Kan Sushi — Restaurant in Honolulu

6:30: It's a Thursday evening and the restaurant is very busy. We walked here with a friend from another neighborhood. Make a reservation in advance; the place is full and they won't have any seating available for quite awhile. We have to wait 45 minutes to be seated, and they don't have a waiting area.

7:30: We've now been seated at a table for about 15 minutes, and they haven't even brought us water. A waiter just arrived and told us he still needed to close the tab from the last party who sat at our table (?), then he left.

7:35: Our waiter just returned and told us there would be a wait of at least 40 minutes before we got any food. We decided to order ala carte instead of getting the AYCE. When I told him what roll I wanted, he said it wouldn't be available for a long time. So I asked if a different roll would be available sooner? Nope. After we told him what we wanted, he walked away without offering to take our menus from the table.

7:40: We just now got our water. Perhaps they're under-staffed?

7:50: The party at the table next to us, which was seated after we were, has already been served at least 2 courses. They ordered sushi rolls, which they've already eaten most of, and have just been served bowls of udon.

8:08: We just got some food: a spicy cheetos roll. About a minute later, another food runner brought us another cheetos roll even though we only ordered one.

8:13: We just got our Tom & Jerry roll.

8:14: A different employee just brought us a third cheetos roll, which we declined like the 2nd.

8:20: We'd ordered a crunch roll and were just brought a roll with seaweed on it by the same employee (an Asian young man) who brought us the 3rd cheetos roll. I told him it didn't look like what we asked for, which was a "crunch roll" that didn't show seaweed on it in the pictures like the one we were just given. He looked me dead in the eye and told me in a rather condescending tone that that was it. After he left, I looked online and found that it is definitely not what we ordered: the crunch roll and the seaweed crunch roll are two different things. When our waiter came back and I told him about it, he said we wouldn't be charged for it. But as our friend put it: the Asian guy just tried to gaslight us about what we know we actually ordered. He's not wearing a name tag.

8:30: Our friend dining with us just told me that she's been observing the nearby tables, and apparently the staff has been delivering orders to us that were actually ordered by neighboring parties. One of the neighboring tables told the waiter that they hadn't gotten everything they ordered but they were checking out anyway.

8:45: Our waiter, Michael, is apparently the only person that the management has assigned to this whole area, because we haven't seen anybody else around here taking orders.

After we received the check, our friend insisted on picking up the tab. But after she gave her credit card to the waiter, he returned and said that their system had declined her credit card 3 times in a row. He asked if we had another way to pay but that he'd try the card again. Apparently it worked after the fourth try. 🙄 She hadn't had any trouble with using that card until this incident.

A couple other things I noted: The entrance to the restaurant has double glass doors, but they kept one side locked closed the whole time despite how busy it was, therefore forcing all customers going both in and out to have to use the same door on the same side.

After entering the restaurant, there is a small flight of steps with the hosts's podium at the top left side. This flight of steps has no handrail, which combined with the aforementioned conditions makes it somewhat precarious, especially for senior citizens walking down.

The noise level was sometimes unpleasant, but not so much because of the other customers or even because of the lack of noise-dampening features. The most obtrusive noise was due to the bussers who set and clear the...

So first let me say that the service is slow. At some times can also be " inattentive". This is something that we have almost come to accept as normal over the past few years due to the pandemic. But I am not giving them a pass for this because of the number of employees I saw working and the "structure" of the staffing. There are waiters who check on you very irregularly and are responsible for taking your order. In 90 minutes there we waited as long as 20 minutes without ever seeing him come by or address our table. They have servers constantly going around and bringing orders to tables. So for food to arrive lukewarm at some points is really unacceptable. And multiple managers roaming around making cheesy jokes at some tables or overly showing attention to certain tables is unprofessional

So loss of star because some food arrived tasting and temperature wise that it had been sitting for awhile before being delivered

2 stars off service because it really shouldn't have been this slow with that many employees

1 star off atmosphere because of managers hovering over certain tables unnecessarily longer than the customary "how is everything, etc and short chit chat with patrons that is normal"

On to the food:

The all you can eat price has increased to 38.95 but when you look at the Ala cart pricing it's a very reasonable price if you're going to order a few things. Limited to 2 items ordered at a time which is understandable considering the process.

Jinro Strawberry is something I've never seen before and was delicious. Served with a shot glass to drink was a novel touch and kept me from chugging it too fast.

