Teriyaki Madness — Restaurant in Meridian

I don’t think I’ve ever been more excited for a restaurant to open than this one in my life. Here in this corner of Meridian there’s a lack of other options than typical fast food joints (save Costa Vida). So as a grilled chicken and rice lover, I was psyched to be out doing errands and saw it opened early and immediately made a detour to get some inspite of having lunch just 1.5 hours earlier. It looked busy but not overwhelmed. When I got to the front I was politely told it would be over an hour wait. Not a problem—totally get they are working out the kinks and figuring things out. I’ll be patient and come back later.

I returned the next weekend and quickly had my order placed and got it within 3 minutes! Huge improvement! I waffled between the regular or large size and opted for the regular size and to add extra chicken for 2.50. Super excited to try it I decided to eat in the car. Opened the bowl to dig in and was shocked. My regular bowl with extra chicken maybe had 6-7 very small, very thin slices of chicken in it. Like the equivalent of 1.5 small chicken thighs—at best. I can’t believe this would be the normal amount of chicken for a regular bowl let alone “extra chicken”.

The chicken itself was good—not juicy but definitely not dry. The rice was disappointing and slightly gummy and not in a sushi style rice way. The veggies were crisp and I loved the inclusion of onion to the mix. The small cup of teriyaki sauce was barely enough for the meal but had good flavor without being overly sweet.

I just can’t believe that a 11 plus dollar bowl would have this little protein in it. Even if it was the normal amount and not an extra chicken bowl it was too small.

I’m severely disappointed and while I will be back it will be an occasional few times a year kind of stop and not the weekly (or more frequently) kind of go to place I was really hoping...

Was excited to try this new place.

Showed up at about 5:30 on Friday to a packed house. Waited in line for 10 minutes to place our order. When we approached the cashier, before a hi or welcome, he blurred it out it's an hour wait. What appeared to be the owner or manager was standing behind him with a frown on her face who looked overwhelmed.

I have no problem waiting in line or waiting for food especially for a new establishment, but the level of customer service and the first impressions of this place was not good.

You spend hundreds of thousands of dollars building a place, and should train your staff that opening day should be your absolute best customer service wise. A simple sorry we're slammed because it's our grand opening and the wait will be an hour would have changed my entire outlook.

Needless to say, we did not stay after hearing others waiting for an hour still didn't have their food.

To the owner manager I witnessed, the restaurant business is extremely competitive, especially coming out of covid-19. You should do everything in your power to show you want to be there and show you want to make this...

Awful. Just awful!!! They dont care about the customer. 1st occasion on opening, waited 2 hours for food. Which was $100s worth for our 2 families. Set the pickup time and was extended by an hour and a half! By the time we ate it was all cold. We decided to give a pass since it was grand opening. Even though customer service was awful and staff was SO RUDE! THEY WOULD TRICKLE OUT WITH ONE BOWL AT A TIME IN 10-15 MIN INTERIVALS..which meant the first bowls sat there for an hour waiting for our whole order!

2nd occasion...ordered a dozen bowls or so and half of it was wrong...wait time was also over half hour after quoted time.

3rd time we ordered....tried to make it as simple as possible for these people but still their attitude was terrible, manager was awful. Our $100s of dollars of gift cards dont work even though we were sold on them during promo and immediately told AFTER WE ORDERED that their not accepting them

Horrible excuse for a company! I truly hope they see all these negative reviews and get their act together.

Ive never encountered a more terrible place.

Dont go here...and maybe they will...