Sushi Yah — Restaurant in Cottonwood Heights

My family and I were hoping to find a good all you can eat sushi restaurant in Utah. Family had come into town, and we decided to eat at Sushi Yah. We went in, and the atmosphere was nice, and there weren't too many people in the restaurant since it was about 6:30. We had made a reservation, so we were seated quickly. Within 5 minutes, we had all made our orders, around 6:35. We talked, and enjoyed each others company, we waited and waited for the food. Many of the people in our party had chosen the all you can eat option, which included some appetizers and of course sushi. After waiting for over an hour, the people that had ordered salads were given their salads ( approximately 7:40)... About a half hour later the tempura arrived (approximately 8:10), and it was cold when it arrived. As you can imagine, our party was a bit unhappy with the slow service at this point. We asked the staff if they could just bring the sushi as it was ready, and not all at once since the tempura was getting cold by the time it arrived. They told us that they would not do that, and we would have to wait until all of the sushi was ready. Around 8:40, the first three rolls of sushi arrived. We asked why it was taking to long for us to be served, and the pit viper came back to yell at us. A very angry and arrogant Chinese lady (despite being a Japanese restaurant) came back and chewed us out, claiming that we were at fault for them being so slow. Naturally, this did not please our party since people do not typically expect to go to a restaurant, wait for a couple of hours before their food arrives, then get chewed out by the owner of the restaurant for no reason at all. The quality of the food was actually good, so I would commend the chef, and we did have one server who was kind, but the owner/manager is a vicious pit viper, and will try to pin their poor service on you if you eat at this location. We never received all of the items we ordered, and the woman was very aggressive and angry when we were trying to pay and leave the restaurant. This was most definitely the worst restaurant experience I have encountered, and I eat out fairly often. Unless this place can fix their service and get rid of their pit viper, I would recommend that you avoid this place...

If I could put zero stars, I would. This place is AWFUL! DO NOT GO HERE!!!! I have never written an online review of any place, but this was so bad that I want to warn everyone not to waste their time and money! I went with my wife and we waited for 45 minutes after ordering for any food to come. And when it did come, it was only half our order. Instead of the 4 rolls we ordered, we only received 2. The waitress tried to tell us that it is because they only allow for 2 rolls per person per round. We tried to explain that since there were two of us, we should have received the 4 rolls we ordered. The wait staff is obviously not very bright because they couldn't understand what the issue was. And then we finally talked to the manager and she said she would fix it. But we noticed that she placed the other half of our order on the bottom of a very large stack of sushi orders. So we waited. And waited. And waited. And..... gave up. After waiting about another 45 minutes for our first order to be corrected, we didn't want to waste another second there. We spent 1 1/2 hours in the restaurant and had a total of two rolls. We originally were planning on the all-you-can eat option, but after waiting another 45 minutes, decided to pay regular price for the two rolls and get out of there. We will NEVER EVER go back again. The wait staff was so slow and seemed really confused, as we had three or four different people asking us at different times to take a drink order or our sushi orders. And then when we would ask where our order was, no one seemed to have any idea. At one point, they brought us an order sheet that had been filled out and asked us if it was ours, which it wasn't. They went around to everyone asking.They can't even keep track of which order goes to which table. Ridiculous service. As we were paying our bill, the manager said that the wait times today were much "better" than they were yesterday. As if that is supposed to make us feel better about the service we received. While we were waiting, we noticed 3 or 4 other couples also get up and leave before receiving any food because it just took too long. And the sushi was kinda gross. I know AYCE is generally mediocre, but this was worse than grocery store...

Is the restaurant ambiance amazing? No. I'm a local resident of almost 30 years and it was an Italian and then a Mexican restaurant before with little to no remodeling between tenants. It's in the Hillside Plaza with the vacant Rite Aid and now Ream's. What did you honestly expect?

Is the sushi absolutely the BEST you'll ever have? Also no.

Is the service fast? Really depends how nice you are to the owners. They have zero tolerance for any attitude. But if you are nice, they'll definitely remember you. Ordering is like a high school multiple choice test on paper, so next sushi rolls are already in progress.

Is the background music great? If you listen closely, it's actually Katy Perry's "Dark Horse" and other American pop songs played on a traditional Japanese instruments. Pretty comical and actually quite fun to play "Guess the Song".

All that being said, Sushi Yah is a PERFECT 5/5. I've been going since they opened and it has always been my secret go-to sushi spot. In typical Utah fashion, I converted others to Sushi Yah too.

Never super busy, a very casual family-owned restaurant. Even hosting my birthday party there with 15+ people wasn't an issue. Amazing value with the all you can eat. For the price, it's a total no-brainer. Never been sick once in all the years, but I also drink while eating. (Sushi is raw fish, so what exactly did you expect? A free trip to Disneyland? Down that sake or Sapporo, just in case).

Really sad they are temporarily closed since it'll probably be permanent with Cottonwood Heights City's planned redevelopment (gentrification) to turn Hillside Plaza into another Gateway overrun by drug dealers...