need him to help finish the busy night. They promptly fired him the next morning when its a much slower day and they found a replacement dishwasher.

When you're a worker and you clock out, you should be able to order a drink, food, and sit at the bar like the customer that you are now considered to be. Not at Konomi. If you are an employee, even if you go home, shower, change, and come back, you are not allowed to sit at the bar nor can you order any drinks. The owners prefer that their friends sit there and they would rather sit with them and drink while kitchen and sushi falls behind in orders.

Konomi is like reliving high school over again. If you're not liked, you're treated differently and greatly disrespected by the owners, no matter the amount of time and dedication you put into your work. The years you put in and the memories created are meaningless. If you're a server and you aren't on good terms with the head server, she'll just gradually give you less and less hours until you are completely "fired" without reason or cause.

I affirm that my statements are all true to the extent of my knowledge and that nothing is fabricated. I invite anyone to come and take a look yourself. You'll find a pristine kitchen and smiles on the workers. But look beyond and you'll see the food you're served and the people working hard to provide it for so...

Have come here a few years in the past during Anime Iowa and have never had any issues, this year however was horrendous. My friends got there 20 minutes before us and did not receive their drinks until 15 minutes after we arrived. Our server didn’t come by for a bit to take our order, after we ordered drinks it took a bit to receive them. We did give some grace as it seemed very busy at the time we arrived, however it had slowed down by the time we ordered our food. All my friends at the table, except one ordered food and they had all gotten their food and finished eating by the time I even received my food. We had to ask one server about our drinks and where they were and then we had to ask another server about where my food was and only then did our server come back out with my food. Our server did not check in until we had to ask for our bill. All of us paid separately however they charged us 18% gratuity EACH. We only had 5 people, including myself. After leaving I just kept thinking I was not happy with the service and the amount I was charged (I didn’t know I was able to say I didn’t want to pay the gratuity, and no where in the menu or website does it say anything about added gratuity that I saw) I called the manager. He was very unhelpful, and basically told me that if I can’t afford to tip them I should not come out to eat. Tipping is something you give based on service you receive!! I shouldn’t have been forced to pay that much gratuity on my bill. I explained to the manger how we had to flag down other servers about our drinks and food, and he just told me that I’m not the only person in the restaurant and need to understand better. I’ve been a server before but I wouldn’t have let my table go 20+ minutes with no drinks and then completely forget someone’s food. Just very unhappy with how we were treated and how the manager handled our...

So disappointed. The whole experience was so upsetting. I entered the restaurant holding my 35lbs toddler who was clearly being fussy in one arm and a bag of presents in another arm. The hostess watched me struggle through 2 doors without lifting a finger to help. Then when I told her I was meeting a part she just pointed. They have multiple dining rooms and I had to go back and ask where I should be going. She still didn’t leave the host stand and just told me to go farther. Our server was clearly not trained. It seemed like he was not a server and just someone they found to fill in. He was very sweet and was trying his best but clearly was not trained in the least. Examples- he was not sure if they sold wine by the glass, couldn’t tell us was was in “clear” soup. He never delivered out alcoholic drinks and my husband had to get them from the bar. Sadly he forgot to put in an order from our table and they were not able to get their food to the table within 15 min of noting the error so we ended up just canceling it and they just ate bites off of everyone else’s plates. Our habana hi chef asked if we were celebrating anything and we told him we had 2 birthdays but they didn’t do anything to acknowledge it. The bill came and they didn’t comp anything even though they were aware of a major error. Again, the young people working are not the problem and this is not meant to target them. There is a serious problem with management that they allowed untrained staff help their customers. I felt very disrespected and walked away upset that I spent hundreds of dollars there to be...