Sakura Teppanyaki & Sushi — Restaurant in Lake View Township

A Disgraceful Experience at Sakura Teppanyaki – Beware of Predatory Parking Practices

We have been loyal customers of Sakura Teppanyaki for the past four years, always enjoying great experience until we encountered an absolute nightmare this past weekend.

We had a 7:00 PM reservation and arrived early, parking in Sakura’s designated lot at 6:15 PM. Since we had 45 minutes before our reservation, we decided to walk around the neighborhood for 15 minutes before heading into Sakura. While waiting, we stopped by Trader Joe’s across the street to pick up drinks, as we believed that Sakura was BYOB.

At around 6:30 PM, we entered Sakura, only to be informed that they were not BYOB. To avoid any issues, I immediately went back to our car to put the drinks away — and that’s when I saw that our vehicle had been booted by Innovative Parking Solutions, despite the fact that we were legitimate customers of Sakura.

As I stood there, reading the fake "parking tickets" they had put in our car door, two employees from Innovative Parking Solutions aggressively approached me, invading my personal space within six inches. They adopted a hostile and demanding tone, insisting that I pay $170 to have the boot removed. They claimed I was not a customer of any business in the lot and that I would have to pay a fine.

I explained that we had a valid reservation at Sakura, that the parking sign clearly stated we were allowed to park there, and that I had only returned to my car to store our drinks. My wife and her friend were in Sakura now with the friends we were meeting. Rather than listening, they escalated their aggression, repeatedly interrupting, dismissing, and threatening me. One of them warned that our car would be towed, which would have cost $500 if we didn’t comply. Their aggressive stance, intimidation tactics, and refusal to de-escalate made it clear they were attempting to extort us with fabricated rules.

To make matters worse, one of the employees falsely accused me of driving under the influence, despite the fact that I had not driven at all — my wife was our designated driver that evening. This baseless and reckless accusation was not only offensive but also a clear attempt to further intimidate us into compliance.

Their behavior completely ruined our evening and made us feel unsafe.

Thankfully, Sakura’s manager came outside and confronted the parking employees on our behalf. Even then, they were stubborn and argumentative, refusing to acknowledge their mistake. Only after being forced to call their boss did they realize THEY WERE IN THE WRONG AND THEY HAD TO REMOVE THE ILLEGAL PARKING BOOT. Even then, they did not apologize for their behavior, their threats, or their attempt to shake us down for money.

Message to Sakura Management First, thank you to the manager who stepped in to help remove the illegal boot. However, you must address this issue with your landlord or whoever contracts Innovative Parking Solutions. You have just lost a loyal customer for life due to their shady, unethical business practices.

Our car was illegally booted for over. an hour — what if there had been an emergency? No customer should be subjected to public harassment, intimidation, and false accusations simply for dining at your restaurant.

Furthermore, Innovative Parking Solutions must severely reprimand the English-speaking employee involved. His arrogance, lack of professionalism, hostility, and outright false accusations made this a truly appalling experience.

Final Warning to Future Customers To anyone considering visiting Sakura Teppanyaki — beware. You risk being illegally booted, harassed, falsely accused, and extorted by Innovative Parking Solutions, even with a valid reservation.

We will never return, and many others we know won’t either.

It is disgraceful that a once-trusted restaurant would allow its customers to be subjected to this level of hostility, intimidation, and outright false accusations. Shame on Sakura for permitting...

Posting this after letting the experience rest for about 4 weeks. Went there as part of a friends birthday celebration with an original group of 12, later downsized at our final confirmation for the party reservation. Arrived at the restaurant about 5 minutes before the reservation and 2 members of our party stuck in traffic. Front of house staff asked us to wait by the sushi bar for a table to open up and for the remaining members of our party to show up. No big deal!

We are waiting for a bit and 2 tables open up, eventually being seated by other parties walking in. One of my members shows up and we are just waiting on the one remaining. I walk from the sushi bar to the front of house staff and let them know we are waiting on just the one person to show up. They respond, "we won't seat you until all of your party members are present." Okay, reasonable I guess, policy is policy. We wait another 15 minutes (it's about 30 minutes after the reservation time) and our last member had arrived and we were all waiting by the sushi bar. All tables had been filled and we were just chilling. At 7:15pm, we finally get seated (hour and 15 after our reservation, which we obviously contributed to by not having everyone make it on time) and they start doing their thing to get orders in. A few of the members of our group had dietary restrictions of varying levels which made it difficult to hit the "minimum teppanyaki order" and the last 2 people at the table were pressured by the staff to order the full meal instead of what they wanted. The waitress had to yell to get the point across that they needed to get it rather than just point out the policy and the number which was currently ordered. Birthday girl, at this point, extremely upset. We are all just trying get the food going and move past everything. Chef comes out, does his thing, onion volcano, egg flipped into chef hat... You know the drill. He skips a few steps that the table right across from us got. Front of house had clearly told him to serve us quickly and move on due to their initial opinions on our group and the difficulty "we ended up causing them." If we had been a family group instead of a group of 24 year olds, I am positive we would have been treated more respectfully from the start. The whole experience left a very bitter feeling for the night and we were required to rally once we left to enjoy the rest of the evening.

Lesson learned, don't be late of course. But this restaurant front of house staff needs to be very clear about policies surrounding their menu, reservations, and how they impact groups. It's easy to tell when you are being treated differently when there is a group sitting right...

I don't know how i have never left a review for this place and i literally come here 1-2x a month. To start, my favorite meal in the world is Hibachi! I can literally eat this everyday and be perfectly fine. I have never had a bad experience here and i am convinced that will NEVER happen.

At this point in my life and the 5+ years i have been frequenting this place, I know their menu like i know my phone number. This spot is great for group gatherings or if you're a loner you can STILL eat hibachi by yourself! My go to is the Lobster, golden shrimp and steak! Sometimes i wanna get fancy and get the Lobster golden as well. Their egg-yolk sauce is the best i have ever tasted! It does not get any better than theirs. Their portions are humongous and their MANGO MARTINI will do the trick if you're looking to catch a real buzz during dinner.

Their service has never disappointed me because i basically live in there! I enjoy the fact that they recognize their regulars and already know what my order will be.

There are a few hibachi restaurants in the city but do yourself a favor and try Sakura!

Your Tastebuds Will...