Sakura Sushi Restaurant — Restaurant in Live Oak

I have been eating at Sakura since I moved back to my hometown 5 years ago. I'm a big lover of Japanese food, especially hibachi, so I was thrilled to see this wonderful restaurant near me. The restaurant is very clean and I love their authentic interior design. I typically just place my order to go through the Beyond Menu app and then pay and tip with the cashier. They go above and beyond and take great care in even the way they pack and organize my orders. They go over every order to make sure it was correct before handing me the bags of delicious food. My favorite thing to order is the hibachi shrimp with double rice and an extra large cup of Yum Yum sauce that I gladly paid extra for. Worth every penny, because that white sauce tastes like a slice of heaven. I also love their soy sauce, which is much better tasting than the Wasabi restaurant in Lake City. Every now and then I'll order a few fried sushi rolls, which are great, but its habachi food is where this restaurant shines, in my opinion. It's fantastic and I love that they include a salad and Miso soup. Always a great experience there. Never had a bad one out of all the 5 years I've been frequenting this place. The staff and the chefs are all so friendly and I have no doubt this restaurant deserves 5 stars. Even if the price was higher, I still think their food is worth it. It's amazing!

EDITED TO ADD: One more thing worth noting is the quality and size of Sakura's shrimp compared to Wasabi, another Japanese Hibachi style restaurant located in the next town, Lake City, in the Publix Commons.... Before I moved back home to Live Oak, Wasabi was my go-to for shrimp hibachi. A few years ago, I decided to swing by there and pick some up for old times sake and while it was still good, the size and quantity of the shrimp in my hibachi were pretty small compared to Sakura. I also realized Sakura had superior tasting soy sauce and yum-yum sauce. If you want fantastic Japanese food, definitely go to the superior Sakura. They are friendly and meticulous and they put so much care into each order. I can only rate 5 stars, but if I could, I'd rate an additional 5. Best restaurant in town and outside of...

The place was dead on a Sunday at 5:22pm... should have been my first clue.

The atmosphere of Sakura was lacking and left us wanting more, it felt empty, everything spaced out way to far.

The place was not really clean the tables were sticky like they havent changed the sanitizer in the wipe down buckets.

The service was just as empty and lacking we waited over 10 mins for our server to take our order, once again; place was dead. Server never came to check on us after delivering cold food. Waited another 20 mins to get our bill which I had to run out to the truck to get a pen to sign said bill because our server dropped off the bill and ran immediately away.

The food was sub-par; we expected hibachi the likes of toyko steakhouse or benehana. (Which Sakura does not do live table shows like the other places do) Anyways, the food was over teriyaki'd but bland somehow. The steak tasted boiled which makes no sense if it was cooked on a flat top, it all came out cold my 7 year old didnt even eat their noodles as they were "cold and slimey"

Got home and of course were all starting to get...

Did I miss the memo on the earthquake in Live Oak? Read on, all will become clear. Had the miso soup, house salad, and steak hibachi. I actually really enjoyed all 3. Our server was super sweet. I would give her 5 stars just for her super nice personality.

I was unusually slow yesterday with my observation. I became somewhat horrified to notice my partners, 2 separate plates had numerous chips around the edges of both her plates. I thought OK maybe just an oversight, a bad one granted. But where there is life, there is hope, right? Then my steak hibachi came out, and my dinner plate was riddled with sizeable chips around the edge of the plate also. What the Heck? Then, the slow realization dawned on me the kitchen must be pushing out chipped plates all over the place. Now Live Oak did experience Hurricane Idali but I must have missed the memo on the earthquake that hit after the hurricane. OR Maybe they got a deal on some left over dishes from the titanic. Cracked plates is a health code violation, especially from a restaurant. I'm glad I didn't have...