Kobe An LoHi — Restaurant in Denver

I have no idea how there are good reviews on here. My partner and I were really psyched to go for a date night last week (Wed, 6/23). This was by far the most outrageous dinning experience I have ever had. Do not waste your time or money.

First, we arrived for our reservation about 5 minutes early. There was no one at the hostess stand, and after a few minutes of staring around with no direction, someone--clearly not a hostess-- saw us waiting and stepped in to help seat us. It then took about 20 minutes until we even saw a server to take our drink order. At this point, the patio was pretty empty, but we watched it slowly start to fill. Not a single person had food at their table. We ordered our food immediately as we were hungry (we arrived at 7:10 for a 7:15 reservation, had our order taken at about 7:30). In that order, we opted to get an appetizer (sliders) and chose sukiyaki (not all you can eat as we don't eat all that much). We asked about the difference between the hot pots, and we're given pretty much 0 direction from our server. What's insane here, is you are paying $10 pp just to be able to do the hot pot, on TOP of the $20 per protein pp recommended. So there is no way getting around spending $30 per person. I digress.

30 minutes go by. We ask about the appetizer thinking maybe it was forgotten. It takes 3 different people to let us know it is now being made and should be ready soon. Another 30 minute later (we are now at 1 hour)-- a patio FULL of people. No one is eating. Lots of complaints. We ask, yet again, about our food. We are given a very vague response, no apology, no empathy, no offering of literally any piece of food (its now less than an hour until close and they are STILL seating people, no one has food). For a restaurant so overwhelmed and backed up, I literally could not believe the lack of hustle, attention, service in general...it was insane. I work in the industry and wanted to get up and start working myself. Literally the only person who had any idea what was going on was the poor bartender.

I've literally never done this in my life, but I asked to see a manager after 75 minutes of waiting to cancel our order so we could walk out. Turns out, there was no manager. The bartender assured me that the food was coming, I said if it didn't come in the next 10 minutes we were leaving. The appetizer came, on the 10 minute dot (total wait time 85 minutes). About 15 minutes before closing, our hot pot came. It was literally dropped off at our table with 0 instruction. We asked several people for help and no one had any idea how to help us. It was literally like they had fired the entire wait staff the night before and everyone was new. Because of this, our dish was absolute mush. The flavors were tasty, but everything else was just MEH. We ordered a $19 order of scallops that came with 2 scallops cut in half. They also tasted very fishy. SUCH a let down.

After some really pathetic half apologies, they DID manage to take the sliders off the tab.

I don't know if this was a bad day, or they just always have awful service, but I will never be going back...

It's pretty rare for me to leave any review less than three stars, but I had to share my experience at Kobe An LoHi because I can't believe how disappointed I am in the service I received.

We went in on a Wednesday evening when there were only 4 other groups dining in the whole restaurant. It took nearly 15 minutes after we were seated before anyone came to our table to greet us and get drink orders. In fact, the only reason anyone came out to us was because my wife got up from the table, went and found the hostess, and alerted her to the fact that we still hadn't been greeted at our table. Unfortunately, this was only the beginning of the slippery slope of untimeliness that was our experience this evening.

While we were coming in for the "Endless" dining experience, the reality was the the only thing that was endless was the amount of time we had to wait between requests. Every time we requested anything - a drink refill, more rice or meat, or a replacement for a pair of chopsticks that fell on the ground - we found ourselves waiting anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes for each request. We would repeatedly watch our server walk by us without bringing out the things we'd asked for, without glancing at our table to give us the opportunity to catch his eye. There were several instances where I had to ask him two, even three times before they were brought out (after several more minutes of waiting each time).

My wife and I typically take a maximum of 90 minutes at any "endless" dining experience, and in that time typically will finish off 3 servings of whatever is being served. In total, we spent the full two hours allotted at the restaurant, and barely received two rounds. By the time we were rounding out the 1:45 mark, and had JUST received our second order, we were upset enough with the experience we just needed to get our check and leave.

I must say however, that we did really enjoy the food. The spicy tuna roll was great, and the gyoza we ordered were some of the best I've ever eaten. The broths were excellent once we added some spice to them, and we were very happy with the quality of the meats.

My wife has spent more than 15 years in the service industry, and was appalled at the inattention we received. The server himself was very kind and polite, but my man, if you're going to be a server, you have GOT to step up your game!

To sum it up, while the food was very good, I'd quite frankly be extremely hesitant to recommend this restaurant to others, based solely on...

As a HUGE sushi fan, and as a new LOHI resident I knew this was going to be my first stop once I got settled in. On our first visit we were a little confused by the reservation requirements. We walked in on a Tuesday night around 5PM, and the place was empty. They asked if we had reservations, and we kindly said no. We were offered a seat at the bar. Although, we don't mind sitting at the bar; it felt awkward they couldn't seat us at a table. We went about our business and by surprise were quickly amused by the super intelligent bar tender. He asked if we would be willing to try a "special" drink, it was of his own creations, and might I say a fun personal touch. So over all a some-what decent first impression. However, that's where it all changed. Due to our current Covid situation, we were forced to get take-out. After calling four times, we finally found someone to take our order. We ordered a few rolls and our favorite, the edamame. When we received our food it wasn't even close to what we had ordered. I tried calling again and no answer. After a few tries we finally got someone. I explained our issue and explained how we got the wrong food, and was basically told: we got what we ordered, and it was correct. Needless to say, it wasn't the warm and fuzzy feeling you were hoping to get while supporting local companies. Maybe next time it will be...