Koi Sushi & Hibachi — Restaurant in Durham

This was our fourth time coming to this restaurant in the past two months. The first three experiences were great. We had good service and great food. We even went here to celebrate my birthday this year. However on this fourth experience, our wait staff made our experience quite unpleasant. I have severe food allergies so I order my sushi without certain ingredients. On our second trip, the wait staff told me to really black out the items that I want to omit so it is easier for the server to notice that something is been omitted than just the line through it. This is the method I used for the second, third, and fourth visit but on this fourth visit my sushi came to the table with all the items including the items that should be omitted. When he sat the plate down, I could tell that the order was wrong so I attempted to stop him before he walked away then because I could see the wasbi mayo on top but he was moving so fast. We then had to flag him down to let him know that the order was wrong when he proceeds to say that nothing was crossed out. I then said I know it is crossed out because I’m allergic let’s check the paper. He then proceeded to pull out the paper and we all look at it and it is clearly blocked out. He then says “how would I know what you crossed out ”. I responded I just did what I was told to do previously. The staff said to really make it clear so that is exactly what I did as I have the two previous times.

Problems with the interaction Tone. If you have an attitude with your customer, they are going to respond in kind. This is not an issue of just personal preference. This is an allergy that requires me to carry an EpiPen. I expressed that. When it was proven that it was crossed out you did not apologize and say oh I didn’t notice it let me get it corrected. You doubled down on blaming the customer by saying you couldn’t tell what ingredient was crossed out because it was crossed all the way out. That maybe be true that you couldn’t read the crossed out word but then either a) come back to the table and inquiry about it or b) look at the other paper to see what ingredient is there that is now crossed out. It is not like the order sheet is different for each person. It is the exact same: the same sheet you look at every day and for every order.

The manager did bring my corrected order and apologized so I want to note that and again express our thanks for her trying to make it right but the fact that our wait person did not apologize or recognize that he made a mistake and then proceeded to be short with our table for the rest of our time, We will not be back.

If he would have just said, I’m sorry I missed it let me fix it. It would have been a different situation. All people make mistakes that is understandable but to blame a customer and to then be rude because you made a mistake is...

I’d like to start this review off by saying that typically there are not many poor customer service experiences that truly warrant responses/reviews like this to me. In my experience with this restaurant, there’s a lot of room for improvement on the customer service side but I just had to share my experience from last night because it truly takes the cake.

Yesterday evening, I ordered a takeout order via DoorDash, which I had never done before because I typically just dine in. I go into the restaurant and see that there is a sectioned area where they have to-go orders and it’s on a bar/table area in front of a couple of employees. I searched through the orders and finally find mine, grab my bag, and head toward the door.

When I approach the door, the hostess gets extremely close to grabbing my coat and snatches the bag of food out of my hand. Then proceeded to yell, “Is this your food?“

Now, like I mentioned I’ve never ordered from this restaurant via DoorDash so I can understand completely if this just wasn’t the correct process to pick up the to go order, which is perfectly fine. However, as someone who works in upper management and customer service, there is always a way to handle situations where you need to assist a customer while politely correcting them. A simple, “Hi! I’ll have to formally check out your order then we’ll be all set!” would have truly gone a long way. As I mentioned though, this hostess gets very close to grabbing me in an attempt to snatching the bag of food out of my hand, there is a struggle of my bag of food, and then proceeded to shout at me in a very accusatory way.

Of course I’m very caught off guard and so my response is, “Why would I take someone else’s food?“ and her response was, “Well, it has happened before.”

I think the customer service ball was dropped several times between the employees who saw me look through the to-go orders and didn’t offer to assist, and then of course the hostess, who got very aggressive with me. It’s very unfortunate because there are some solid menu items here, but I will never want to spend my money in an establishment that instead of wanting to assist me and help me correct a wrong, would rather be very aggressive with me and accuse me of stealing something that I paid for. I think legal action would be absolutely justified, but not sure if I even have the energy for it.

The koi roll is good, but you may get man-handled trying...

My gf was joining me for dinner. She does not eat sushi and just wanted a drink or an al a cart menu. We were handed two all you can eat menus. I filled out my slip, and gave it to M. We asked for an ala carte menu for my SO. Our waitress, goes we don’t do a la carte menus. If one person does all you can eat then everyone has to do all you can eat. (Which isn’t welcoming to our non sushi eaters). I then say that’s okay we will get something for my SO on the way home. But I would still like to eat AYCE and I hand her my slip. She takes my order. After ten minutes of waiting, we did not receive our drinks we ordered or any update from the waitress. Our waitress comes back and goes “ohh I thought you were going to leave and go home”. And I go we never said that. We said I still wanted to order. She goes oh well, I’m not technically allowed to do this because the person sitting at your table if they don’t order anything they’ll just eat your food from the AYCE. I go can we just please get our check for our drinks then. She brings our check and takes another 8-10 minutes to close our tab as we are just sitting there now about 30 minutes in with no food and possibly the worse service of my life. 0/10 would recommend. We felt like there was a lot of attitude coming from our waitress with every interaction.

TLDR:

1. unprofessional waitress who made multiple assumptions 2)Where are the “rules” not apparent on the menu or were explained when we got there 3)Absolutely terrible experience and would not recommend. Not a single sorry or apology was made.
2. will, overtime lose loyal customers with these rules which is uncommon for most...