Pokébowl Station — Restaurant in Gainesville

A majority of good reviews about this place and my usual sushi spots were closed on Sunday at 4 pm, so my husband and I decided to get lunch here. We're from out of town and know that parking is rough here, like most downtown UF Gainesville food places without their own lot. We found a parking garage nearby for $5 per hour so we decided to be safe instead of sorry (aka illegal street parking). Parking garage is only a short 3-min walk from Pokébowl since they are around the corner from it.

The place was packed. About 10 people dining in, and there was a line about 12 people long at the counter. Luckily, service was pretty fast (4 people behind the counter handling orders) and most of the customers were in groups of 2 or more. We waited about 10 minutes in the line until it was our turn to give them our order. I ordered a Salmon Breeze without cherry tomatoes with extra salmon. My husband wasn't interested in raw food, so he didn't order food and instead got 2 peach oolong teas.

Order is prepared right in front of you behind a glass divider (imagine a poké bowl version of Chipotle or Fresh Kitchen) and you can request customized build-your-own meals as well. My food looked great and smelled fresh. We waited for the tea, which took another 5 minutes and paid for the order. Cost about $35 with tip. Place looks overall clean and they seem to be careful with food handling (gloves, separate spoons for things, sealed tea).

My order tasted excellent and satisfied my fresh fish cravings without needing to find an eat-in sushi/sashimi place.

If you don't mind waiting in line when it's busy or finding parking, highly recommend this place for a fresh healthy meal. There are vegetarian options if you're interested in those. I'd eat here again (maybe on a less...

Ordered The Rain of Fire using DoorDash for the first time. I was unaware that they use raw fish until I ate some of it, had a suspicion and called the restaurant to check. I later realized that Poke-Bowls by definition use raw meat. I admit that my lack of culinary knowledge is to be blamed. However, having a warning by the side of each menu item or at the TOP of the menu which reads that "the items contain raw meat which increases the risk of food-borne illnesses" would make sense so that even people who aren't really aware of what "sushi" means know that they're getting raw fish. If not an upfront warning, I feel at least the menu item descriptions could read something like " Raw Tuna , Raw Salmon, red onion ....." for the benefit of those of us who are unaware of what Poke or Sushi is.

Instead there's a virtually unnoticeable fine print at the very end of the menu which reads : "Consuming raw or undercooked meats, poultry, seafood, shellfish, eggs or unpasteurized milk may increase your risk of foodborne illness." How many people scroll to the very end of the page on a website ? DoorDash doesn't even seem to have that fine print for PB Station's menu!

I understand that this might be the current norm with most Poke or Sushi places. I'm leaving this review in an attempt to change that in the future if possible. I had to throw away the entire order because I'm not comfortable with eating raw fish! And what's worse is that I ended up eating a considerable amount of raw fish without...

I used to come several times to this location a few years back because its pretty close to campus and convenient, but after today I would probably will never come back! I did build your own, and everything seem great the size portion is pretty generous and I was able to get the toppings I like. However, as soon as I take a bite something seemed wrong I couldn’t put my finger on it, so I kept eating. I knew something tasted spoiled, but I couldn’t tell what was it, so I took a bite of everything individually until I ate a piece of cucumber, they were indeed spoiled they tasted TERRIBLE the worst sour flavor ever. Just to double check I asked my friend who also order a poke bowl to try her cucumber alone, and she also agree with it being bad. I don’t like to complain about food, but I felt that for everyone’s safety was better to let them know and request if they could re do it. However, they GASLIGHT me saying that it was probably a spicy sauce (btw I didn’t even get spicy sauce 😂), I handed it to them requesting if I could get it re done, and they decided to use the thongs that they serve food with and remove the cucumbers and hand me the same bowl. I went at noon so they were probably open for about 1 hour and half, how are there same day “fresh” cut cucumbers spoiled? No idea. Anyways, they didn’t even take all the cucumbers away (attached picture). If these is how careful they are about their vegetables, I am pretty worry about...