UMI Japanese Steakhouse and Sushi Bar — Restaurant in Manhattan

Tonight was my sisters birthday, and she wanted to celebrate it here. We had reservations for 14 at 7:30 pm, and the first guests showed up at 6:50, and the rest of us showed up at 7 and checked in and confirmed our7:30 reservation. We were not seated until 8:30, and had a front desk host tell us we were lying about being here at 7:00, and said we came after 7:30, even though there were 14 of us who can vouch we were all there before 7:30 as well as other customers waiting. Another family was also waiting for their 7:00 reservation and didn't get seated until 8:00. The reason being is that instead of waiting for a table to clear, they kept seating walk-in customers to keep tables full, keeping it impossible for tables to be completely cleared and for large groups with reservations to get their seat. After receiving very poor customer service and huge attitudes from the host and another host helping run the tables, we were going to walk out when finally we were seated when we told them we were going to speak to a manager if we had not been seated by 8:30. So 8:15 hits and we get seated, and we have our orders taken at 8:30, don't get any soup or salad until 9, and at 9:20 we asked to speak to a manager once again because we had been seated almost an hour after our reservation time, the table that was across from us was already getting their second course of soup and they sat down 15 minutes after we did, a waitress made sure a chef got to us in under a minute (props to her because she's the only proactive person we had seen there) because we had been there for over two hours already.

Now to the good part, the only good part of our experience. Our chef was fantastic, entertaining, and quick about getting our order to us and apologized for our wait prior to him coming out. He is the only reason this place is getting a star, and the only reason we did not walk out that door without paying for our food. We did not get a discount, no further apology from staff, and still had not seen a manager come out to us to talk about our experience even though we asked twice. We made sure we tipped our chef very well, but we will not be coming back to UMI for any reason due to their lack of management and poor customer service on the front end of the restaurant.

We are from Wichita, and had a 2 1/2 hour drive home after we ate. I'm sure the other family that waited an hour to be seated as well would tell you they had the same experience we had, as we were all talking about just walking out due to the way both of our parties were...

Worst experience ever at Umi tonight. The waitress did not introduce herself, did not take our drink orders until we had been sitting for at least 15min. She did not card the very young looking people when they ordered alcohol.. They all looked 23 at most. It took forever for us to get drinks, she even forgot someone's soda and they had to ask her for it. A water was spilled on two people by the waitress. Brought salads late, and soup even later. All salads were finished before we got soup. The salad was mostly dressing. The waitress had spilled salad all on the tray she brought it out on. The soup was spilled all on the tray, and she spilled everyone's soup as she gave it to them. This caused the soup bowls to slide very easily on the table. We asked for a napkin because the soup was sliding, she said sometimes they do that, and we had to ask her again if we could have a napkin so we could wipe the bottom of the bowl so soup would not spill on us. I waited with an empty cup for the waitress to come back so I could finally have a refill because she never checked on us in the time it took me to finish my soda.. We waited forever to get our food, a table that arrived after us had food before we did. As soon as we finally had food on our plates the waitress asked if we wanted boxes. We had just gotten our food. I expect to take leftovers home, but not all of my food. They only had small boxes left. I asked for two and was given only one, when I started to ask for another she ignored me and started walking away. By the time we had our food they were closing. We had drinks and salad at about 8:30, and food at about 9:30. The waitress messed up the tickets by splitting them up wrong, and never gave us a receipt so we had to get one at the front. It was overall an awful experience especially with...

Reasoning to leaving a 1 star review is not because the food was bad, but it was the service that ultimately had me decide to leave how my experience went. Food was outstanding as I was very satisfied with my order. However, the waitress I was first set with my party was extremely disrespectful to all 4 of us. Before arrival, my friend called the restaurant to see if we could secure a Hibachi table at the time we were to arrive and were told we were able to be seated at one. As we arrived we had relayed to the front that we had called about a Hibachi table and were told no. Not only were we denied a table when previously told yes, but also were seated at a normal table then told by the waitress exactly “just kidding i’m moving you over here”. As we were seated at the 2nd table with menus in our hands, we overheard the waitress at the table over talking about our table disrespectfully implying how she didn’t want to “deal” with us. Very unprofessional for a restaurant that is quite pricy. After that a new girl was assigned to us as the first waitress didn’t want to “deal” with us. She was better than the first, but still not as pleasant as we’d hoped a waitress is supposed to act at her job. After finishing our food and heading out, we asked the front desk for the name of the first waitress who was assigned to us out of curiosity. The girl at the front desk basically refused to tell us her name so the girl who first waitressed us wouldn’t get in trouble. I hope UMIS realizes if they keep letting some of their staff acting disrespectfully towards customers, they will lose business. They most definitely lost mine and the rest of my parties’ service as we will not...