Kogi Gogi BBQ — Restaurant in San Francisco

WARNING!!! This is not Goji Time from Oakland! If I could give 0 stars I would, but I can’t. You must be wondering how is this possible? Well, let me explain, the waiters were nice and I can see they tried their best, but the service is terrible. Let’s start from just booking a table, there was no sign that says one person from each group can register at a time, so when we tried to all go in, a person around his late 40s to 50s with an apron that says TIM decided to grab my arm and PUSHED ME back outside. May I remind you that this is a time of Covid and it didn’t seem like he had gloves which is very unsanitary and there should be no reason for putting your hands on other people.

When we ordered our side dish, it was either wrong, or it took a very long time to get everything together. I had lettuce ordered in the beginning and middle of my 1 HR and 30 min session which came at around 45 minutes in. Mind that we asked a couple times and it never really just caught it. We also ordered the potstickers, they were terrible and it took some time to get it again. They kept on giving us rice instead of the potstickers. This is the same case with water and they just gave up and gave us the whole pitcher which is perfectly fine. I respect that.

They don’t have any ventilation so you will be breathing in the oily smoke and the grill got stuck very often. The grill for replacement and the food got stuck on there too.There was this really brave and nice waiter who tried very hard to do so and even got her hands really red, and eventually had to take out the whole stove. Appliances should be working properly, because this is just a waiting face smacking or hot stove touching problem waiting to happen. Speaking of the grill, the fire is so high, that when you cook anything that’s quite thick like the chicken, it will burn it before you finish cooking it all the way through. There were only dry chicken and it was quite gross. All the meat there for all you can eat is not high quality when compared to other places. It’s rough, chewing, and some of them even had a distinctive smell. If you gave kids, it’s not recommended that you ever come here.

Lastly, the bill. We got the bill and they charged us 18% tips and after the way that I’ve been treated like I was some J, I don’t think they deserved it. So we were thinking what was acceptable for about 2-3 minutes and we asked if they accepted Electronic Payments/ NFC / Tap & Pay. They assumed that we couldn’t pay and kept asking us for our phone. I got really confused because we had another card on hand, but they kept on trying to get our phones until we just gave him our cards for him pay. At last after we paid, we just left it’s one of the worst experience ever.

Being pushed and shoved, treating staff very poorly with appliances that don’t work well, demanding money, and treating us like we are different. This was a very disappointing dinning and I’m here just to inform you and...

Although pricey, this is probably one of the best K-BBQ places in the city (if not the Bay Area) currently.

I've been here twice, once as a party of 2 and the other as a group of 6. Both times the food was spectacular. The cuts of meat were really nice and felt to be of higher quality. The price at $38/person for the regular menu and $55/person for the premium menu does seem to be worth the value of the quality and style. The marinated meats were delicious, and they had some better cuts of meat that you don't find from other places in the area.

On top of that, I'm used to having K-Pop music blaring to the point that my table is typically yelling at each other to have a normal conversation, but at Kogi Gogi, the atmosphere is really nice, and you are mainly competing with the sounds of the tables around you and the grill.

The only knock against the place is the inconsistency of service. NOT that the service is bad, but there can be a delay at times. This can cause some confusion to whether items have been forgotten or if we forgot to order something. This was felt both times I went. During the party of 2 they were busy, so we just passed it off. On the other hand when we gathered as a party of 6, they weren't that busy and the delays still happened.

For clarification, because Kogi Gogi is an AYCE styled restaurant, you order plates (up to 4/table) of meat to be delivered to your table in rounds. When you finish grilling, or the server sees that you are low on meats, you order another set of plates. This is amazing, and my friends and I have loved AYCE K-BBQ places since our intro to it.

The confusion/delay comes because the plates of meat don't all come together, but rather when they are prepped and ready to be cooked. Because of this, it is possible to put in more orders of meat as you will run out faster than they can bring the prepped food out.

As said before I particularly felt this confusion when I was in a party of 6 and the plates of meat were not adjusted [weight wise] to the amount of people. It felt like we were consistently ordering, and not seeing what we ordered. We'd be cooking something, and then the plate from a previous order would come to the table. It could've definitely been our fault for not just appointing one person to order, but we would consistently ask amongst ourselves if a plate of certain meat came out.

This is forgivable though, as we've learned that all the cuts of meat made it to the table, and we just have to order in a certain fashion. If you are going in a large group, order the meats in doubles, if not triples to make sure everyone gets a little. An example would be the Galbi. It only comes on a plate with 2 strips of meat on it, so ordering at least 2 plates and then cutting it up will make the...

I don't know how the food here is, but I can speak for its customer sevice.

I decided to try this place out with eight family members for our last night in San Francisco. Waited with my 90-year-old grandma because we didn't make reservations and the gray-haired man at the front desk informed us it could take about an hour. After an hour and seeing numerous groups of people finish eating and leaving, we checked in with the gray-haired man again to see what our current wait status was. He informed us it would be another 40 minutes to one hour. It was baffling to us, because our entire group took up the waiting area. Who else could be before us? Plus, we'd been waiting for one hour already. Isn't it extreme to have to wait another hour? The restaurant even had a sign posted indicating that dining time was limited to two hours per group. If that is the case, the customers should flow constantly in and out of the restaurant. Even with the constant flow, we would need to wait two hours? It just didn't make sense.

We were so angry with how much more we had to wait, we just left. My grandma was getting tired and hungry, too. We were also disgusted with how rude, informal, insensitive, unapologetic, and uncommunicative the gray-haired man was about the whole situation. If it wasn't for the rave reviews, we wouldn't even have tried this place out. This place doesn't care about gaining loyal customers. It just wants your money. You will be treated like just a number here. It is loud and blasting with annoying Kpop music. If you want to have a nice, calm, and warm conversation with people, do not go here, because you will be unable to hear each other without screaming or shouting. I will never come here again. Also, parking here sucks! It's only street parking (no parking lot) and super full. Had to park at the park and walk about four blocks to...