Poke Wave — Restaurant in Edina

I’ve been coming here since the first week Poke Wave opened, and the restaurant has gone way downhill in service and food quality. Let me tell you why.

The last time I got a bowl here, the fish tasted spoiled and all of the “fresh” toppings tasted like they’d been sitting in the sun for the past day. It was inedible and I had to throw it out. This wasn’t just a one-off either, the fish has tasted nasty the past few times I went, and I’m not sure if the supplier is giving them low quality fish or if they are using day-old fish, but it tastes like a health code violation waiting to happen.

The employees making these bowls used to be very friendly, knowledgeable, and attentive, but now the employees barely know how to work the register. The last time I went in to order, the cashier couldn’t figure out how to use a gift card issued by the restaurant. They apparently deleted my giftcard in their system when they switched card providers, and didn’t think to issue new giftcards to people who had already purchased one. They ended up converting a new gift card I had to a digital one because I had the purchase record on my bank app, but they refused to honor one card with $30ish on it because I couldn’t “prove that there [was] any money left on it”. The owner told me that if I wanted the $30 transferred to a digital card then I could call the original gift card company, but that he wasn’t going to take any time to help with it. Wow, just wow. I gave you money for a giftcard, which you now refuse to honor because of a mistake on your end.

One of the biggest things I’d like to address is the owner, Allen. It’s disappointing to see how much he’s fallen off in the past few years. When I first started going to the shop, he was always working, always friendly with his guests, and ran a great establishment. The past few months he’s been a rude, curmudgeonly man who doesn’t put any care into the quality of his food or relationships with his customers.

I called Allen personally to see if I could help him out a bit. I do a lot of small business consulting and offered my services to him for free because I like his business and it makes me sad to see everything going down the drain. Allen had the audacity to yell at me about he was “too busy to put up with [me]” and hung up on me. Imagine that. I’ve spent thousands of dollars at his restaurant, I see him struggling to run his business, I offer my normally expensive services to him for completely free because I want to see him succeed, and he insults me.

The worst part of all of this is that I have about $200 racked up in rewards points and gift cards that I can’t spend outside of his business. It’s not a big amount of money, but it’s about 10-12 meals that I could have gotten at any other local restaurant and now can’t use at all because the food is inedible and the owner is too proud of himself to accept help. If Allen eventually turns his business around in the right direction then I might use those points, but otherwise I’ll probably just get bowls for some homeless...

The food was delicious, customer service was amazing, and the atmosphere was cozy. There were so many options to build your own Poke bowl, and they also have a nice selection on signature bowls they can make too.

The rice is not too hard. The salmon and tuna tasted great. I like to add mango in my poke bowl, but usually, it's too soft and mushy, but here at Poke Wave, it was just right.

Their classic sauce was awesome. It is a mixture of soy sauce with a hint of Wasabi. I dont even like wasabi, but i thought this was good.

I wish they would have a larger scoop for the protein, but other than that, the rest of the bowl is a huge and great portion.

I'll definitely come back to try their signature bowls and also to try...

Pros: Vegan options Non-fish options. They have stuff aside from chicken like spam, which is very different from other poke places. Fruit topping like Mango. Portions are reasonable and fair for the price. Good service, friendly people who are willing to answer your questions in case you're unfamiliar with poke bowls.

My s/o and I both ordered the "make your own" bowl as 32oz is just a bit too much for us. We ordered 24oz and it was delicious.

Fresh fish is harder to sustain good taste when you live in minnesota (unless of course, you're using local fish like crappies, which poke bowls aren't known for), but PokeWave manages to keep the fish tasting good as if they're right on the coast. 10/10...