Hinode Japanese Steakhouse and Sushi — Restaurant in Nixa

THE ONLY REASON THIS REVIEW IS TWO STARS IS BECAUSE OF THE HIBACHI CHEF!!!

Let's start it off by saying my son informed the host when we came in it was his birthday and then the host proceeded to ask him if he wanted the dragon dance and he said yes. I had hope until we, a party of 5, were told a wait of 40 min and weren't sat down until 1 hour and 20 min later. Once we were sat down we were not given any silverware or menus. The waitress, who gave us closest to the worst service we've ever received, asked for our drink choices and when she brought them back asked everyone if we had a chance to look and know what we wanted. Everyone at the hibachi grill table, including the couple with their young daughter separate of us, looked at the waitress and asked her how were we supposed to look with no menus. Her reply was, "You're supposed to look at the menu online. I'll give you time to pull it up and look." We were never once told while waiting or when she took our drink order that we needed to look at the online menu.

When she returned we ordered and then began to wait. She then returned with the soups for everyone and then the salads. We politely asked for silverware and refills for our drinks. The waitress then disappeared for 20 min and we had to ask another waiter who was finishing up at another table for silverware and an attendant who was cleaning a table for refills. By this time our hibachi chef was starting to cook and seen I was asking for something and I told him what I was asking for. He proceeded to yell and let the staff know we needed something, bless this man for caring! We were finally given silverware and refills and had a great experience with the chef. He even told my son happy birthday when he was done cooking. About 15 min later the original waitress shows up with our ticket like everything was ok and said thanks for coming by. My son looked at her and asked where the dancing dragon was for his birthday and she said, "oh you want one". It was the only thing other than getting our original drinks and orders she did right the whole visit. She was even snippy when asked for more silverware.

We will not be going back and will NEVER advise anyone...

The food was just as wonderful as the restaurant in Springfield. They have a dine-in option if you would rather not sit for the hibachi, which I thought was a wonderful idea! We chose steak, chicken, and shrimp hibachi with a couple of sushi rolls (The Rock & Roll is spectacular!!). Our waiter was nice enough and even put together a to-go order for me at just the right time. The chef was masterful and friendly. The good was so delicious and with every penny!! My little sister had never had anything akin to Japanese food before, so this was her introduction and now she's in love! Admittedly, it became a little hard to understand him through the mask as it got more crowded for dinner. However, we fully appreciated the extra measures that were taken to keep everyone safe and missing a few words wasn't that big of a deal.

Now for the negatives. Our table wasn't clean when we sat down. It was already set with new place settings, but there was some sort of liquid seeping from around the edges of where the hibachi grill connects. I worked in good service for years and would have forgiven it, but it was too much to easily "overlook". The other is also a cleanliness issue and is technically "back of house", but since it's in customer view, that changes. The bucket that they drain the liquid into from scraping the grill after each use was either bumped out had overflowed all over the floor and when I turned to pick up the to-go order from the table after paying, I saw it clearly. Neither of these issues directly affected our food nor our enjoyment of said food. I merely felt I would be remiss to leave them off. I do hope you'll give it a chance. It doesn't have it all together like they do at the Springfield Hinode, but it's still stellar food and...

My husband and I went tonight for our wedding anniversary dinner as we mostly always do and tonight we had an exceptional experience!! We got there for our 8:00 reservation and sat down to wait for our table. We were starving so around 8:25 we asked how much longer it would be. We were not upset at all as we could see they only had one cook and I believe one server. They got us a table and we were greeted by one of the best servers I have ever had!! I absolutely loved Stacy she was personable made drink recommendations and got our sushi order in ASAP. She was on the ball with soup, salad and whatever we needed plus had great conversation. The one chef working this night was Chef Engel he was busy with a full table next to us and was really making sure the kids enjoyed as well as the family. He is so at ease with what he does it looks flawless and he seems to really enjoy what he does. He immediately came over to us after Stacy made sure our meal was brought out and prepped and ready to go and my husband and I had such a blast with him and Stacy as well. I have worked in the restaurant industry for over 20 years and I just wanted to say how nice it is to see others in the same industry just shine at what they do. So often you see people that are not happy or just stressed at being the only chef or only server on the floor I have been there done that myself but when you do your job with the ease these 2 did tonight it had to be acknowledged and applauded. You 2 will be at the top of our list of why we come back year after year thanks for all...