Eiji — Restaurant in San Francisco

I went to Eiji once a few years ago and loved it. Then I went back tonight.

Strike Eiji off your bucket list, go-to list, whatever list.

I was APPALLED by the service my friends and I received tonight. I am rarely at a loss for words, but I literally was so shocked I could only stare open-mouthed at the restaurant staff.

First of all, I get that restaurants want the whole party to be there before they seat you. My friend, who was starving, got there first, wanted to sit and order and eat first since I was on my way there, but they refused to seat her. Fine, whatever.

We received our food, which is very good and fresh, and our other friend told us that she was on her way to meet us and asked us to get her some stuff to-go so she could eat it en route to a charity spin class at SoulCycle. We placed the order with our waitress as we were eating.

While we were waiting for our to-go order and dessert, our friend arrived and kind of hovered over my chair. Not wanting to block the path of the waitress, she shared the bench seat with my friend, but one of the chefs (maybe the owner?) immediately STORMED OVER and pointed to her and said "YOU CANNOT SIT THERE."

Shocked, my friend said, "Oh, she's not eating here - we're just waiting for the to-go order. We already finished eating."

Angry Chef continued to RAIL on our friend, telling her she was NOT ALLOWED to sit there and said, word for word, "GO STAND OUTSIDE" while pointing to the door.

Our friend picked up her bag and went outside, and Angry Chef stormed back into the kitchen. My dining companion and I, along with the guys at the next table, were stunned. I heard one of the guys tell his friend, "Ummmm they just kicked that girl out!" before giving me a wide-eyed, almost apologetic look.

A busboy came by to wipe our EMPTY table, and we told him we wanted the check and just to get out. At this point we didn't even care if they'd made our friend's to-go order.

The busboy, who clearly had to have witnessed everything because the restaurant is very small, said, "Oh you still have food coming."

My friend responded with, "Yes but we don't want it anymore. That was very uncomfortable."

I told him to cancel our order, and just bring the check. He responded with, "Ok so you want me to cancel the order. Ok."

No apology from our waitress or the busboy, who ended up bringing our to-go order.

I rarely, RARELY ever leave zero tip for anyone, but this time we left a big fat zero.

Unacceptable. Absolutely horrendous service. Never have I ever been so embarrassed at a meal, and I will never come back ever again nor will I ever...

Kids are not allowed here. There is a no kids policy. PLEASE DO NOT waste your time going here. Rude and impolite, will ruin everyone's entire day for just going. Please take a minute or two to scroll through the one star and two star reviews on both google and yelp. Those many people can't be making up similar stories where they have been yelled at, embarrassed, told to leave for doing nothing wrong. If you bring your kids they will be put to shame and embarrassed when you are paying good money to dine here. In fact, children are not allowed at the restaurant in owner's own words.

I would give Eiji minus five stars if there was such an option. This is my first negative google review, in fact it is my first dining review. I don't write reviews but I want to inform everyone that from February 18th, 2024 2PM, the owner of the place (guy behind the bar with short grayish hair) has officially stated in his own words that kids are not allowed and not welcome at the restaurant. This was after he has seated us (four adults and two kids) down and after we have finished our meals with kids behaving well. If he tells you otherwise he has gone against his own word because he can check his own security footage and hear back what he has told us. He has changed his restaurant rule to NO KIDS POLICY from February 18th 2024. If he says otherwise he has lied to us. It is no wonder the restaurant was half empty when we were dining. Will add this review to...

I was so excited for this place!! I hardly ever feel the need to write a poor review but the service really warranted it. My party of 2 got there at 6, the first red flag was when I needed to explicitly ask to be served water which idk if I’m spoiled or something but I feel like that should be a given at a restaurant. We ordered our meal and it came quickly, and it was pretty good! I was still a little hungry after, and was deciding whether to order more nigiri or a dessert. It was 6:30 at this time and our waitress proceeded to really pressure us to leave, mentioning that there are people waiting and that there’s a time limit on the tables. I asked how long the time limit was, and she said an hour, so I tried to clarify that I had 30 minutes left to enjoy the table with my friend and at least a little more time to decide whether I wanted dessert. She continued to press us to order and didn’t make it seem like I had any extra time to decide, so we promptly left so they could take another customer. When I go out to eat, I hope to enjoy the meal and my company for at least more than 30 minutes. I’d definitely have wanted to bring more friends to this place if I felt like an enjoyable experience, but this was incredibly rushed and overall negative. Come here to get takeout or a super quick in and out meal. Definitely wouldn’t come for a date or catching up...