The Cowfish® Sushi Burger Bar — Restaurant in Orlando

Just recently my family and I went here for dinner during our vacation. Our course like most places on city walk reservations are recommended to ensure a table. Upon arrival we were greeted and seated within 15 minutes. Our waiter, Tristen, was absolutely amazing. He was outgoing, friendly and informative. He provided some food/drink recommendations, including his personal favorites. He took our drink and app order, and returned within minutes with our drinks, and said the app will be up shortly. Fifteen minutes later he came to take our dinner orders and said he would personal check on our appetizer. Minutes later he returned and said he had the manager checking on it and she would be bringing it out, as this was now a high priority. He return frequently, apologizing and offered us refills on our drinks while we waited. As he was getting our next rounds of drinks our dinner was being delivered and still no sign of the manager or appetizer. He immediately apologized again, explaining he wasn't sure why it was taking so long. We then decided just to cancel the apps and continue with our dinner. We were a disgruntled at this point with the lack of service/urgency from the kitchen and the manager not at all with Tristen. Personally, we felt he did he job as a waiter by reporting the issue and handing off the problem to the manager while he continued to keep his tables going. Twenty minutes later, Lisa the manager, came to our table and said she removed the appetizer from the bill. My husbands response " well good, cause I didn't get it, so why would I pay for it". I think that actually shocked her to be honest. She did try and give some excuse that truly didn't make any sense. But appetizers are supposed to be quick service items, so even if there was a problem/ excuse, she was informed of the issue in a timely manner that she could have had it made stat, or even made it herself. Needless to say, she didn't seem very confident in her decision making skills, as I had to suggest to her maybe take a milkshake off the bill to compensate us for the inconvenience. She said, " let me see what I can do"'. She returned and did take two milk shakes off the bill, which was nice, but still kinda crappy that I had to suggest that. I gave this review a five star because even though we had this experience our food was delicious. And to be honest I would return again.

Well we did it. We went back. And I wish I could say our wait was better this time but it wasn't. However we did end up receiving all that we ordered, so that was a plus, and I can not forget that the service all around this time was impeccable. We had to return a family members plate back to the kitchen because it wasn't cooked properly. By the time it returned (delivered by Shireen, the manager from Boston :) the rest of us had finished our meals. She must have heard our story from Jon, our wonderful server. As we were seated, he asked us if we ever ate with Cowfish before. My husband explained our prior visit, and Jon says " I'm very sorry for that, this time well get it right". He was on point throughout our entire meal. And he and another server talked sports with us, and even joked and laughed. Although we hit another bomb with the back of the house service Shireen and her staffed really took care of us. She comped a great deal of our billed. She listened without excuses, then spoke to us for well over 20 minutes, about customer service and how this experience will allow them to grow and learn to be better, She even explained the story of how cow fish was invented, we was interested. I have to say that our overall experience here was amazing. Tristen, Jon, Shireen, and the Alabama ROLL TIDE employee (sorry I forgot his name) really showed up and provided incredible customer service. And its because of their actions and service that we will return during our next visit. If I could rate this higher than a 5 star I would. Universal, You have an amazing crew. Thank you for a great food and...

We ate here as part of the Mardi Gras Float Ride & Dine Experience at Universal Orlando.

We arrived at Cowfish about 45 minutes before our scheduled reservation time (4:30 PM). We checked in and the team member said we would be seated "soon". The restaurant was maybe 50% full when we checked in, and we requested "first available" so that we could be seated as early as possible since we were concerned that we would not have time to eat our meal before we needed to check in for float riding at 6:00 PM. We weren't expecting to get seated immediately, but maybe a little sooner.

After waiting about 15 minutes, we went back to the host and asked how close we were to being seated (again, there were NUMEROUS empty tables), she said we were on the list and would be seated by 4:30 (I got an "and not before" tone in her reply). Since it was hot outside, we asked if there was a bar or a place to wait inside. She said, "oh yeah, you can go sit at the bar". How nice (appropriate) it would have been, had she offered that from the beginning.

