Gyu-Kaku Japanese BBQ — Restaurant in San Mateo

Had the worse experience today in my 20 years of supporting this brand from its Hawaii location to the Bay Area. Ive been a regular at this San Mateo location since they opened shop. Ive never had any issues, always great service and great experience. Today we showed up with a party of 7 and was seated at a table with 2 grills. About 10 mins after we started cooking, we started having issues with BOTH of the grills not heating up properly. I asked for some help and they tried to make some adjustments but after several attempts, they just weren’t able to fix it. So instead of perfectly grilled meat, we ended up with meat that look like it was cooked in the microwave. Eventually, I had to cook on another table across while another family member had to cook on a separate grill 2 tables away. This wouldn’t have been much of an issue except we have several kids and a family member who was in a wheelchair and is unable to help serve himself. This really ruined the whole experience of enjoying our dinner together as family. I understand that these things happen but what made me really upset is how the manager on duty, Steven, dealt with the situation. Instead of apologizing and deescalating the situation, he looked annoyed and began making excuses and becoming more confrontational. Its obvious that Steven haven’t had much customer service training or experience. It also seems like he is very unhappy with his job and unfortunately, this is reflected in the way he deals with his customers. Needless to say, we will no longer be returning to this location, at least not when Steven is working. On another note though, there is another manager, Austin, who is absolutely amazing (unfortunately he was not...

I am so disappointed that Gyu-Kaku has fallen this low. If it wasn't for the prompt seating, I may have even notched it down further. At the end of the day, a yaki-niku (BBQ) place must have high quality meat. No matter how you present it, how you grill it, if the meat isn't great, that is the death knell. I have visited Gyu-Kaku in Cupertino a few times (pre-pandemic) and they were great experiences so I had high hopes but boy was I disappointed.

We had the Meat-Lovers which came with a handful different meat cuts. Okay, pretty much, all of them are marinated in the same sauce, the meat was tough, and felt like a soy-sauce-soaked cardboard. And the technique commonly used for eating low quality meat is thin cuts and heavy marination. And essentially, we had 5~6 cuts exactly like that.

To give them the benefit of doubt, we even ordered the A5 Japanese Wgyu ribs. Now if THIS didn't cut it, nothing would. And to our disappointment, it came completely frozen, and didn't gel with the high direct fire heat of the grill. Yes, it was soft like any meat with such high fat content should. But it just didn't taste heavenly.

I'm sure Gyu-Kaku San Mateo didn't start like this. I'm sure it embodied the spirits of the chain - Japanese yaki-niku that is reasonably priced. But boy they have fallen far.

Ah, the saving grace was our server. She was amazing. But again, this is more of a food review as...

I’ve always been going to this place for at least 20 time, food is good, price reasonable, staff friendly. However I had an unfortunate event today which leads to the one star rating.

I had a reservation today at 8:30pm and came on time. Staff is clearly busy and ignored us for over 10 minutes, three groups are waiting in line and no one is helping us. Because of this, I started to push the ring that they installed for guests to use, hoping to get attention. After pushing the ring three times, a server showed up letting us know they are busy with quite loud voice. Later manage showed up and I complained about the employee’s loud voice.

Manager seated us, and employee explained that the restaurant is short stuff, as we can see from the notes. I totally understand and thought the issue is over. However, soon manager showed up again and told us we need to be respectful. I asked what I did that’s not respectful. He said that the fact that we pushed the ring many times while waiting to be served is not respectful. We apologized for being unrespectful and left the restaurant immediately.

I understand the manager may have had a long busy day. But after having your customer waited 10+ minutes to get served, and publicly giving customer feedback for being unrespectful for being asked to be served, is not an attitude I look for when having dinner. I request an apology from...