Sakana Sushi Bar & Grill — Restaurant in Hoover

We recently went to this restaurant last weekend since we saw it behind Salvators Pizza. As first time visitors, our experience was terrible. First the price of the all you can eat sushi was around 30 dollars per person. You are unable to share the food with others unless they paid for the all you can eat as well, you can't leave food behind or you'll be charged, and you can't take the food home. We had no issues with this until we noticed we weren't being served our sushi. We entered the restaurant around 6 pm and left around 8 pm. When we entered, the restaurant wasn't busy so for our first round of food was eh. I would not recommend any of the hibachi options. It was either over salted or not seasoned enough. We had to send a plate back for it being so salty and they remade it. For our second round of food we attempted to order sushi. During that time groups of people began entering. At this time it was close to 7 pm. We waited and waited and waited.... even our waitress and another waitress was confused as to why our orders weren't coming. Note that these groups of people entering AFTER us were receiving rounds and rounds of sushi. Also note it was only myself and 3 others at my table. These groups of people were like 9-10 people together. It's now been an hour since we recieved our first round of food which wasn't the best. My mother and I began to become frustrated and asked our waitress to get the manager who turned out to be the owner. When she spoke to us it came off rude at first but we believe there was a bit of a language barrier. She gave us a 22% discount on our ticket (which was over 120 dollars even after the discount) but we left the restaurant hungry and agitated. To still spend that kind of money after that service wasn't a great feeling... Miraculously they showed up with our order as well which they allowed for us to take home. Our waitress was extremely awesome and apologetic as she was servicing multiple tables alone due to the restaurant being extremely understaffed. It's why we were understanding to the wait time before but unfortunately the wait time was too long especially after seeing large groups of people receiving their orders. Other waitresses were unsure which orders went to which table, I assume our orders were given to other tables. I wouldn't recommend this...

If I could rate this experience 0 stars I would. We had an absolutely horrible waitress. We were a party of 9. After she was done taking our order she made a comment to us about how she hoped the kitchen wasn’t going to “kill her” because we ordered so much food.. we all got a meal. Once she brought the food out she gave me the wrong plate, and then argued that it was my correct plate. Come to find out, it really wasn’t the right plate. All was good until it came time to separate the checks and pay. She put an extra drink on our ticket, which I asked her to remove. No big deal. It happens. She looks over all the checks to see why we had an extra drink. 2 of the people in our party weren’t charged for drinks at all. They thought their all you can eat meal included a drink. She rudely said to them “so you knew you got 2 drinks and you just decided not to speak up and tell me it wasn’t on your ticket” and she rolled her eyes as they explained they thought fountain drinks were included in the all you can eat. She also made a comment to someone else in our party that she put the gratuity charge on our tickets even though we only had 9 people instead of 10 because she’s waited on parties like us before and she knows we don’t tip well. After we gave her our cards for payment, she switched our $50 check with someone else in the party’s $85 check. I politely told her she charged us for the wrong amount. She rudely took the check out of my hand and said she didn’t know what happened. We figured out who’s checks got swapped and she told us to just use Venmo to pay each other the difference. After that she said “I’m sorry I messed up a few things and made things bad but yall made things even worse on me.” And just walked away. Nobody in our party gave her a hard time. We were patient and polite. I was a waitress for 5 years. I understand how hard it can be at times, but I never would have dreamed of talking to my customers the way she talked to us. We were completely disrespected. The food was good, but it wasn’t good enough for us to want to come back and risk being treated like this again. We were extremely disappointed in the service that...

This was our first visit to this restaurant, and unfortunately, it will be our last. The food was okay. Nothing special, but if you have a big appetite, the All You Can Eat option might be worth it.

Our main issue was the service. We had a large party of 12, including a couple of kids, and after waiting for a table, we still didn’t have enough seating. Our server seemed to be trying, but the experience went downhill quickly. She charged us for a soda (Mr. Pibb) that we didn’t order, and when we pointed it out, she turned to the other end of the table and said, “Why didn’t you tell me you ordered Mr. Pibb?” in a tone that came across as passive-aggressive rather than joking.

Then the checks were mixed up and charges were put on the wrong cards. At the end, while handing out the corrected checks, she said, “I’m sorry for the trouble I caused y’all, but y’all caused me more trouble…”followed by a quiet “kidding.” After multiple sly remarks throughout lunch, this left a bad impression. We weren’t rude or demanding customers, so the comments felt uncalled for.

The atmosphere didn’t help either. When we walked in, there was a strong sewer smell. While that may not be the restaurant’s fault, it’s off-putting when you’re about to eat sushi. The floors were dirty, and although that may be due to heavy foot traffic, I also noticed a strong bleach-water smell, not something you want lingering...