Jay’s Kitchen — Restaurant in Goldsboro

The experience tonight was weird. Normally Jay's is awesome. The food was certainly awesome. But the service was way off tonight. Our server, Joseph, was inappropriate on several levels. The service began with him apologizing for an order that was messed up and taking too much of his time to straighten out. Could we please wait for a while as he sorted it. No problem. I did not need to know the details, but he did tell us he was new, so I gave him a pass. Then he began hovering at a table close by with two women patrons. He doesn't seem to understand the concept of personal space. Every time he would walk behind the lady sitting away from the wall, some part of his body would brush her hair. There was plenty of room between her seat and the next table. No need to pass so closely. He would return to check us every so often and then return to hovering at their table. He began sitting on his knees beside their table and just camping out there. At one point, he asked one of the ladies for her phone number. She responded, "Excuse me, do you see this?" She held up her left hand. He replied, "See what?" And she said, "This is my wedding ring. I am married and you are being inappropriate." It did not discourage him though, he put almost all of his focus on them at that point and sat on his knees by their table almost constantly after that. Another server brought out my dinner. After a while, he did come over to apologize that my daughters dinner was not ready yet and started complaining about the kitchen. This began a pattern. He did deliver her meal after I had already finished mine, and continued to complain about the kitchen, not only for our service, but also for the service of other patrons. When he would walk behind my daughter, he was now touching her hair too. If he would have dropped down to his knees at our table, I would have called him out on it, as it puts him at a level to look under any skirts at a table. As the service went on, I realized the guy is a creep. When he served my daughters meal, he was not looking at our table, or even looking in our direction. He was looking at the table with the other two ladies. My daughter had to grab her drink with one hand and steady the plate with her other, as he almost put both into her lap. A little while later he came by and asked, "You want the check?" I just stared at him, and he said, "It's not the right time to ask, is it?" I responded, "No, it is not. She is still eating."

I could keep going, but I would just be repeating the same behaviors already described. I am used to a much higher standard of service at Jay's and am very disappointed in what I saw tonight. I will probably come back eventually, but it will not be soon. Get a handle on the front of your house and instill some...

I must say that i have been to Jays burger and sushi bar many times in the past. It is usually our Date night Restaurant of choice for the wife and I. We have always had a phenomenal experience, from walking into the door, to the live music playing, the waiter/waitress, the food and the atmosphere. Never any regrets. Tonight we decided to go to Jays Kitchen(Jays sushi and Burger Bar was not open due to Covid19), absolute mistake....upon arriving the hostess told me it would be around 45 mins....wait..... another hostess came up and said no, It will only be 20 mins, well, lets go ahead and say 45 mins, is what I was told. No problem, I understand. We waited for about 20 mins and then were escorted to our table. So far so good. We were seated, given 2 dinner menus, a drink menu, and were told the waitress would be right with us.............................about 20 minutes later she showed up, took our drink order( 1 martini, 1 bloody mary and 2 waters) and appetizer order. Dissapeared for about 15 mins, came back and brought our appetizer, and still no martini, bloody mary or water. She then proceeds to say, I'm sorry, drinks will be right out. We finished the appetizer and still no drinks or water. Finally she came back 10 mins later and started to turn around.....I said its ok. Just bring the check. She had the nerve to bring the check and the 2 drinks and guess what was on the check? THE DRINKS!!! I said I am not paying for those, we didnt even get them till now, we sat there for 45 mins at least with nothing. She took the drinks and the check, took the drinks off and brought the check back, slid it on the table turned around and mumbled have a nice night. Didn't even leave a pen for me to sign the check. What a childish thing to do. Own up to your mistakes lady! Worse service ever!!!. Will never be back again! Only reason for 2 stars was the appetizer...

Food is good, maybe a little above average. It's best you can get in Goldsboro for sushi/asian fusion. That being said, it's all that I can positively say about this restaurant. The place is ridiculously under-staffed, the place was PACKED, and our waitress was seemingly overwhelmed and she came out uneasy which made us feel awkward. It is not the waitresses fault that whoever is running this restaurant isn't doing it well, but it's also not the customer's fault. If you feel like having a big group of people coming to dine out here your best bet is to go get your food somewhere else. I ordered poke bowl that came with miso soup, and my hubby ordered crab eggroll appetizer, one "fancy" roll and a salmon roll. I got my miso ten minutes in, my hubby's appetizer half hour in, one fancy roll& poke bowl hour in and the salmon roll took an eternity to arrive. Not mentioning the beer. It was annoying, because it was so little food that took so long to get. If you don't have much time to sit around, save yourself a headache and visit another restaurant. Another thing, I was aware that this restaurant has higher prizes but the fact that the place is SLOW makes you feel like you are paying up basically for nothing. If you value your money, travel out to Clayton and have a fancy sushi dinner there. Very rarely I complain about restaurants, and I always try to look at the positives and not be upset, but it was very hard because you are leaving so much $ for so little and this was definitely one time thing for us. I guess if you're still thinking about trying this place out, go ahead but don't do it during weekends or friday nights. Just friendly advice. We ended up paying $80 for 2 beers and everything else that I described above. Of course, we tipped our waitress nicely because we realize it's difficult working in such conditions. I feel...