Kura Revolving Sushi Bar — Restaurant in San Antonio

First time here.

We called first to ask about the wait time. The lady said 5-10 minutes. I asked if I could check in over the phone or online. She said no. The entire party has to be present to check in. I said ok and we drove to Kura in San Antonio.

We ALL 4 walk in because that’s what the lady instructed us to do. No one greets me. The entrance area is TINY. There’s other people waiting and leaning against the walls. I go to the tablet to sign in. The wait is now 25-40mins. Then we wait over by the bathrooms. We’re there over 5 minutes.

Then we are asked by an employee to go wait in our cars because there is no room there. So we ALL 4 go to our car and wait. Mind you, I am handicapped. Walking isn’t so easy.

We are waiting for a while in our car. Then I get a text that says, “ As your turn approaches, we would like to invite you to check in with the host and wait near the entrance area with your entire party until your name is called. Thank you for your patience. If your plans have changed, please text "Leave"”

So we ALL 4 walk to check in. No employee available to speak with. Finally 2 employee women stop chatting and one comes over. She’s the host. I ask who we check in with? She said with her. So she takes my name. Then she asks us to go wait in our car.

I asked …Again? I got a text that asked us ALL to come in. We were asked earlier to wait in our car. Now we come back as requested and now we have to go back to the car and wait?

She said yes because there’s no room there.

There were actually less people waiting this time around but it is such a small entrance space. Poor engineering/planning on the owner’s part.

So I asked if the next time we are contacted we are gonna be seated. She said yes.

So we went and waited in the car.

This has been so annoying. Especially being handicapped.

Y’all need to figure out a better method to seat your guests.

We drove 25 minutes to eat here. We won’t be coming back. This is poorly planned, very inconsiderate and illogical.

Update July 31, 2023. I received a reply from the owner.

Thank you for the reply. I appreciate your attention and response. I also wanted to share the texts that we got back to back in the same minute (@1403) that were contradictory. We were rushing in to the restaurant because the texts were telling us we lost our spot. After all the time we waited, we were not gonna lose our table. When I asked the host about these texts she said that’s the automatic replies and she isn’t involved in those. She said her only message was the last one. This also needs to be reviewed and improved upon.

You have a unique restaurant. We were stationed in Japan for 6.5 years. My first born was born there. Japan is dear to our hearts. This restaurant was nostalgic for us but these check in issues tainted the experience. I KNOW these are issues that can be remedied. I recommend quite a few chairs lined up outside like they do in Japan. Not everyone can find close parking and can go back and forth to their car. Helping improve these issues will be appreciated not only by guests but by your employees because this was out of their control and it reflects poorly on them which isn’t fair. I believe you will fix this so thanks. Below are the texts:

1403 As your turn approaches, we would like to invite you to check in with the host and wait near the entrance area with your entire party until your name is called. Thank you for your patience. If your plans have changed, please text "Leave"

1403 It's almost your turn! Please check in with the host. If you're on your way, text back "yes" and we will see you soon.

