Sapporo Japanese Steak House & Bar — Restaurant in Cypress

We came to Sapporo as a party of 7 for a birthday dinner. We were told that in order to do all you can eat, the entire table needed to participate, including our under 5 toddler. I have been to several AYCE Japanese restaurants and this has never been a requirement. I’m not sure why there are rules of no sharing if the whole table is paying for AYCE, very confusing. We all ended up opting in for the birthday girl. On top of that, the manger clearly allowed our waiter on the floor without proper training and before he was ready. It took nearly 30 minutes just to get our waters. He rarely checked in on the table, we had to flag him down every time we needed something. He constantly forgot our requests for things like more water or ketchup for the kid. We had to ask him multiple times for our food and we were an hour into our 2 hour limit and still hadn’t received even half our food. After maybe the 4th request for one of the appetizer salads, a frustrated member of our party went to the kitchen to request for our food as our waiter was clearly in over his head. This upset the manager due to it being against policy, which is understandable, but she took zero accountability for our terrible service and experience thus far and made no attempts to rectify the issue. She even went as far as to close us out because “we shouldn’t have walked into her kitchen”. Which was very frustrating and confusing as we still had not even received half of what we ordered (turns out our waiter hadn’t even put in most of our orders). Not sure why we would pay for AYCE when we barely got our food. We were even forced to pay gratuity due to the size of our party but we shouldn’t have been required to pay for a service we never received. It was truly some of the worst service I have even experienced. Now what little food we did get tasted great and we have had better experiences at other Sapporos, I would just never return to this location as the manager is clearly unfit to manage. We intend to contact corporate to file more...

So I know the owner (nice guy), met him at Homedepot when his car battery was dead and I gave him a jump. We talked for a few minutes and he mentioned about his restaurant and said he spent more than 500k to set this place up. He invited me to visit the restaurant which was supposed to open in a week or two. Few months later I visited this place.

The one who seats guests was totally unhappy (he called himself Calvin) and was not paying attention. We asked for help with how to place order for Hibachi style food and he said "oh you are not ready, I will come back later". Few minutes later he said the same and disappeared. Finally we managed to place the order. He brought the fried rice after we finished eating the meat portion. I asked Calvin to be happy and engage with customers and I told him I knew his owner and that I was there mostly because he invited me to pay a visit. He reacted by saying "oh go ahead and tell my owner about me". He then brought the sprite and it looked like something gooey and foamy was floating on it (I know the difference between sparkling and foamy stuff) - I dont want to make up stories and I will leave it at that. I did not drink it but I asked for a take out cup and took sample of it.

Salmon was good, chicken was ok, nothing special to talk about. Chef was a funny and nice person too. For the two of us and a kid we paid $60. Not worth it IMO. I hope the owner employs happy people and those who engage with customers when taking orders.

If the owner responds back with some corrective action I will remove this posting. I would like to see him succeed not drowned by...

First off, this review would be worse if it weren't for our server, Melanie. who was attentive and aware of the restaurant's issues. We went to Sapporo for a Mother's Day dinner. There was little wait and the restaurant appeared to be busy, but not slammed. We ordered 6 entrees, 4 of which were the Hibachi style (salad, soup, and shrimp appetizer with a fried rice upcharge.)

After the order was placed we were informed that the restaurant had run out of shrimp. There would be no shrimp appetizers and the shrimp entree was changed. The original plan from management was to add an additional salad or soup to the orders. Broth is a significantly less cost to the restaurant and this was unacceptable to the party. An agreement was eventually made for a discount off the total bill, to our satisfaction.

When the food came out, the filet mignon was abnormally small, and completely overdone (think beef jerky gray.) The vegetables and fried rice were over salted and cold.

The management made many references to the to go orders and how Door Dash and Uber Eats were impacting the restaurant. As an dine in guest, that makes me feel like Sapporo is not interested in my experience.

I will not return, and suggest you go to Shogun in The Vintage for a better all...