Shogun Sushi — Restaurant in Los Angeles

I've been here a few times in the past many years as it was a favored location by friends (never mine personally). The visit that really put me off was my visit on Sunday, April 9th 2017 at around 6 or 7PM or so - evening time. I was meeting up with friends and I got there about 10 min late and my friends were there already and sat down. We were only given the paper slip for marking down sushi but I wanted the full menu so I asked for it. Didn't get it right away, probably waited about 5 minutes. Took another 5 minutes for a waiter to come and take our order, actually it was one of the owners that took our order. So at this point, It took 10 min for me, 20 min for my friends to finally get an order in. I will pause here and say I'm still okay at this point in waiting since it was probably peak or close to peak time so the restaurant was busy. Judging from how the restaurant was being run, it looked like 2 of the waiters were new, still trying to get a hold of things, one who is a seasoned waiter and it seemed the owner was trying to help out as well. I know how restaurants work and I have patience.

That said, while we waited for our food, my friends and I chatted and waited patiently. It wasn't until I realized that a group of people who were sat in a booth after we were sat got their foods first and even finished their meal and another group sat in that booth and yet, our food was no where to be seen. We wanted to give the restaurant the benefit of the doubt but after a 40 minute wait and not even a soup being served, i grabbed the veteran waiter (who was waiting our table) and inquired politely what's going on with our food and that we have waited for over 40 minutes. I'm sure the waiter thought we were exaggerating. I've seen (and I bet you have too) people who wait 5 minutes and say they have been waiting for half an hour.. but he came back, acknowledged that we have indeed been waiting that long as it was time stamped and basically gave us the excuse that they were short handed therefore our food was not started yet. Thankfully, my friends were also very understanding and patient so we waited further, where at this point, most people would storm out. I was another 10 min until our food finally started to arrive. So we ate, and paid, no tip of course, and before we left, we asked again, this time the owner, why it took so long. My friends and I don't like to jump to conclusions and were hoping for a valid reason behind the massive delay. The response we got was outrageous and unbelievable. The owner said, from her mouth, that because her friends came to visit the restaurant, she allowed speedy service to them... which in return forgot our orders. She is totally playing favoritism and she admitted it to a customer. Never have I seen or heard that before but it was pretty appalling.

A week later, another friend wanted to grab something small and quick and had picked this location so I met up with her and I just had water and 2 orders of sushi. That took about 25 minutes from the point of me ordering to me getting my food. Now at this point, I have re-affirmed my opinion about this place. I was also told by my friend that he too went again a few weeks later and although my friend got a decent service this time, waiting about 10 min or so for his food, the friends he was with didn't get their's for a while and they were apparently pissed.

That said, even if I got an apology from the owner and they offered a free meal, I wouldn't go because that would mean the owner is now favoring me which means there could be someone else who falls victim to waiting.

I'm not blaming the chefs. I'm not blaming the servers (since some seemed new - if they aren't new, this place has terrible training). I do blame the veteran server a little since if you are a veteran, you should be able to see what's going on throughout the restaurant and know when tables are not getting attention. The whole restaurant isn't that big. But mostly I blame the owner(s) who have no freakin' idea how to run a restaurant and or is too...

I tend to stray away from leaving negative reviews for small restaurants, unless I felt it was truly deserved, especially since my family owns a small restaurant. But, this was probably the worst experience I've ever had with a restaurant in my entire life, and that's saying something.

My party placed a to-go order totaling $63. We had two orders of BBQ beef ribs in our order and upon returning home, we discovered that one of the orders hardly had any edible beef in it. Half of the pieces in it were basically just bone and slivers of fat. My friend called to let the restaurant know and the woman who spoke to him, who I assume was the manager, was hostile, combative, and unwilling to listen to anything he was saying from the get-go. She constantly interrupted him and spoke over him while he was trying to explain the situation and explain that he has ordered the ribs multiple times before and that this has never been an issue before. Even the other order of ribs we had was perfectly fine.

He didn't call with the intent to ask for a refund, he initially just called to give the restaurant a heads up, so that they could avoid this situation in the future. But, the woman immediately accused us of trying to "rip them off" (her exact words) and implied that we were accusing their chef of trying to cheat us. Again, at this point, he hadn't even asked for a refund, so how could we be trying to rip them off? He also never said or implied anything about their chef. It was only upon hearing the woman's accusations and hostility that we decided to ask for a refund for the single order of ribs. The woman immediately cut us off and declared that she would not be fully refunding the entire order and that it would be ridiculous to do so. No one even mentioned anything about a full refund for the entire order, and she would've known that had she bothered to listen to a single thing we were saying instead of constantly speaking over us and arguing with us. We were asking for a refund for the single order of ribs that had the issue, not the entire order. If we were trying to rip them off, wouldn't we be asking for the full order to be refunded instead of just the one item? We could've even claimed that both orders of the ribs had issues, but we didn't. We've never once had a complaint in all the times we've been to this restaurant, and we've been here quite a few times over the years, so if we were trying to rip them off, wouldn't we have tried to do that before?

The woman declared that she would not be giving any refund because we received all the items we ordered, as if that is the only aspect that matters. Quality is also a major factor in whether an order was satisfactory, not just whether the items were received. Would you pay for an item that was only half edible?

I was appalled by the manner in which the woman conducted herself and called the restaurant again to ask for her name. She then rudely responded to me "Why would I give you my name?" I repeatedly asked for her name, and she began to mimic me in a mocking tone. She also told us to never call back. Umm, I'll call you as many times as I want when it involves MY money. Her name was either Gemma, the name on our receipt, or Eun, the woman who seems to be replying to the reviews here. Judging by the way she's been arguing with people in the Yelp and Google reviews, it was probably Eun.

After much back and forth, she finally agreed to refund the item. Well, turns out that was a lie, because she never did.

Customer service can make or break a restaurant. As I mentioned, my family owns a small restaurant so I know a thing or two about how to run one. I would have never spoken to a customer the way she spoke to us, but hey, I guess there's a reason they have 2.5 stars on Yelp...

If zero stars was an option, I would put it. I Took my mother here to celebrate her birthday and was having an ok time until she asked me if I would be embarrassed if she sent the meal back because it tasted so bad. I took a bite of it myself to try it, and it literally tasted worse than a packaged Ichiban Ramen that I would buy at the store. We let the waitress know very kindly that she did not like the meal and the waitress was staring at my mom with a frown face not responding to make my mom overcompensate and continue to speak almost to make her feel more uncomfortable and make her feel bad about the situation. I was incredibly blown away this customer service. She then grabbed the bowl and said “whatever” started rolling her eyes and shaking her head. My jaw literally dropped as I have never had customer service as horrible as this. !!My sushi roll was horrible as well not authentic sushi at all!! We continued to drink the rest of our iced tea and try to enjoy being with each other, and finally when our bill was brought to us the waitress/owner told us that nothing was wrong with the meal that we sent back so we are still going to have to pay for half of it. She claimed that that was their policy. Even at a five star restaurant or a multiple hundred dollar meal they would never expect you to pay for it if you did not enjoy it so we were just blown away with this experience. It was terrible and made us feel so uncomfortable to even stay in the...