Koto Salem Mass — Restaurant in Salem

Staff is extremely rude and will follow you out of the restaurant and accuse you of being a liar by using the bathroom.

Story time: today me and group of friends did intend of eating here for dinner. Menus were handed to my group and was sat outside. Me and another friend, when in to use the bathroom.

There was a sign outside, saying that the bathroom was only for paying customers. But we were going to be paying customers. So we told the hostess we were sitting outside and we were going to eat and SHE allowed us to use the restroom.

In between using the restroom, the people In our group decided not to eat at this restaurant and go to a better one.

I had no idea of this information since I was using the bathroom.

When I exited the restroom, it felt like she was waiting for me to exit and asked me “what happen to my friends ?” I was confused because I was not with them. She then proceeded to say well they got up from the table and the restroom was only for paying customers.

Which I understand, but I have no control of my friends getting up from the table when I am not with them.

So she accosted me and followed me out and called me a liar! Because we used the bathroom. How was supposed to know my group got up ? Her telling me well the bathroom is for paying customers only, like what else she wanted me to do I already used the bathroom ?

She embarrassed me and yelled at me in the middle of the street and made me come out of my character resulting in a shouting match on the street.

I can say never go here the place is dirty and empty and extremely rude staff and to be honest they might be racist. Because me a Latina from New York was yelled at but called a liar. But the girl that I went to use the restroom with is half Asian and nothing happened to her.

DON’T GO...

I recently went to Koto Japanese Grill & Sushi while visiting Salem and had one of the servers admit that servers were told to sell $6 bottled water instead of free tap over the Halloween weekend because of the tourists. She only brought it up because we asked for tap and were refused and then offered bottled, weren’t told there would be an extra charge, and then saw them serve the table next to us tap on accident.

Our mood had already been soured from getting abysmally small portion sizes of sushi and sashimi for the price we paid —and we get it regularly from different restaurants in New England.

When it came time to pay, we asked if we might get a discount on the water on account of the misunderstanding and the manager came over and said that we were paying for the water. We tried to explain that we were told there was no tap and that’s the only reason we got the bottled water but she said the same thing as before. We also brought up the other table getting tap and then the manager stopped making eye contact with us. The server— who was nervous about the whole thing— then told us that all the servers were told to only sell bottled water over Halloween weekend— when the tourists are up. I know restaurants are struggling— I work for one— but don’t lie that you don’t have an option and then give someone else that option; it’s like saying you don’t have fish and then giving the adjacent table fish. Business should be an honest exchange of clear services and clear cost. Customers understand how hard it is right now but give them the choice to choose how they support...

I don’t usually like to leave poor reviews, but I feel called to share our experience. I’m a server myself and usually like to give people the benefit of the doubt, but our server was honestly challenging and not very knowledgeable on the menu. When we asked questions, they wouldn’t give us answers and just say sorry instead of going to check with the kitchen or someone else working. It was also slow, so it’s not like they had several other tables. The server also argued with my friend about her dish. My friend wanted to order the eggplant basil tofu dish and our server just kept telling us they could only do it with chicken. After going back and forth for a while, my friend finally gave in and said they would just take the chicken. Five minutes later, our server came back and said they could do tofu after all and asked which dish she wanted. My other friends got the Black Witch Roll, and they thought it tasted a little funny, but they just wrote it off because we were pretty done dealing with our server. They both had stomach issues that evening, and no one else did. I’m not saying it absolutely was from the sushi roll, but that’s the only common denominator we could find. One of my friends also ordered an espresso martini and there was an option to add Kahlua. She did not ask for the Kahlua because she didn’t want it, but they added it anyway, which was an...