Sakura Teppanyaki and Sushi — Restaurant in Redwood City

We come to Sakura a lot, and generally speaking, I really like this place. Tonight’s experience was awful customer service wise.

First thing that was odd was each ordered a fried rice- and one was at least 1/3 bigger. See picture. (And my friend had already eaten a lot of her when I took it). Not a big deal to me though.

Normally we sit in the hibachi tables, but today we decided to sit on the other side because we didn’t want hibachi.

The service was very slow, still, not a big deal. My friend ordered two rolls and a fried rice. I ordered a salad, beef nigiri and a fried rice. We waited at least 30 minutes for anything to arrive. They brought out my friends rolls first. She tried to wait for one of my items to come out to start eating but was starving. After another 15 minutes of waiting I asked the waiter if he could check on any of my food, at least bring the little salad. He didn’t come back for another 10 minutes, then finally came out with my salad, and then shortly after our rices. At this point my friend was pretty much done with her meal and I still hadn’t gotten my main. I again asked the waiter to check on my nigiri. He said barely said ok, then went back to what he was doing (didn’t see him check anything) waited another 10 mins and asked again. Still nothing. He then came back 5 minutes later with our bill. I said I still haven’t gotten my food?? And he took the bill and walked away. I asked again for the 4th time, this time pretty irritated and he walked to the counter and grabbed it and it’s clear it had been sitting there the whole time. He dropped it with no apology. It was cold.

We flagged someone down and asked if he was the manager to which he said yes (tall guy, black button down) and we explained what happened and his response was “oh that dish is just served cold”, again no apology. (It’s also not served cold lol). I responded saying it had been sitting up there the whole time and our waiter tried to bring us the bill before I had even gotten it! And his response “oh I’ll talk to him”, and walked away. I ate it quickly and then asked “the manager” as he was walking by for the bill and he looked at me and pretended to not hear me! I don’t think he was actually the manager because as a manager myself in a customer based industry, this kind of treatment would never fly.

I understand Fridays are busy but we were pretty chill the whole time until the end when it was clear our waiter wasn’t going to bring out my food no matter how many times we asked, but this experience was...

This place deserves ZERO STARS !! This place was one of my favorites to take family for birthday gatherings but these last two birthday gatherings I’ve done have been the worst experience ever ! Back in April I took my 5 yr old there for his birthday and the whole time I was clearing out the table because my server was lost and not worried about us . I had to constantly get up and ask for refills on drinks . And at that over charged my card 200 for just tips . I then go back for my birthday this Tuesday for dinner hoping that the past experience wouldn’t occur again , as I reserved my table for a party of 7 I told them it was my birthday, they had us wait a few then sat us all down . Server came out brought us drinks disappeared for about 15 minutes , as he came back he rushed us all to get our meals and never came back , his name is Luis by the way , i did the same thing as last time cleaning up as plates got empty and food continued to pile up , I would flag him down he would say he would be right back and not come back . Then he brings us the bill and is demanding a huge tip. I then tell him we will be splitting the bill so he does , but is asking for $120 bucks from each tab . My tab was about 213 with out tip . I pay my tab of $213 and pay in cash (not including tip). I then reminded Luis hey it’s my birthday can you guys sing happy birthday because my boys wanted to sing to me and he rudely said I wasn’t told it was your birthday when clearly my 5 yr old was like it’s my mom’s birthday the whole time being there . We had balloons and all ! They finally come out with dessert 15 minutes later with a attitude slam the dessert on the table and I get upset so I let him know thank you but I didn’t appreciate todays service and walk out . They come after me saying I can’t pay cash I have to pay with a card and I was short on my bill when clearly I never was aware that I HAVE TO TIP IF SERVICE IS HORRIBLE. The manager lady is being rude took pictures of my car and family members cars screaming at us that we are band from the place for not leaving a tip . This place is by far now one of the worst places and I would never recommend...

This is a review just for their service, which was quite frankly just appalling.

We arrived here at 2:35pm on Friday for their lunch menu which is till 3:00pm. Even though the restaurant was mostly empty with only 1 teppanyaki table being occupied, we were made to wait till 3:10pm with the excuse of not enough wait staff. When we were seated at another teppanyaki table and ordered at 3:15pm we were denied the lunch menu as the lunch time was over. Making us wait over 35 minutes just to make the few extra bucks difference in the dinner and lunch menu is just under handed.

We were a family of 6, one who has a sesame allergy and 5 who are gluten free. We all decided to order our veggie food without sesame & gluten to avoid any contamination and mistakes from the chef, but the chef kept mixing up the orders. We were initially given steamed rice instead of fried rice, they forgot our yakisoba noodles order, tried using soy sauce for the gluten free orders and tried to give us the chicken fried rice prepared in the kitchen instead of preparing it on the teppanyaki table. Thank goodness it was a teppanyaki table where the food was being prepared in front of us to catch these errors.

We had ordered 2 sushi rolls without sesame in the appetizers, but even after our dinner was over they had not arrived. We had to remind them about them and again specify no sesame, and the staff was so incompetent they handed us 1 of the sushi rolls with sesame while actually saying the words that the sushi rolls were sesame free. We just decided to cancel them to avoid any...