1403 Sorry we missed you. For now, we've moved to the next party on our...

It is with profound disappointment and barely contained exasperation that I must recount the utterly deplorable experience that now defines Kura, a once-revered sushi establishment in San Antonio that has, in 2025, plummeted into a vortex of incompetence and disarray. To call Kura a shadow of its former self would be an insult to shadows, which at least serve a purpose. This establishment, however, seems to exist solely to test the limits of human patience and endurance. The reservation system—a concept so fundamentally simple that even a moderately trained chimpanzee could manage it—appears to be an enigma to Kura’s staff. One might assume that a reservation guarantees a seat within a reasonable timeframe. Alas, Kura scoffs at such pedestrian expectations. Patrons are routinely left languishing for over an hour past their appointed time, rendering the very notion of a reservation as pointless as a sushi roll without fish. The absence of indoor seating for waiting guests is a particularly cruel touch, forcing one to choose between roasting in their car with the air conditioning on full blast or standing outside, wilting under the merciless Texas sun. Truly, Kura’s management has mastered the art of transforming a dining experience into a survivalist ordeal. The management team and host are so spectacularly inept that one wonders if they were hired as part of a social experiment on how to alienate customers most efficiently. Fire them. Fire them all. Replace them with individuals who possess a modicum of organizational skill and a basic understanding of hospitality. Better yet, invest in a modern reservation system—perhaps one from this century—that doesn’t leave patrons questioning their life choices while staring at an empty conveyor belt. Speaking of which, the revolving sushi bar, Kura’s supposed pièce de résistance, is a mockery of its own concept. The trays, more often than not, sit barren, forcing one to order from the menu like some common plebeian at a fast-food joint. Why endure an hour-long wait for a gimmick that doesn’t even function? The staff’s incompetence extends beyond logistical failures. Orders are consistently botched with such regularity that one might suspect it’s a deliberate act of sabotage. Requesting assistance via the kiosk is an exercise in futility, as it merely summons yet another hapless server, floundering under the weight of a dysfunctional system. I pity these servers, truly, for they are but pawns in a game of culinary chess where the sushi chefs and management seem to have forgotten the rules. The chefs, presumably tasked with crafting edible art, instead churn out mediocrity when they bother to stock the belt at all. To be fair, the establishment is clean—a small mercy in an otherwise catastrophic experience. But cleanliness does not compensate for the soul-crushing reality that Kura has squandered its former glory. San Antonio’s sushi aficionados need not subject themselves to this farce any longer. Wild Goji beckons with comparable quality, a superior atmosphere, and—dare I say it—actual service. I once adored Kura, but that affection has been replaced by a burning resolve to dine elsewhere and to steer every friend, acquaintance, and passing stranger to a revolving sushi bar run by professionals who understand that customers are not an inconvenience. Save your time, your sanity, and your appetite. Kura is a relic, coasting on faded laurels, and I, for...

We got there and the ipad said it would be a 20-25 min wait. The host was then pushing people out of the building because there was no space to wait inside. The issue itself of having no space was not his fault, but his approach was offensive. 45 mins later, I never got a text and the link was stuck on "15 mins" of a wait, so we went inside and tried to explain the situation to the same host as before, I think his name was Ed. He had a horrible attitude and honestly did not treat me like a person at all. He interrupted me to ask the same question that I was already mid-way through answering. In my opinion, since every host is the first person you interact with at each business, they probably shouldn't hate people, or maybe he just hates his job. Regardless, they should consider better training or another person for his job.

The small plates Ed gave us for soy sauce had fish on them already as soon as we were seated. The water that the robot brought over had a white chunk floating in it. A spoon was brought out for the (small) $9 burnt, over-salted, over-garliced garlic rice and it was also dirty from crusty food and oil sploches everywhere. The belt itself looks as if they have never cleaned it and the food domes are gnarly as well. I'm not sure their process for ensuring the fish stays at the appropriate temperature because the belt is not temperature controlled and the same plates had been circling through the restaurant for over the hour and a half that we were there.

The vegetarian options are small (one rice paper roll, the boring, cold, edamame, and the gross, expensive rice that I've already mentioned) were the only options. No vegetarian sushi at the sushi restaurant, even though I looked at the menu online ahead of time, and that menu said I had at least 2 options.

They have a prize system when you eat 15 plates that rolls out above your head, which is really cute, but the prizes are cheap. 15 plate with about 2 rolls on each plate was pretty easy with even just my gf eating the sushi. it's around $45 for 15 small plates of only a little bit of sushi.

I have read other reviews with similar "lack of all around cleanliness" complaints and the owner has said they would take care of the issues but honestly that was about 4-5 months ago and the photos I saw in other people's reviews were still an accurate depiction of the current state of the restaurant. This business needs to hire a health inspector to get them on the right track because they are lost. If it weren't for my girlfriend really wanting to experience a revolving sushi restaurant, I would have left after the dirty plate and chunky water came to the table.

Overall, I think it's a cool concept but they're not the first to do it and they certainly have a lot of room for growth. I hope to see better things from this restaurant after I...