KPOT Korean BBQ & Hot Pot — Restaurant in Overland

I don't think I've ever ate anywhere before that had such rude workers and bland food. I absolutely HATE leaving bad reviews. But the way my friends and I were treated last night was unacceptable. When we walked in immediately the workers in the front were incredible rude to us and rolling their eyes at us. We waited about 15 minutes and still no server had come to our table. An employee had noticed that we had been sitting a while with no help. She was kind enough to flag our waiter down for us. We had told the waiter we hadn't been here before and were know to this kind of restaurant experience. He didn't really explain much to us, which is fine I guess. When my friends and I put in our food orders and got our hotpots, the soup was bland as water. We each ordered different soup bases and none of us could taste anything. I had to get two bowls filled with sauce at the sauce station for the food to have any sort of flavor. I honestly think the sauces at the station were watered down too. When you order the food it comes in such small portions and you're not even guaranteed to get the food that you ordered. I ordered tofu and got one small square that was probably about an inch on each side. Whatever, I figured I'd just order more quantities of the food I wanted and hit 3 instead of 1. But even then that method didn't work because there were multiple items that my friend and I ordered and didn't arrive. My friend had politely asked the server three times for a refill on her soda. She was sitting at the table with no drink after asking multiple times for about 45 minutes. Any time we had questions we were met with eye rolls. I don't understand why the employees were so rude to us. I could understand if we had bad additudes or acted like Karens. But we didn't. We all said please and thank you with a smile any time we asked a question and a server handed us our food. Yet we were treated terribly. When it was time for us to pay our bill, we had politely told the served that we were splitting it. There were three of us, my two friends who are a couple, and me. I was paying for my own food. Yet the waiter was rolling his eyes and acted like he didn't know how to do basic math when they said they were paying for themselves and I was paying for myself. How hard is it to put in my hot pot and the drink I ordered? Anyways he kept getting things wrong and yet we were patient and understanding. When we apologized for the inconvenience we were met with "you haven't been here before, have you?" I don't understand why that was such a necessary thing to say. Especially because we had told our waiter a few times before that we'd never been here before or to a place like it. When I was trying to pay with my card and put in my information for a receipt the watier kept pulling the card reader away from my reach, which was really weird and unnecessary. I'm just trying to pay my bill. As we were walking out, my friend accidentally brushed against another customer and was met with a racist remark. Which I understand a customer being racist isn't necessarily the restaurant's fault. But I can't help but feel like the environment of this restaurant made the customers feel like they can be openly rude considering the workers were openly rude. My best friend has had a really bad week and we drove an hour to go here and the three of us were very excited. Only to be left completely disappointed to the point my best friend was holding back tears. There's a lot more that happened that I could add, but my review is already getting a bit too long. This is not okay. Please don't waste your time or money in this...

This was a really cool dining experience. The decor was nice with walls that had “fire” like flames coming out of them. It was an impressive display. It was Saturday night and extremely packed. Not sure if it was because it was new or thats just how it will be. We had a party of 7 and a 45 minute wait. We ended up in a booth that was for 6 because it had 6 hot pot stations but it could seat 7. My husband andI shared a hot pot. This place takes some getting uswd to because you dont really know what you are ordering or should order. All orders were taken on an ipad and each person orders the, broth for the hot pot, meats , vegetables, sea food, and thicker cuts of meat for the bbq. Its hard to know how much you should order in terms of portion sizes. When it came out the entire parties food was mixed onnthe same plate so we just kind of portioned it out. While waiting for the food to arrive, we visited the dessert and sauce bar. They had about 10-12 different sauces and condiments like garlic sauce, hoisen, peanut sauce, scallions, etc. We didnt know what to do with them but we eventually noticed there were kind of recipes that you could combine in a small bowl and take to your table. This being our first time, we just kind of experimented. I think the sauces sould be used as dips or marinades for the meat. The pot made it to the table to start cooking on the table. The meat and vegetables eventually made it to our table and we proceeded to cook it on the in table grill and add to the hot pot. We realized we didnt order enough meat so we ordered more and continued to experiment with sauces. Some of the meat was seasoned and some was not. Over all the food was really good one we got the hang of it` and we were all stuffed! Unfortunately we found out that despite paying $36 each , we couldnt take our left overs home! That was disappointing because it meant wasting the rest and we really wanted it. They only throw it away and since i have a medical condition that only allows me to eat very tiny portions ( small child portion) at a time but more often, , the value was even less for me because i ended up eating a very small amount but had to pay an adult price and i couldnt take any home for later.Our cost for 5 of us was around $250. So while i love the place and would love to return, not sure if I will due to the reduced value for me. At minimum they should consider people with medical conditions and better would be to let people take their cooked food home rather than wasting it. But everyone else loved it and it was a really...

To start off I absolutely love this franchise and was so excited to hear it was coming to STL! Since it’s opening I’ve been there quite few times, the place looks absolutely amazing but I definitely have to say what keeps me coming back is the service! I’ve been with 3 different servers (Loan, Leslie and Chris) and notice that some definitely haven't been serving long. This place has some huge potential but in order for them to strive they have to get rid of the lazy servers. I’ve been to different kpots in a few states & the biggest difference I’ve seen is in all of them is the service, the lack of it actually.

With Loan, it felt like I saw her at the beginning & end of my meal. She barely checked in on us, our waters were empty for half the TWO hours there, most of the time I found her talking at the front or with other servers. I constantly had to go looking for her to a point I even started feeling bad & felt like I was bothering HER. And after all that she still expected a good tip?

Now Leslie, she definitely looks like she still new to serving but she was definitely an upgrade from the first one. It did seem like she had a few too many tables then she could handle because it dwindled our experience. She was definitely doing her best in refilling our waters & checking in on us but she did seem a bit overwhelmed.

Lastly, Chris, he was friendly and ATTENTIVE! Didn’t hover or disappear during our whole visit. He kept our waters refilled without having to ask or even look for him (unlike many servers there who were too busy talking at the host stance). Chris was very knowledgeable when it came to the food & even recommended his favorite dipping sauce to make, delicious might I add! He was even changing our grills before we could even ask him to so we never dealt with the burning smell! I had to ask if he had every worked at another kpot before because he was literally up to the standard of what those kpot servers in other states are doing. To my surprise he said he said he used to go constantly to one in NJ and was just doing what he saw other servers doing there!

After all that I would HIGHLY suggest retaining, it seems like most of the servers think they don’t have to do much or anything at all. But overall if you ever want to try kpot I definitely suggest going, get the bbq and ask for Chris, he’ll sure make you want to keep coming back. As for most of the other servers there be careful it’s really the luck of the draw, and if you need to find your server pro tip look at the group of people standing at the...