Once we got to the bar we took a seat, and a few minutes later a team member (bartender?) came by and said she would be right with us. Shortly after this, a family of 4 sat down at the barstools next to us. After waiting about 5 minutes or so, a different team member (bartender?) came back and took the family's drink order, brought them menus, etc. She never acknowledged us. In the interim, she had a lengthy conversation with a couple of guys sitting at the other end of the bar (she seemed to know them). When she returned with the family's drinks, I was able to get her attention and asked if we could place a drink order. "Oh yeah," she said. We did finally get our drinks, and they were decent.

When 4:40, then 4:45 arrived, and we had not gotten called to be seated at our table, we were getting concerned so I got up and asked a team member if we were close to being seated since our reservation time had already passed. She said, "Oh, I can seat you". So would we have been left at the bar indefinitely if we had not gotten up and asked?

At this point, we were ready to give Cowfish a 1-star review and ask about getting a refund for our experience.

When our server Trey came to our table, he was VERY friendly, helpful, and knowledgeable. He made some great recommendations and obviously understood that we needed to move things along. He answered all of our questions and was very attentive with drink refills and checking on our meals. He even told us we could get our desserts to go since we were getting close to our check-in time for float riding.

Trey truly saved this experience from being a 1-star rating. We would still be skeptical about dining at or recommending Cowfish in the future, but Trey should be commended for single-handedly saving this dining experience!

NOTE: We were wearing passholder shirts, and lanyards (as were the ladies sitting on the other side of us at the bar... who received cold food and had to send it back, twice). We have never experienced the rumored passholder "hate" at UO before, but genuinely feel like this might just be a case...

When we entered Universal park (early afternoon) we stopped at the concierge desk to ask for dinner recommendations. The concierge recommended Cowfish, and so we took his recommendation and followed with a look on Tripadvisor to see what previous guests had said. The reviews were good and Cowfish was highly rated when ranked on Tripadvisor so we made a reservation for that evening.

When we arrived, our table was not ready and we were told by the hostess they had just had a torrent of guests and so we would need to wait a few minutes until our table was ready. There were four of us eating. My husband and I, and our two university-aged children.

Approximately 15 minutes later we received a text that our table was ready. Our server greeted us and took our drink orders. He said he “would bring ice water for everyone.” In addition, we ordered a beer (when asked if I would like a glass with it, I said yes,) and an iced tea. We ordered an appetizer of calamari (it was very good). My husband ordered a jalapeño popper burger. My son ordered a Texas longhorn burger. My daughter ordered a Boursin burger, and I myself ordered a Benton box including California rolls, and mini burger.

There were so many things that went wrong with our meal I think it easiest just to list; 1.) My beer was delivered without a glass and when my husband asked the server he said “oh I thought you said no you didn’t want a glass”. Much much later, our server appeared holding a very yellow stained beer glass and a plastic cup and he said “I wanted you to see what the glasses look like so you would see why I was bringing you a plastic cup instead!” 2.) Only three of the four of us ever did receive water and the refills were very slow as was the refill on the iced tea. 3.) Our food arrived - all 4 of us were served cold fries. In addition my husband and son’s burgers were cold. 4.) My husband and son had been asked how they wanted their burgers cooked. I had not been asked. My mini burger arrived extremely pink. In fact, so rare it reminded me of what the uncooked ground beef I purchase at our local grocery store from the meat department looks like. 5.) The ketchup bottle on our table was empty. After waiting quite a few minutes for our server, hoping he would check in on us, I waved down another employee walking by and asked him to replace our ketchup. Our server did eventually check on us, but after we needed ketchup and before I realized my burger was not cooked! 6.) We finished our meal as best as we could. When the server arrived to clear the table he noticed very little had been touched on my plate and asked if I “was still working on it.” I said the burger was much too pink for me and his response was “oh I’m sorry.”

The staff to guest ratio was not appropriate to handle the demands of the crowd.

I was shocked to see the total cost of our bill after the service and food we had received. What a huge...