Gogi House — Restaurant in Santa Clarita

Honestly at first I couldn't understand why so many people rated it high and then I realized. This place is in the north end of Santa Clarita(far away from LA) and there are almost no other All You Can Eat Korean BBQ places around to compete. I was hoping for awesome dinner and since I was out of my area and decided to go based on the ratings. Big mistake! Sunday night. We(party of two) arrived at 6:45 and the place was busy. Not a bad sign, right? Means it's popular! We were told it would be a 40 min wait which is crazy for 2 people but I figured it was exaggerated to give them slack time. We didn't get seating until 8pm which for anyone not good at math is and hour and 15 mins!!!!!! While we were waiting I had plenty of time to watch them work and see why the wait. The manager (looked like one) was dashing around trying to do what his team definitely wasn't. Of the two lady servers, one was ditsy (oblivious to her responsibilities) and they were both taking their sweet time serving. The male server seemed normal but I wasn't keeping an eye on him. The whole place just didn't have a pep in their step. What kept my attention (and attitude boiling) was the bus boy. Tables just sat for 15-20 mins at a time while he moved slow as molasses clearing and wiping down each one. What should be a 3-5 min task per table was pushing 10+ mins. Every time he put a dish in his cart he stop for a few secs to look up at the football game on TV. It was excruciating watching him. I could have cleared my own table, ordered and finished in the time he had done a couple. So that was service. Now for the food. The chicken(my usual choice) wasn't dry and mildly flavored. They give you decent amounts per plate they bring out and my friend liked her bulgogi. The main problem I had with this places menu is that it's mostly meat and not much else. The experience is in the variety of sides! They had NO rice paper. And the only side was salad and some pickled cucumber and carrots. I asked specifically for veggies, potato salad, and rice paper and the server said they dont do that kind of thing. I was shocked tbh. There was so much missing from the table. I am used to better AYCE KBBQ in LA and in Korea town. This was a sad excuse, far from proper competition. If you live in the area, it's a cheap alternative to driving to the good stuff. But I...

The ventilation. Please fix the ventilation. This is mainly what keeps me from coming back more often. I've been coming here for many years and every time I hope it's better, but it's still not. We sat at table 12 and our fan didn't work at all. It wasn't on from the beginning and made no noise. At our first grill change we asked for it to be turned on, and was told the fan at the empty table next to us would also help, but that the A/C was disrupting the flow. FWIW I saw tables near the corners of the restaurant that were okay with the smoke going directly up, but at our table the smoke just went straight into my face even with the fans on. Comfortable booth chairs but very uncomfortable breathing experience. I expect some smoke when going into kbbq but just be warned this place will wreck your clothes/hair/skin, personally I find it leaves me much grimier than any other kbbq restaurant I have been to.

The meats are good. Apple pork is our favorite. Same menu for lunch and dinner I believe. In the future I hope they add squid and rice cakes to the menu. For appetizers I would skip the tempura, pancakes, gyoza, shumai, etc. and go for the higher quality sides like the hot stone bibimbap. They serve tart frozen yogurt at the end which is a nice balance to the kbbq flavor in your mouth (and hair, and skin, and clothes, and phone).

Easy parking, decent restrooms. Service has always been a little slow and sassy at Gogi House but it was quite good for our first time coming here since covid started. The price of AYCE has gone up but I do think it is still fair. AYCE sushi for comparison has risen through the roof to unreasonable levels.

We did try to make lunch reservations through Google beforehand and it said they were fully booked. We went by anyway and there were plenty of tables open, but we still got an earful about how they will require a reservation next time. Maybe that's why we were sat at the table with bad airflow? I advise calling ahead and making a reservation over the phone since online reservations can...

My husband called yesterday, Saturday 02/27, to make reservations for 8:15pm. Something came up so we had to cancel & we called and spoke to a female employee at like 5pm (She was polite and helpful). She thanked us for calling ahead of time and offered to reschedule us for a different day. We then made a reservation for today at 6:30pm, I called to confirm because it is a 45 minute drive for us & I wanted to make sure we'd show up at the correct time. Immediately their manager who answered the phone was rude and cancelled our reservation. He states that this would of been our 3rd time canceling when I was literally just calling to confirm. It's upsetting because we only rescheduled once & gave them a 3 hour notice! I would of understood if I was canceling again but the fact that I was just calling to confirm and got treated so poorly and got my reservation cancelled is just insane. Other then the long wait time we've never had any complaints about this place but after this I don't I could ever go back. It was beyond disrespectful how he kept talking over me and wouldn't let me explain that I was just trying to figure out what time the reservation was for. Like if you're mad that I was trying to be a decent human and show up at the correct time then you seriously need some anger management lol.

Update: I never went back to Gogi House BUT I found even better all you can eat KBBQ not too far! KBob in Lancaster, Gen KBBQ in Northridge & AYCE Gogi in Van Nuys. Have never had an issue being walk in, & The customer service is great at all these places & the food is also great! The quality in the meat is better imo. Just thought I’d share since I notice a lot of ppl are leaving negative...