Minako Japanese Restaurant — Restaurant in Ozark

I came to eat here four years ago with my grandmother, and it was good then. My experience now unfortunately was not. Firstly we attempted to come in yesterday, 10/3 for lunch. We were left waiting to be seated for five minutes before a waitress could be bothered to come and let us know "it would be a while". I asked how long, and she just repeated and said a party of 20 just came in. I advised we'd come back later, to which she made a face. She was overall quite rude about it I understand it was busy, but if you knew we couldn't be seated why not just let us know sooner so we weren't left waiting? And then to be upset we were leaving when you couldn't even give a time frame for when we could be seated?

Today was take two, and the experience was not much better. The waitress was very cold to me, only spoke directly to me once, and that was when I was brought my plates. Made things very awkward as I was waiting for a "and you?" from her before giving what I wanted only to turn and see she had just been staring at me expectantly. Food took a long time when there was maybe only 3-4 other tables, my grandmother got her food first, and mine was another 7 or so minutes later. She ordered a fried rice bowl, and the fried rice was the sorriest excuse I had seen, honestly just looked like normal rice with a trace amount of egg in it. I ordered nigiri 3 orders salmon, 2 white tuna, 1 mackerel. It was honestly the worst sushi I EVER had. Salmon was cold and tuna was ICE cold, the mackerel was room temperature at least and honestly my favorite. The rice had no flavor to it, which could have been the saving grace for the horribly cold fish, but there was no flavor to be had. Finally when my grandmother asked for the check the waitress was visibly cross about it. Walking away I could see her making face and gesturing with her arms in plain view as she walked into the back. She was one of the worst waitresses I've had in a restaurant personally, between ignoring me and the...

Walked in when there were 3 tables occupied (2 waitresses) and ordered hot tea and 4 pieces of sashimi. Tea took almost 15 minutes to arrive, the sashimi took another 45 minutes.

Probably because the two 4-seater tables that walked in AFTER me got their food (and almost finished it) before I did. After 45 minutes waiting and the waitress not once checking on me, I finally got her attention and she said she'd check on my food.

(Ordered at 12:47, food came out at 13:36.)

It came out immediately, like magic. The sashimi was still frozen enough that I could pick it up by one end with chopsticks and it stuck straight out like 2x4. I also never got my side of rice.

I really hate when waitresses treat single top tables as second-rate because they think we're not "worth the tip". It's too bad because I generally tip very high due to my own experience as a waitress. 4 pieces of sashimi with a side of rice is a cakewalk and should have been easy money with almost no effort.

The sushi tasted decent just shouldn't have been frozen. I tried to tell her about it and she was in such a rush to hurry back to her bigger tables that she walked off while I was still talking to her and came back a few minutes later to ask me what I was saying about the salmon when she walked away. I told her it was frozen and she said she'd let the kitchen know.

I get she wants to take care of her regulars but she lost a $20 tip on a single top because she couldn't spare a second of her time for basic service.

Then tried to get me a check when I actually wanted to order more food, and never did bring me my side of rice. At peak there were five 4-top tables in the restaurant between two waitresses. No reason for the...

DO NOT LET THE OUTSIDE FOOL YOU. We drove by here two days ago and commented on the appearance of the building by saying it looks like it's been there a while. Two days later we find ourselves back in Ozark and low and behold eating here. We went with the reviews on Yelp! and not with first impressions. All I can say is I'm glad we did. We got an order of pan fried gyoza that was absolutely delicious and is definitely in our top five we've had. I had the Spicy Yaki Udon for my entree and, wow, it was fantastic. There was so much to it other than noodles I could not finish it all. It had chicken, steak as well as shrimp (which were grilled to perfection) in it with carrots, onions and cabbage for the vegetables. The wife actually stopped eating her sashimi, that was fresh and cold, and ate some of my plate. She has never liked Udon before and couldn't stop talking about how good it was. The food took a few minutes to arrive at the table but it was well worth the wait. The server was very attentive to our needs and kept our glasses full of tea. We will definitely make the hour drive back down here to share a...