Sushi Love — Restaurant in Durham

I always rave to everyone I know that Sushi Love is my favorite sushi restaurant in Durham. The sushi is awesome, the prices are honest, the drinks and saki selections a great, and the variety and I trigue of their offers in the sushi menu are above par--they have everything from traditional style, delectable sushi to fun and intriguing and fun new styles to try + a wholeeee menu of awesome Asian appetizers and dishes that fit every guest dietary preference/need/desire. Though we normally go there for the sushi 😋 I also love many of their non-sushi dishes and apps as well. The place is always packed and busy, a good sign and testament of killer yummy food. I have non-jokingly asked the staff and manager many times to please please please open a new location in North Durham so I can come eat more often 🫶🏼☺️.

I worked in restaurants my whole life until I graduated college, it is very hard work to work in and/or run a restaurant, to wait tables, to be a food runner and busser, dishwasher, and to be a bartender, which is what I did from age 21-32. I loved the work, even though I know and remember it is very hard work. It is often underappreciated--the labor itself but also the skills you acquire and master in this industry. Our waitress on our recent visit was great--super attentive, friendly, personable, and helpful. Overall we experienced (and always do here) great* service. She was awesome and when we mentioned how kind the manager was to us during our dining she said 'yes she is such an amazing boss and person, I love working here!' and I have to say, I worked in restaurants up and down the East Coast as well as in Italy..... and I can only say I had that feeling at only two restaurants I ever worked at....out of like 15 places at least over the years. I had two restaurant jobs where I knew my boss and/or the owner was a good person who cared about the work and the guests and who cared for the employees. It is a rarity in our world: having a restaurant with great food, great staff, *andddd an amazingly good person running/owning the restaurant. A super rare thing. I really really respect that 🫶🏼💙 and am grateful we met Jane during our recent visit and to find out that the owner and manager of one of our favorite spots that we have been patrons of for a couple years now is like that: a good person, who cares, it really makes the food and drinks taste that much better, sincerely 🥹.

We will continue to be patrons and keep hoping 🙃 that one day more Sushi Love locations nearer to North Durham will open up, but either way we will keep loving Sushi...

Great tasting sushi meets arrogant waiters, high prices and incompetence. Won't be back! Experience: My wife and I arrive at 4:40pm and are told nothing about the daily specials. In fact, we have no knowledge of any discounts whatsoever until I see their promotions AFTER scouring their website on my smartphone on my way inside. After we've been given our seats and our drinks and "I" inquired about the specials, 10 minutes into the process - we are told by the waiter that we can order before 5pm and get the "BUY-ONE-GET-ONE-FREE" special on sushi and that if we wait 10 minutes we can get the "half-off" special instead starting at 5pm. It's 4:50pm at this time, so we say we'll wait for the "half-off" dinner special. Waiter takes our order at 5:06pm and at the end of our meal, gives us the lunch special that costs more, instead of the dinner special which costs less...completely doing the exact opposite of what we said we wanted. Price 1/5. We bought 6 rolls. $14, 14, 13, 13, 12, 12 and had no drinks but water. Price at BOGO was $41 total because the "get one free" rolls are going to be the cheapest ones THEY (the staff) select from your order. Once again, we wanted the "half-off" dinner deal considering we ordered 6 minutes after the hour. Why? Because with the "half-off" dinner special option our meal would have been $36. It's fine, and the waiter thought it was ALL SO FUNNY, so I took the cost difference out of his tip. Still laughing about it, now? Quality 4/5. The nigiri wasn't exactly fresh and it wasn't hard to see the dye they use on the meat to make it look brighter than what it really is. You could squeeze the fish meat and watch the dye draining and dripping out. Not impressive, but still very good, mostly fresh sushi. Cleanliness 3/5. We were given wet dishes, straight from the washer with soap residue and bubbles still on the droplets skating around our plates. Service 2/5. Waiter was arrogant, rude, barely there, didn't list any specials, refilled my drink once while ignoring my wife's half empty cup and laughed about his "mistake" on charging us more for a special we never asked for. We won't be back, simply...

Food was amazing and outweighed the two issues I personally had while dining it. Read through to see both and how to avoid one, at least!

We were sat quickly and greeted by our server quickly. He brought out waters within a minute of our seating. My friend ordered a plate, I ordered 2 sushi rolls and an app to share.

The wontons were amazing. Not your typical short-order fried wonton, there was actually crab visible and present in both bites for every wonton. And pretty apparent its not just a simple cream cheese and crab meat, they were quite tasty and worth getting. The wontons came out within 5-6 minutes, which gave us plenty of time to finish before lunch arrived.

My food (as pictured) was fantastic. Plating was even top notch, but all tasted fresh and we both were very satisfied.

I recommend against a booth seat. No matter the size of human sitting behind you, the booths are very cheap and flimsy. The slightest movement from the person being you will jolt you in your seat. I am 245lb, and a 120 female sitting behind me was moving me as I sat still. Not her fault! But very annoying and really took away from the experience. I recommend sitting at a regular table or the sushi bar.

It was also FREEZING inside the restaurant. Granted on this day the high was around 43° with gusts up to 20mph or so, but I felt only relief from the bitter wind by coming inside. My fingers felt frozen by the time we got done eating.

Our waiter was very mobile and aware, we had to ask for nothing. He was very efficient, so his service along with the quality of the food both outweighed being cold and being bounced around in the booth.

We will come back, definitely to the bar or a...