Rock-n-Saké Bar & Sushi — Restaurant in New Orleans

COVID hotspot waiting to happen.

I ordered take out, and paid in advance. If it were not the bartender, a total pro in that chaos, I would have left. The bartender is the reason I stayed and why I'm giving it a two rather than a one star rating. I would have waited outside, but that meant going through the bottlenecked entrance two more times. I was already in it, so I decided to get my food.

The entrance is bottlenecked and there's no effort to remedy that, and that is the biggest problem -- well that and the hostess.

The hostess, in spite of the fact that she is dealing with every customer had a ridiculous and dangerous mask situation, and she was bumping into people and really didn't seem to know her job that well. The mask was not secure and it looked like it was going to fall off at any juncture, and it regularly not only fell below her nose, but also below and above her mouth. The blue paper mask nose fitting wasn't even adjusted to her bridge. She constantly and delicately and constantly and purposely was adjusting the mask so that it barely covered her nose and touched her face as little as possible and therefore in the process was touching her face and everything else. It's like she wanted this mask to magically float a half inch off her face. She was obviously more concerned about the mask touching and/or covering her face, than providing a safe and positive environment in a restaurant. I never saw her cleanse her hands. EVER. People came into the restaurant without masks and wondered about in front of the bar. People were within a foot of others as they were waiting to be seated or pick up food. The hostess made no efforts control this area, but neither did any of the staff. This was the most dangerous part of this experience.

In hindsight, I should have stood outside and called to request my order being taken out to me.

Some guy at the bar (typing into his phone, sitting within another customer eating within two feet of him) who I think was the manager only put on his mask when he was enlisted to help, and did not seem with it. The bar back had no mask at all, and was in the front of the restaurant with empty boxes trying to go out the bottlenecked front door.

The waitresses mostly wore masks, but most would lower their masks to talk to patrons or the hostess or each other. Half of them did not have a reasonable mask situation to begin with.

Suggestions to RocknSake.

Put up a ten x ten tent in the front of the restaurant entrance and assign properly masked people with a podium. One person can greet people and take their temps, provide a mask (whether you want to charge for that, is up to Rocknsake), and take the names of the diners. While waiting to be seated people can spread out outside a safe distance from others. Another staff person/waitress can call the names and bring the diners inside to be seated and served. This will address the bottleneck at the entrance where staff and customers go through the two doors to the dining areas.

Remove the bar seating. Put it outside for those waiting if you want. No one should be lingering around the bar.

Have take out and delivery pick ups wait outside. The staff person outside can then go get the order. Fewer people coming through the door is safer. Those waiting can be in their car or at a safe distance from others.

Have take-out be strictly pre-paid over the phone. I even tip over the phone.

Boxes and garbage need to go out the back. There's no reason a bar back should be wondering through the restaurant with flattened boxes, especially without a mask.

Train staff on proper use and wearing of masks, including that raising the masks to talk to people defeats the purpose of the mask. I'm shocked that rocknsake doesn't have branded masks for its staff, which is a missed opportunity. My little 20 member mardi gras krewe has branded masks. If we can do it, Rocknsake can do it, and even sell them.

Do not allow clientele into the restaurant...

I ate at this place maybe a month ago with two of my girlfriends and had the best time! So of course for my birthday I wanted to get my family and friends together because I THOUGHT I fell in love with the restaurant. Everything was going great and the server was nice, no hard feelings towards her. Mid dinner the server tells us that she can’t separate the checks because its their “policy.” For one no one informed us in the BEGINNING and for two it’s really not that hard to separate checks it was only 14 of us. I’m a server and I work in a restaurant as well. It’s your job to keep track of what everyone has. It’s called being organized. But of course that’s not the worst part! We asked to see a manager and then she proceeded to say she was the manager (she wasn’t the manager). So the owner or whatever you want to call her comes by to try and resolve the issue. She was playing nice at first but when she saw that we were all getting irritated because she couldn’t resolve the issue properly her demeanor switched. It’s MY birthday so of course I walked over to the bar with my sister in law while they are trying to get everything figured out. As we’re sitting there we hear other costumers as well as the bartender and the owner (who was also drinking at the bar and noticeably drunk) talking about our table with the bartender. Then the manager walks over to the bar takes a few sips of her wine.. how professional! Then proceeds to say “I have to go take care of this situation” in front of all the guests at the bar. At that point I knew I wasn’t going back to this place ever. So I went back to my table while they were trying to figure everything out STILL. My brother got really upset at this point. They put everything on his tab and then added an extra $100 to it. So basically they swiped his card for over $500 dollars and included a tip without his knowledge. It got really ugly after that, so everyone started arguing because what establishment does that? As we were walking out they were trying to kick us out I guess to make themselves feel like they had authority and had everything under control when they didn’t. The bouncers or whatever you want to call it decided to get bold as we were leaving and walking away. Then the owner tried to keep $100 cash from someone in the party who had previously tried to pay cash even though everything was swiped under one card in the end. A member of our party had to physically take it out of her hand as she refused to give it back or even attempt to remind anyone that they still had the $100 cash. And then she threw my moms debit card in the road and said “go eat McDonald’s” I guess trying to degrade us.. this was by far the worst restaurant experience I’ve ever had. The owner was short, with short blondish/whitish hair. In her late 50’s pushing 60 it seems. This place is awful! Not to mention the food took over two hours to come out which we didn’t even bother to complain about because we know every restaurant is under staffed right now. Rock n sake in New Orleans on FULTON STREET doesn’t even get one...

I don’t post reviews except for the outliers so take that as you will. I’m never going to go back here. Main points: there was a long wait for food, the waiters were understaffed, and in the end I got short-changed on my bill.

I ordered 5 items and got one (edamame) in about five minutes with three others coming probably 40-50 minutes later (smoked salmon nigiri, yellowtail nigiri, and the garlic salmon roll). The last item, salmon roe nigiri, was out of stock by the time my order was prepared (I don’t know if it would’ve been in stock had my order been prepared earlier).

I know times are hard with staffing in the pandemic so I have some sympathy. Paired with what sounds like some recent expansion on the locations for this chain, the service and staff are stretched thin. Wait was probably 20-30 minutes for a seat. It was packed and I wanted a seat at the sushi counter, that’s fine and understandable. Like I said above, my food took a long while. I don’t blame the sushi chefs, they were contending with a large crowd. The two chefs I was sat in front of were actually quite friendly and we talked a good bit about their experiences there, what they would recommend, and even the craft of sushi making. For their attention and recommendations, I couldn’t give this place a one star (thanks Huey and Brad!).

The nail in the coffin on my rating was that I was short-changed. My subtotal came out to about $40 and tax to about $4. There’s a credit card fee at a small percentage so I opted for cash. The amount I didn’t get back that I should’ve was less than a dollar so I didn’t wait around to get it back because it was not worth the time. But that red flag among the many before it cemented my review. Don’t mess with what you are returning to customers. And, yes, to preempt any ideas that I might be stingy, I still tipped and I tipped well to those behind the sushi counter.

All this said, I have not mentioned the food. The edamame was generous and prepared decently. The garlic salmon roll was actually quite tasty. The yellowtail and the smoked salmon were fresh and decent, too. It is a true shame about the other aspects of the experience dragging my sentiment down.

Overall, I would not recommend going here and I will not patronize this restaurant...