Shokai Sushi — Restaurant in Fairfield

Had a very mixed experience here, but overall I enjoyed my trip and will very likely return. I encourage anyone local to drop in and check it out. My suggestion when coming here is bring your patience and a maximum of 4 in your group as space is very limited and you'll have a great time.

Positive:

1. I was surprised the fish was as good as it was for being a rural area. The food was very very good.

2. Our server was very kind and outgoing and offered a lot of suggestions and explanations to a few we had at the table who weren't confident in their selections.

3. The atmosphere was nice. It reminded me of some of the places I ate out in Los Angeles.

Negative:

1. The waiting. A wait on a Friday is to be expected, as is a wait for a group of 7 adults. However the wait was quite long, near an hour just to be seated. The wait for food was also VERY long at approximately another 40 minutes.

2. The menu & availability of items. I found the menu to be quite small, especially in the area of non-sushi foods like vegetables and fried skewers. Also by the time our orders were taken two of our selections were not available as all of certain ingredients had been used.

3. Accuracy of food and billing were both off. Several rolls were set on the incorrect plates but if you're used to eating sushi this pretty common for it all to come out on the minimum number of plates and is almost part of the sushi experience as food is shared between people. The billing was a mess with wrong items on...

Not returning. My family and I arrived about 5:45pm for my birthday. We ordered simple easy food to make. One sushi roll, sashimi, chicken wings and dumplings. The service lacks adequate coverage to accommodate a large crowd of guests in the restaurant. It took 45 minutes to get a Godzilla Roll and sashimi. Another 20 minutes goes by and the remainder of our food had still not showed up. We were told by the waitress that the remainder of our meal would be right up when my roll and sashimi showed up. Disappointed with the service my family and I left. The waitress had the nerve to ask my parents to pay for the entire meal even though we did not have the rest of our food. It seemed reluctant that we only paid for what we were served. Atmosphere is too packed. Not enough space to get around tables. Their previous location had adequate seating and service. The bar got better service than the rest of the restaurant....

They denied me and my hearing service dog entry. I love Shokai, the sushi is amazing and the servers have always been polite and attentive. It's been my favorite sushi place in Iowa for over 10 years, but I have gone completely deaf in the last year and I recently got a hearing service dog so last night was our first time at Shokai since getting him. My fiancé and I were denied entry even after explaining that he's my service dog. He's still a little young, but he's fully trained and extremely well behaved. Not once have we had an issue with him in other public restaurants, stores, venues, etc.

Luckily my fiancé and I are kind people and don't like confrontation, and the restaurant was packed, so we just left without pushing the issue further. But needless to say, I was very upset and my service dog and I have legal rights to enter facilities together at any given time...