Sushi O Bistro & Sushi Bar — Restaurant in Raleigh

We were quoted a 15-20min wait time and had to wait over an hour with no communication from the hosts at all until about 45 mins in when we asked what was going on. They said 10 mins. 10 mins goes by and nothing. We arrived at 7:35 to be seated around 9:15. Great. So we finally order drinks and our waitress (Sarah the blonde ghost of a waitress) disappears for about 20 mins and then comes over to see if we are ready to order. No drinks in hand and no explanation for why our 2 glasses of wine, a beer, and a mimosa are still not at the table. We ask if the drinks are ready she says yes they’ve been ready she just has to grab them..? What? So we get 2 apps, 3 order sushi and one curry. The apps come out fine and then we wait 45 mins for 6 rolls and another 7 on the curry. (Thank god the rest of us didn’t order hot food..) finally the last dish comes out and we realize she brought the wrong roll for one of our guests. She said she “couldn’t read her own handwriting but it’s coming” and then didn’t bring that roll out until everyone was done eating and had asked for Togo boxes. She said do you want me box it [the roll she forgot] up for you? Yes. Comes back to the table with no boxes and asks again if he wants the roll boxed up..we say yes again. At this point our night was totally ruined and upon speaking to the female manager on duty she says they’re understaffed and only have one chef and all these excuses that DONT explain why I’m wasting my hard earned money at this god forsaken establishment. She didn’t offer to do anything at all and didn’t even care to know who my server was or how she could fix this in any way. Coming from the industry I am super disappointed in this entire restraunt and their lack of professionalism.

TLDR; there’s far better sushi in Raleigh just down the street even (sushi blues) and at many other places like Waraji or even Sushi Nine where you would never receive this kind of awful/apathetic...

We have always liked Sushi-O. The restaurant has great food and, during normal times, decent service. However, this review is about a time of stress, specifically Valentine’s Day of 2025.

There was a missed opportunity by management to mitigate flow into the restaurant. Our reservation was at 7:15pm but we came early. I’m glad we did because 5 other groups showed up for the same reservation time. Our reservation also wasn’t verified (meaning theoretically, anyone could’ve claimed that time slot).

Once we did get seated, we waited 25 minutes to be served (though I’ll note the bus boy brought us water). We had the flag down a waitstaff member to be served. In fact, her had to flag her down several times during the evening to get proper service; she was apologetic given the circumstances.

The saving grace of this evening was the food quality. The cooks did an excellent job with our egg drop soup orders, crab wontons (Rangoon), and sushi rolls. All was amazing.

Had it not been for the waitress’s demeanor, I would not have tipped and she missed out on a higher tip because of the slowness of service.

The big takeaway for management here is:

develop a strategy for large nights. There is no reason to have waitstaff servicing random tables. They should’ve had dedicated sections. I actually did witness an order (likely an appetizer) that I timed from being ready to being picked up by staff at roughly 11 minutes. This is not good and I would’ve rejected it had it been brought to my table. Hold the hostess accountable to verify reservation times on the app if you are going to take them. That itself could’ve been disastrous (and likely was).

Hopefully these things will be...

I came here with my boyfriend for an early dinner to celebrate my promotion at work. I'm new to North Carolina and was excited to try the sushi here. I really hope this doesn't set the bar for my future experiences because I was very very disappointed in both the food and service. The sake was probably the best thing we got as I had never tried mango Nigori before but all else fell short. Our gyoza were half seared and just okay. The rolls were a huge let down even though the by description and looks it seemed good. We had the Crunchy King which was the better of the three. The Daddy which was mid. And the lastly the Spiderman roll which to me was inedible and I only had one piece. Our server never came to check on us after we received our rolls otherwise I would have said something but when she came by after we were finished, asked if I wanted a box for the uneaten roll and I expressed I didn't like it. She kinda paused, gave a face and said okay and walked away. When she returned with our bill, we were still charged for the roll. I then had to ask for her to take it off as I don't think we should've been charged for it. She again gave a face, said "I'll see what I can do" The service left a lot to be desired, it's very lack luster and as a Restaurant Manager myself I'd be very unhappy if my staff handled this situation like this. Overall, it really left me with a sour taste in my mouth and feeling like I wasted time and money coming here for what was supposed to be a special...