Riptide Rockin' Sushi & Teppan Grills — Restaurant in Mission Viejo

Wow what a bad experience from beginning to end. They consistently disappointed us again and again and again..

First note this is my first review I have submitted to YELP in years. The experience was so bad that I feel compelled to take the time this morning to do ione....

Waiter/Host tried to force us to sit in his dark secluded section and reluctantly let us move to livelier area. New waiter was cool and friendly and helpful, which was key to surviving the onslaught of disappointments. Ordered two dirty martinis, one or rocks was very watery, one up was minimal dirty even though she asked for it as stinky as possible. Brought out a side of olive juice. Other couple ordered Margarita and beer, Margarita was served with nasty looking deranged limes that scared her. She sent it back for new ones. Somebody must have told the cooks we were all on meds for high blood pressure treatment because the miso soup was as bland as Mitt Romney's wife. The salad was served on pathetic looking iceberg lettuce mix. The tappan cook showed up and threw bland plain white rice chunks at our mouths. Very routine, forced, and cheezey, and who wants to eat plain cold white rice? The fried rice, again, BLAND as copier paper with no special meats in it that I could find, and minimal egg, etc. When we asked the cook to step up the seasonings and flavor on the rest of the food, he wasn't too happy, was unresponsive, made excuses and reasons as to how the rest of people don't like so much seasonings, and wound up serving us way more attitude than flavor the rest of the night. specialty sushi rolls were pretty good. Regular rolls were minimalistic. Waiter did his best to make up for everything. Manager tried to make some amends by knocking off $50 of our $220 bill for 4 ppl.

Sorry, this place is a commercialized, corporate, bland, boring, rubber stamp experience with bad attitude. Not worth half the...

I'd like to preface by saying that I, along with my family have been repeat customers at Riptide for years and years. This review is completely honest and holistically weighed.

The food is consistently great. The sushi is fresh, the place is nice and lively and the cocktails are exactly as advertised.

The issue comes down to management. This is probably the most poorly managed restaurant I have been too. This is a recent issue though, as it never was like this before. We were incredibly disappointed on our first occurrence (Sept. '22) We had a 6:45 reservation, seated at 8, and ate by 9. That alone is unacceptable. We decided to give it another try a few weeks later to see if anything had improved. It did not. The reason for this review is due to our experience on Friday (Jan 13th). We had a 7:30 reservation, were seated at 8:30, but did not eat a SINGLE THING until 10. We weren't even served. The table, did not have a Teppanyaki Chef, and when he did arrive, he messed up a member of our parties order rendering her meal inedible. By the time we finished eating it was 10:45. We couldn't wait to leave. Additionally, management had promised to compensate our first two rounds of drinks, yet the bill didn't reflect it.

Sadly, until Riptide immediately changes management or gets it together, we will not be returning. There are better Teppan options out there where you'll finish dinner before you even sit down at Riptide.

Food, 4/10 Service, 1/10 Honesty 1/10 Cleanliness (restaurant) 7/10 Cleanliness (restrooms) 1/10

P.S.I have been coming to this restaurant personally since 2013. For the price they charge, it would be nice to be seated and served at an appropriate time. I hope management sees this review and takes it seriously. The other family at our table (separate from my own) almost got up and left. Please fix this so we can bring our families back and not be disappointed with waiting almost two hours...

There is a reason there is no "contact us" option on their website because if there was their inbox would be full with complaints. The management here is horrible and will do nothing to accommodate their customers or make a bad situation right. We came here for my birthday and had a $25 gift certificate. There were no restriction on the certificate and to our surprise when we handed the certificate to the waitress she handed it back to us after speaking with her manager telling us we cannot use it on Fridays or Saturdays. After racking up a hefty bill on overpriced sushi and expecting to get $25 off, we were not happy. My boyfriend politely spoke to the manager who couldn’t do anything for us and then spoke to the general manager who was extremely rude and would do nothing to accommodate us. He told us to come back Sunday through Thursday and they would honor it. Let me reemphasize that nowhere on the certificate does it say not valid on Fridays or Saturdays. We told the GM that the only reason we came to this restaurant and spent as much as we did was because of the gift certificate and will let it be if he at least would comp us our drinks or an appetizer. The GM proceeded to tell us that he didn’t care about our certificate and would do nothing for us and would call the cops on us if we didn’t pay the full bill. We paid the full bill and left very unhappy and will not be returning.

Service wasn’t bad when we got there when the place was empty. Once it picked up our waitress was nowhere to be found. Sushi was good but small portions and overpriced. If you have any troubles with your meal or service, do not expect their management to do anything for you. The GM should be fired. He will run the business to the ground and if he treats customers the way that he does.

DO...