Nama Sushi Bar - Cedar Bluff — Restaurant in Knoxville

I have been dining at nama for over 10 years. It’s always been my favorite spot for sushi in town so a few years ago when I found out they were putting one in near me (cedar bluff) I was excited but ever since then I’ve become more and more disappointed every time I dine there. The past few times I’ve been the food has taken at least 40 minutes. Tonight I ordered for my 11 month son and our appetizer first. The appetizer took a while to come out and it took forever for our server to come over and take our order. 30 minutes after we ordered food for my son it finally came out after we had to ask our server to check on it. She immediately came over with it and said it just came up in the window. It obviously had been sitting there for a while considering there was a film over the top of the sauce. 25 minutes later and our first round of rolls still hadn’t come out yet. (On half price night they only do one roll per person at a time.) so we asked our waitress to please just box them and cancel the next round. She said she would be happy to do so since she hadn’t even rang them in yet. I was shocked. So had we not cancelled that round we were going to have to wait another 30 minutes for the next round after we had already waited forever for the first round?? Who has time for that? She seemed to be avoiding the situation at hand and did not acknowledge how long the wait for everything was until the very end when I had to ask for the third time for a lid for my Togo container. It was then that she said sorry for the wait on everything. I told her I understand they are busy but we just probably won’t be coming back for awhile because we don’t have time to wait 45 minutes for our food every time we come in. Her response to that was “Okay, well, have a good night!” No I won’t have a good night since my husband and I wasted over an hour of our time at a restaurant and didn’t even get to eat. So hugely disappointed in everything that happened and the way our server blew it off and was so happy to get us out of there, with no concern of us not coming back. Like I said I’ve loved this restaurant for a very long time and I’ve given it quite a few chances despite having many similar experiences to this but tonight was by far the worst and as much as I love the sushi I really don’t think I will be back to this location for a very long time and wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. Next time I’ll drive further to the bearden location and hope things haven’t gone downhill for the business as a whole and that it’s only the cedar bluff...

We came from the coast. You can either hate the outsider, or appreciate this perspective. This place was ludicrously expensive for the quality. We ordered one salmon make roll, one crazy tuna, a tofu bowl, and a kid's "fish and chips." We got a salmon roll that wasn't served with sticky rice and poorly presented, for a higher menu price than we are used to paying in a region where wages are 30% higher than locally. The kid's "fish and chips," came as tempura breaded shrimp and potato chips. The tempura breaded shrimp, that we did not order, was not as good as the frozen bags we get at Costco. The price point was 20x that frozen Costco bag. The tofu bowl was so unappetizing that my wife left over half uneaten, and she is not a finicky eater; raised by warzone survivors accustomed to as means of survival, not enjoyment. The crazy tuna roll was billed as being topped with seared Ahi tuna and coming as 8 pieces. The pieces were half the size the octogenarian first generation Japanese immigrants prepare, for HALF the price, where we came from. There were 3 tiny pieces of tuna on top of the roll. About 75% was avocado that had begun to brown. Again, the rice was not sticky. The chips were actually potato chips, not traditional fries. Is that a gimmick that people enjoy? We paid 70$ for this meal. It was the most expensive per calorie we have eaten in Farragut. My wife, whom I've never heard say the following due to the enjoyment of letting go of the obligation to cook for our kids every day, stated after abruptly putting her chopsticks down, "Let's just go home, I can do this better at home."

You expect a value for your money to be reflected in the quality and/or quantity, affected by experience and ambiance to a degree. This, by that estimation, would be the most expensive meal we can remember eating.

Very disappointing experience. We will try local competitors, as we love sushi/sashimi, but have a....bad taste in our mouths after sampling landlocked sushi for...

DENIED ENTRY FOR HAVING A SERVICE DOG

We went to Nama-Sushi off of Cedar Bluff this evening to treat our friends to a celebratory dinner. We were going to stuff ourselves, laugh and drink the night away, it was going to be great. We get three steps in the door and are immediately stopped because of my Wife's service dog and they demand to see papers claiming it to be a "Knox County Health Code Requirement". For those that don't know, both TN State public access law and federal ADA law prohibits the discrimination of disabled persons like this. There's no actual official service dog registry, there's no official papers and websites that sell "licenses" are actually just scam websites. It's literally the first thing that pops up on google when you ask "Knox County Service Dog Laws". We spent probably 5-10 minutes going back and forth with this manager trying to educate him on the actual law and how his current actions were leaving him open to way more trouble than some vague health code which doesn't exist but he just stood there stone walling. He then tried to place us outside as a "compromise" but again, this is also legally considered discrimination and we didn't want to sit outside in the cold. Honestly, we've never had this much push back before. The dog is incredibly well trained for owner training and absolutely qualifies under state and federal standards for service dogs. Half the time staff don't even realize that she's there until we get up to go. So, my wife's breaking down very badly, a crowd is forming behind us, this guy is acting like he's just trying to "Obey knox county code" but is completely refusing to listen. We just left. The night was ruined. We looked like complete idiots in front of our good friends whom drove all the way from Sevierville just for tonight. Surely will never go back there again. Nama-Sushi,...