Takara Sushi Station — Restaurant in Madison

My experience is part 1; general observations are in part 2

Part 1: One of the worst restaurant experiences of my life. Server sat us (party of 2) down and did not take our order for over half an hour. I’m not even joking. I ordered a roll and a dessert, my roommate ordered another roll, and we waited about an hour and 15 minutes for the rolls to come out. At this point, we had asked the server multiple times where our order was in the queue, and a colleague who happened to be dining there that night also asked for our food on our behalf. People had literally come and gone from the restaurant since my friend and I had arrived. The restaurant was mostly empty, so we were confused as to why the food was taking so long.

Part 2: The rolls were good. The mango cake tasted too sweet and not at all like mangos; It was not very yummy. The conveyor belt system is nonsensical - it’s all-you-can-eat or you can’t use it. Other places have it where each plate you pull costs a certain amount corresponding to some menu; that system is better and this place should do that. Also, with the layout of the restaurant, sitting anywhere on the right side (facing the kitchen in the back) means that your server will take a million years to walk over to you, as there is only one exit from the kitchen on the left side. The server literally has to walk down to the front of the restaurant, across the room, and then back up towards the bathrooms to get to you, which just means that everything takes forever.

Overall, I will...

Worst place I had ever been to! DO NOT RECOMMEND! We went for the ALL YOU CAN EAT SUSHI! After eating for like 15 minutes, we realize that there is no more sushi that has fish on them, only the ones with sweet potato, fake crab meat, cucumbers and cream cheese. Nothing good is left only the cheap stuff. Now we had been patiently waiting for about 40 minutes or so, only more and more cheap sushis being placed on the rail. We called the waitress over and asked if we can order the sushis they had been providing, this way they are not making more sushis that we will not eat and end up wasting all of them. They started accusing us of not eating the available sushis.

We then got mad at them because they had only been accusing us of not eating the available sushis left, but they keep avoiding the fact that they are an all-you-can-eat sushi place and are only providing stuff that you can get for a couple of dollars. After calling the manager, they even told us to not come back anymore because we had eaten up to $600 worth of food. Now leaving the idea of 6 people eating $600 worth of food. Even if we did, someone who runs an all-you-can-eat restaurant should not accuse their customers of eating too much. Also, the food was at most $100 if you get it from other places.

Don't know how they still get customers but they are the WORST restaurant in the whole city of Madison! Will not come again and I regretted stepping into that place the minute when they stopped sending fish and shrimp sushis...

I am not trying to be mean but it is really the most disappointing experience we had in Madison. The service is super unfriendly and almost insulting. My friend left his phone there and I called back after we left to confirm if we could pick up his phone. The lady asked us to come and pick his phone at 4pm (we called at 3:45pm), so we tried to ask if we can pick his phone after 4pm -- sometime in the evening. The lady probably didn't understand what I said and used a very bad altitude to respond us. Her language and altitude were almost insulting. After that, she hanged up on me and turned down our following phone calls. I promise that I asked her nicely and politely and tipped her before we left, so until today I still don't understand why she did that to us. Maybe she was having a bad day, but that might not be a good excuse to treat people like that. My friend got his phone eventually but the service in this restaurant really shocked us, since it is the WORST in my entire life.

Regarding the food, the food there was not good (they put napa cabbage in their Udon soup and it tasted very bad). My first time to have uni that was not sweet but tasted like rot fish. I am typically a very nice person and hate to comment on restaurant if it is just because the food is not good, but the overall experience in this restaurant was so TERRIBLE! I would love to give them negative five...