Poké Fresh — Restaurant in East Lansing

While the food is good, the management is NOT.

I ordered three bowls and six mochi for pick up through their website. The order total was $74.81.

My sister and I both have celiac's disease, which basically means we can't have tempura, wontons, anything fried. So, when ordering, we made sure to click NO tempura shrimp and NO onion crisps for our double-protein heat wave bowls.

When my sister's boyfriend picked up the order, all of the bowls were covered in either wonton strips or onion crisps, we aren't sure. The website didn't say anything about wonton strips on the bowl, and we specifically selected NO onion crisps. Oh, and there were only three melted mochi in the bag.

So, I called the store to let them know what happened (because they should be more observant of the order tickets especially when it comes to people with allergies), and asked for a refund for the three mochi we didn't get. Really, I could have asked for more of a refund since my sister and I couldn't eat the top halves of our bowls, but I digress.

The man on the other end of the phone, Antonio, first argued with me and told me I was wrong before he realized I wasn't. He called me back and, instead of processing my refund, offered six mochi and two replacement bowls, double-protein as we ordered, for my sister and I. I said thank you, but we live 20 minutes away so we can't drive back right now. He said I could come in any time, specifically ask for him and he would re-make our order for us, correctly this time, for free, no problem. I was impressed.

So, we go there and spend MORE MONEY today. When he was making the replacement bowls, he not only gave us regular protein, but he also almost put wonton strips on the bowls AGAIN before my sister's boyfriend stopped him. Antonio then went on to berate him, saying this was our fault in the first place for "not reading the menu" when wonton strips aren't an option to opt in or out of when you order the heat wave bowl online, and this was really his fault for not reading the ticket in the first place. He also only gave us three mochi instead of the six we were promised.

I'm just disheartened at the way this whole thing was handled. It was extremely unprofessional.

So, basically, don't order online, unless you check the bag in the restaurant before you leave -- especially if you have allergies. They really do not care. And, don't expect to get a refund if they do mess up. You can basically just expect false promises to get you back in the store to spend more money, and then once you're there, receive all the blame and public humiliation.

NOT WORTH IT.

P.S. CHANGE YOUR TOAST TAB IF WONTON STRIPS COME ON THE HEAT WAVE BOWL BECAUSE AS OF RIGHT NOW, IT...

Edit: Management responded to my review and my email promptly and handled the situation kindly with professionalism. They offered me a full refund and a gift card to correct the situation I’m satisfied with how they handled this mishap. Last night my friend and I each ordered a poke bowl and I decided to order Udon soup. Our poke bowls were yummy nothing wrong with them. When I opened my soup it smelled strange but I didn’t think much of it because maybe they use difference seasonings or anything and I didn’t pay much attention to it (I also wasn’t expecting what happened next) but when I took a bite it was so bitter in my mouth I had to spit it out and the noodles were complete mush (not to mention it was cold). When I came back to my soup from spitting it out the smell hit me. The cabbage and other leafy greens had clearly gone bad! I’ll attach photos because I didn’t even believe it and I was looking at it. I had to close the lid because the smell was making my friend gag. When I closed the lid I saw there was a sticker with the day of the week and the date of which it was made which I saw “Wednesday” on it before I opened it but I assumed it was this past Wednesday (which would have already been a bit old but I was hungry and excited for my soup) but it was Wednesday September 13th! 17 days after it was made! This is absolutely unacceptable. I would have handled this outside of leaving such an intense review but they never picked up the phone when we originally wanted to place the order, or after I ran into this situation and we called multiple times and I don’t live in EL. I would not go back here again because not only was that soup kept for that long but the employee that packaged my food didn’t pay attention to the date on it and gave it to me. I’m the photos you can see the black, decomposing edges of the...

UPDATE: the store manager contacted me and was very apologetic. He offered to replace or refund my experience which I thought was very fair. My experience may have been a one-off and clearly customer satisfaction is the top priority. Based on customer satisfaction effort alone I would absolutely give Poke Fresh a second chance.

Interestingly, my food wasn't very fresh. The mandarin oranges and pineapple were both canned and tasted awful like a can. The avocado tasted spoiled and upset my stomach off the little bit of the one bite I ate. Unfortunately I had to pay extra for that. They also charge extra for seaweed and crab salad. The assembly of the bowl could use some work too. I paid extra for masago and it was plopped on top of the Wasabi and smashed down into it with the lid, so my masago was also inedible because I couldn't get it separated from the Wasabi and couldn't eat so much Wasabi at once. Lastly, there was so much dressing in my bowl that it was more of a soup than a salad. I had to pour off about a half a cup of liquid and still everything was swimming. I would not...