HuHot Mongolian Grill — Restaurant in Rapid City

My wife and i came to HuHot Mongolian Grill on Saturday December 2, 2023 for dinner. When we got there we waited at the host stand for a few minutes to get seated. Then once we got seated the server greeted in a timely manner and was very friendly. My wife and i proceeded to go through the food line and to the grill. After we got our plate of food and returned to the table. I took a bite of my breaded chicken and sausage and they were both cold and not even warm. We told the server and manager of this. We went to the grill a second time and when we got to the grill told the cook about the food being cold. The cook said i got this. He put our food on the grill and cooks it. We get back to the table to eat and when i go to take a bite i notice the chicken is raw and not cooked all the way. I ask the server to speak with the manager. The general manager comes out and i tell her whats going on and she acts like its no big deal. Doesnt say sorry for the experience or nothing. Just says i will have a talk with the cook. I call and ask to speak to a district manager and was told to call the corporate office. I call the corporate office and no one answers. I left a message but have not received a phone call back. As a former lead cook/trainer for HuHot Mongolian Grill, it makes me sad to see how the restaurant that I halped open and train be ran this way. The managers dont care and they dont even come around do table checks to see how things are going. All you see is the manager worrying about doing prep in the back. My wife and i have eaten here several times over the past couple years and it never seems to get any better. In fact it seems to be getting worse. The food line and grill areas are not kept clean like they should be nor are the bathrooms. Its very sad to see such a good company with a great food concept be ran so poorly. I would love to help change things around if i could. The Rapid City location needs to have all employees re-trained and shown how the place is supposed to be ran and how the food is supposed to be cooked. Would love to receive a call back from the company. Thank you. I posted this review in December of 2023 and not one person from the company has reached out but have seen they reached out to most all of the other reviews that have been posted good or bad. So why is my review any different? Because I used to be the lead cook/trainer for HuHot and know how the place is supposed to operate and how the food is supposed to be cooked? Dont want constructive criticism from someone who was a part of the huhot family for years and still cares to see the place succeed and be thw...

I left a no star review for the food because it was honestly the worst food I ever eaten. The guy that was cooking spent more time banging his spatulas around and trying to look cool then actually cooking the food was super dry despite my efforts with all of the sauce that I put in. Five ladlefuls of each sauce seriously! The fried rice that they brought us looked more like oatmeal not even kidding! I have eaten at a lot of Mongolian restaurants and this is by far the worst one EVER!!!! They don't add any water while cooking to steam the meat it takes an extremely long time to cook the food. It is clearly a training issue with the staff I will say our waitress was pretty good she got everything taken care of as far as her job and didn't exceptional job. The restaurant however is actually kind of dirty the tables are sticky "gross" food all over the floor and the buffet was extremely low on foods to choose from absolutely no chicken just a little bit of beef and one big ball of frozen pork. Very little noodles I will say that the vegetables were fairly well stocked up for the most part as were the sauces although it doesn't matter because they pour all the sauce out separately and it just seems off right away and the food has absolutely no flavor from the sauce you put on again the guy cooking doesn't know what he's doing as I stated earlier he just spends his time banging the spatulas around and trying to look like he knows what's going on I believe he needs to be better trained as a business owner myself I can see the lack of training in this staff. I counted nine people working there. And I only seen the one waitress actually doing something besides old spatula banger. And I wouldn't call what he does cooking. So in short if you've read this far through my review I would advise you to go anywhere else don't waste your time or your money you will not be satisfied with the food. Even a farm animal lives cleaner than the interior of this restaurant. I would also add that I do think a health inspector needs to take a good look at this place. I understand people get busy and sometimes things get a little messy. But in the food industry people get sick when things are messy. And this place is not messy it is filthy the grill was extremely dirty and was being cleaned with people's food on it. I don't think that's appropriate. If you want Mongolian food find another restaurant there's another one in town that is actually really good and...

I usually don’t write reviews that are negative because everyone has their off days, but this time I feel like I need to. First, let me be clear that the food was great. I love the food and the cooks are always nice. However, the wait staff needs some serious help. When I arrived, my waitress made sure to tell me her name three times before I could even place my drink order. I don’t know if she was looking for me to say, “Hello (person)” and start a conversation or what. But I just came there to eat. After I had came back with my food from the grill, my drink was on the table. Which was fine. I ordered a soda with no ice, so the straw that was in it would always float up and go horizontal. Twice the waitress walked by and pushed my straw back down into my drink while I was eating. I eventually took the straw out because I didn’t want her touching something that I was putting in my mouth. Rude, and gross. Several times, too, she walked by and would touched my shoulder and asked how I was doing. I would always said I was fine, but when she asked, she would say it as she was walking away. She didn’t stop once at my table except to take my order, or make eye contact with me. Also, you don’t touch your customers unless you know them. I don’t like to be touched. I have really bad anxiety. I don’t know you. Why the hell are you touching me?? Then it was time to checkout. When she came over, she asked if I had been waiting long to check out. I just said I was only waiting a few minutes. Then she mumbled something along the lines of being busy and pointing to her whole section and what not. Believe me, I’m a server myself in a restaurant. You get busy. But you don’t tell the guests that because that makes them feel like it’s their fault and they won’t want to come in again. She handed me back the check, wrote her name on it, again, to make sure I knew her name, and walked off hurriedly and told me to have a goodnight. That’s fine, but when she said that, she used my name. Which means she actively looked at my credit card to see my name. It didn’t appear on the receipt because I looked. That makes me feel incredibly uneasy, and I don’t know if I’ll return or recommend this place to anyone else. The only reason I’m giving this review two stars instead of one is because the two cooks at the grill were very kind and the food was so delicious that I went back for second. That extra star is for them, not...