Chef 21 Sushi Burger and Korean BBQ — Restaurant in Greenville

We came here on Christmas day. We had a reservation for 1:30 pm. We arrived and waited almost 30 minutes before we were sat, and we were only sat after we mentioned to the waitress (twice) that we had a reservation and had been waiting well past the time. There were lots of other people waiting who had reservations, too, but they had not been seated either. It appeared that the restaurant was abysmally short staffed, but my thought is - if a restaurant doesn't have enough folks scheduled to work a busy holiday, perhaps it's better to not be open for that day? One woman standing behind us had waited so long, she started calling other restaurants to see what else was open.

We were sat somewhat quickly after addressing the waitress the 2nd time, but service continued to be slow. It was 3:01 pm when we received our food (an hour after sitting down and 1.5 hours from our reservation). When the food came, the waitress quickly dropped the food off and rushed away. She didn't say a word, which feels rude in an industry where customer interaction is paramount. This behavior continued throughout our dining experience. The waitress (a youngish woman, short brown hair with the top portion pulled back) avoided our table most of the time, meanwhile laughing and checking in on other parties seated around us. Her avoidance was obvious, and it made us uncomfortable.

Additionally, it appears as though the menu should be updated. I can only eat gluten free so I ordered an item from the menu that had the GF symbol next to it (which meant the meal could be made GF upon request). There were only 4 or 5 items I could order so I got the poke bowl - not because I really wanted it, but because out of the options it was the only one that seemed filling enough. I wasn't totally aware that the fish would be completely raw (I don't have an extensive history of eating poke), which is no mistake of the waitress, but after staring at the dish for a few minutes, we got the attention of the waitress and I told her, honestly and kindly, that I wouldn't be able to consume raw fish to that scale (there was a lot of it). She agreed to serve me a hibachi dish instead, which was appreciated. I told her I wouldn't be able to eat it, though, because it wasn't GF, but she quickly told me it could be made GF. That wasn't indicated on the menu, or else I would have just ordered that to start with and could have avoided the mixup.

The hibachi was okay at best. Nothing really to write home about.

The one redeeming thing about our experience was the hostess - a sweet woman with short curly black hair with maroon highlights - who checked on us and made sure we had everything we needed. She did more than the waitress!

All in all, I would say my largest complaints were the long wait times, the less than stellar treatment by our waitress, and the out of date menu. We certainly won't be back, but we will always be thankful for the hostess who took...

Worst experience I’ve had in a while! We had a reservation for a table for a friend’s birthday dinner. Reservation was @ 8pm for 16 people. They called the night prior & changed our reservation for 8:15. When you have reservations for 16 people & majority of those people have children who they have rescheduled babysitters for, even a 15 mins difference can be an issue. We should have realized when we walked in, how dead it was to be a Saturday night in downtown Greenville. To begin with, our server went missing for a good part of our time there & another 2 servers stepped in. I don’t think he was experienced enough to have a 16 top table! We had multiple people in our party that are servers & couldn’t believe that management would put such an inexperienced server on a large group Other than him missing & our drinks taking forever to come out, which honestly we expected because we had such a large group, but seeing how dead they were.. I feel like it shouldn’t have taken as long as it did. We even walked upstairs to get drinks from the bar & even waited 15 mins for the bar tender to even acknowledge us, not because she was serving anyone else, because there was literally no one there at this point, but because she was cleaning up & another time she saw us walk up, she walked to the back & we waited another 15 mins before she came out to take our orders. And let me say, we are great tippers! Once we received our bills, I realized that that there was over $50 worth of food & drinks added to our bill that we didn’t order! When I mentioned it to the server, he proceeded to argue with me that those were the things that we had ordered. Which wasn’t true. When I insisted that he adjust our bill & take off them item, he finally did. However, realizing that he had messed up multiple other people’s bills in our party, he began fixing each bill. It took him an hour to correct everyone’s bills. Then when he brought our bill back, he had another person’s card attached to it. Thankfully he hadn’t ran our check on their card YET, but almost did!. But also irritated that they automatically charge 20% gratuity, because at this point, he made bank off of our table just with the 20% & I personally don’t feel as though it was worth 20%. The point in me leaving this review is to let futures customers know that if you want to go out to dinner, but you schedule & pay for a sitter, choose wisely before deciding to eat here. You may end up spending majority of your kid free night getting your bill situated & not actually enjoying your kid free night. Our plan was to have a nice dinner in downtown & then stop & have a drink at a bar downtown, before going home. By the time our bill finally was fixed, we ended up having to go straight home to relieve our babysitter. And also, it was very unprofessional of the server to argue with me when I asked him to adjust our bill & take off the items that didn’t...

This business lacks organization and communication. After waiting for at least half an hour in line for their dim sum soft opening, we were told we needed physical tickets, not reservations. Understanding that they couldn't accommodate us for dim sum (which is our fault for not booking correctly) we agreed to walk to their kbbq location next door. The manager/owner(?) walked with us and offered for us to wait at the bar. We refused and asked if we could wait outside due to us having a larger party and the bar already seemed full. She said it was fine and I assumed she went to let staff know that we were waiting so that they can prepare a table for us. We waited another 20-30 min before I finally walked in and asked the hostess if they were ready for us and only then did they start preparing a table for us.... By the time we were seated, we were running behind for another activity that we had planned for after lunch. Not wanting to waste anyone's time, we asked the waitress if it would be realistic for us to get the food quickly enough to leave at a certain time. She said no, which we appreciated her honesty, so we got up to leave.

While upset that our lunch plans didn't go as anticipated, we weren't upset about not getting to eat dim sum. It was the fact that there was no clear communication between staff and customers, thus wasting our time. Why did no one tell us upon arrival that we needed physical tickets? Had that been established we wouldn't have had to wait for so long for nothing. The cherry on top was the response to my sister's review. Either management confused us with another party or is straight up lying because we did not stay to eat for them to "bring the dim sum cart over" per our request. We weren't even offered a discount to try dim sum the next time? We're typically very understanding and patient with establishments, especially with soft openings. However we were left with a bad taste in our mouth and honestly no desire to revisit.

Edit to reply: There's no reason to show the text when we have already addressed we made a mistake in booking. The issue is, we had been there for at least half an hour and no one checked in on us while in line (after letting the host know we've arrived). Had we been told early on that we made the mistake and couldn't eat dim sum, we would have left sooner or been able to eat kbbq. That being said, no, we weren't informed upon arrival like you've stated. To say our kbbq table was given to another table feels like another blatant lie because the kbbq place looked half empty with plenty of tables. Despite standing outside, we were able to see what was going on inside, and it was definitely not serving...