Jalapeno bomb.: My first order was wonderful. The jalapeno was lightly fried and still had some crunch to the pepper as it wasn't over cooked or soggy as most peppers are prone to do when cooked or fried. The stuffing was exceptional. Arrived at a perfect temperature in my opinion but as the night progressed I realized that is probably because it sat for a few minutes before delivery because my second order of them the poppers were scaling hot like they were fresh out of the fryer.

Cajun shrimp undon: the Cajun sauce was exceptional and flavored perfectly. Being from Louisiana I'm usually hesitant to try Cajun food elsewhere. But the sauce here was amazing and just spicy enough to make itself pop. The noodles were well cooked and properly mixed with the sauce. My only complaint is that for it to have "shrimp" in the name, my serving did not actually include a single shrimp. Trust me I looked, and I was using chopsticks so I wasn't shoveling the pasta into my mouth with a fork like I am prone to doing st Italian restaurants.

Spicy chicken: my final item and the one I waited the longest for. This is the one that I was most disappointed with as it had been sitting for a very long time before being delivered. The waiter even made a rare appearance to the table to say it was coming shortly and it was still almost 10 minutes later to arrive. Half of the chicken towards the sides wasn't even lukewarm but practically cold/room temperature. All of it had a "soggy texture" when eating it, and for being called spicy it wasn't even a mild on my personal scale.

Our waiter asked if there was anything else before the final item arrived and we said no that the check could be brought and we waited a good 20 minutes to receive it. The only saving grace to all of this time spent was that based on other reviews we kinda had the expectation that it wasn't going to be fast. And went prepared to wait for the food. Definitely willing to give this place another try as most of the...

Redeemed Top Notch Service-Across the board: 11/13/2024 surprised my Mister for his Birthday with the ohana party of 7 approx 7pm 25min wait time. Managers on Duty: Nae & Alfred whom provided great service and follow-up when our designated waiter: Tyler was slammed all night. All orders were properly made, modified, and routed and if not sure the food expediter asked to confirm (GREATLY APPRECIATED); btw DONT SLEEP on the Fried Chicken Wings, TunaPeno, Sashimi Platter (I sub the mackrel with extra seared yellow tail/hamachi) #YouAreWelcome -As backed up as they were our food started flowing and we were stoked the quality was there and friendliness of the staff never fell short on "Aloha" Thank you for the superb dining experience even our 2 yr niece had a blast and enjoyed the place! Half of the ohana that came out was their first time and they were extremely pleased with the taste, variety of AYCE, and the "Aloha" exceptional service we received!!! We will definitely be returning again!!!

1 month prior: Went there the 1st time (party of 2) it was a 5 star experience with Hana & Joseph (MOD) so we talked to family and friends put together a party of 11 arrived on time it was not busy at all. Let me say it is a bad sign when it took 15min to get water the kicker was that the beer and soda arrived before everyone on the table got water. Let's not forget how when the waiter took "everyone's" order he only went to 9 out of 11 people and walked away until we had to hunt him down to finish...uuuggghhh that was stressful. Especially since the two people was our mom and grandmother the most patient people out of all 11 of us. *Overall our large party was poorly handled our waiter was Wyatt, Mgr on Duty was Alfred, and the only great service was Todd who expedited some of our food to the table of 11 and made sure we all got what we ordered correctly placed by the individual...that is right because ALL NIGHT every other expediter or server came announced the dish and placed it on the completely wrong side of the table of 11 every time! He did manage to reassure me that he made sure my ticket or seat assigned numbers have been noted NO UNAGI AND NO SALMON because of food allergies...which I thought oh cool because last time Hanah did the same which was greatly appreciated. Then came an order of Jalapeno poppers (even another story with the poppers a little after) with Unagi sauce, then Mussels again with Unagi sauce all over -which after sending it back a corrected order never came out! Then while waiting for my replacement Jalapeno poppers (mind you vey 1s thing ordered out of 11 people) about 30min later I asked for an update and if he never lie to my face and say "oh...the server likely put it down in the middle of the table for everyone" I was soooo irrraaazzzz....I told him "Nope absolutely not since I've been watching and directing almost every dish that has arrived and placed incorrectly around the table" This experience was COMPLETELY EMBARRASSING & FRUSTRATING after expressing such an awesome experience only 2 weeks prior then bringing out a large party was a BUZZ KILL and caused very uneasy feelings amongst our family. We were looking for a venue for future event and now we have confirmed unfortunately Kan Sushi is NOT THE SPOT! WE WILL NEVER BRING any large gatherings back to Kan Sushi BECAUSE OF THIS HORRIBLE EXPERIENCE and hopefully keeping it to a party of 2-4 will manage better outcomes. The food is good for a great price but at the sacrifice of shitty customer service ...can ultimately lead to a hard sale...