Kotsu Ramen & Gyoza Santa Clarita — Restaurant in Santa Clarita

The vegan gyoza were absolutely delicious. I also liked the decor.

We live not too far and were excited to try this relatively new spot which is much closer to us than our other go to ramen place more on the north end of the Santa Clarita Valley. We were hesitant to go at all as closer to when they opened a few months back, my wife had called to see if they had gluten free options, and not only did it seem like they didn't but the person who she spoke with was pretty rude and dismissive to her. But, months had gone by, we were driving right by at dinner time, and on a whim decided to go in.

It's 6pm and the sign above the front door is lit up with the word "closed." Despite the fact that people were walking in and out. Okay, they forget to turn off the "closed" sign. These things happen.

When we got in, there was no line and only one other party already dining. The staff person (there was only one in the front of the restaurant) pointed us to the order screens wanting us to figure out what we wanted using those instead of taking our order. Okay, fine...we do a lot of delivery orders so we know how to do it, but post-pandemic, coming into a restaurant, it's nice to have a human touch. But again, not a dealbreaker.

My wife, who I mentioned is gluten free, ordered a rice bowl situation. She wanted ramen topping but on rice instead of noodles (since they don't offer gluten free noodles, like many other ramen places in the Santa Clarita Valley do.) The lone staff person said they could not accommodate such a request. So she just ordered the rice bowl as is.

I ordered the vegan curry ramen.

Our son, who's thirteen, and as all teens do, has opinions about what he will and won't eat, wanted ramen, but without the broth...just the noodles and the toppings. (Yeah he's ridiculous that way, but whatever, pick your battles with kids, right?) The screen ordering system couldn't accommodate removing broth from the ramen, so we had to ask the one front of house employee if they could do that. His reaction was similar to, we would imagine, if we had just asked him to solve cold fusion. He made a point of telling us he didn't know if that was possible and further that no-one had ever asked him that before. Good to know! I suggested he might be able to just communicate with the kitchen to simply not include the broth with this ramen. It took him a few minutes to accept this as a possibility, but he did it. Hurrah! We also ordered that one with extra noodles.

Our son's came out first. It was a bowl with ramen toppings and a separate bowl with noodles. I mentioned to our crack Kotsu server, non-order taker, non "closed" sign turner offer that it looked like we didn't get extra noodles, just the noodles on the side. He apologized and brought out the extra noodles.

During the half hour that went by between when our soon was brought his extra noodles, and anything else was brought to our table, 2 other parties came into the restaurant, ordered, were seated, and were brought our food.

Some restaurants have that thing where they bring out the food as it's ready...tapas places do that a lot...but it felt like a half hour was too long for us to wait for food, while our son slurped down his many noodles.

This is when they brought out the vegan gyoza which, as I mentioned was delicious, and gave as a hope that we might actually be brought our food and we might enjoy it.

After we had finished the gyoza, now about 35 minutes after our son (and again 2 other tables who arrived and ordered after us had been brought their food) the lone employee, our emissary to the world of Kotsu, came with my vegan curry ramen and told us he was sorry, but the kitchen was out of rice and it would be another half hour before they had any more to be able to bring my wife's meal.

We asked for (and were given) a refund for the meal and we left and made food at home.

We will never go back to Kotsu Ramen. They were mean to my wife. They were way understaffed. They got our order wrong. And they treated us like it was our fault for complaining...

When Kotsu opened, I was excited to endorse the new ramen shop in the neighborhood. They were thoughtful about their soft-opening and perfecting their product. Overall, they created a solid bowl of ramen. Lately, things have taken an unfortunate negative turn regarding service.

On one occasion, I had to call in an order because I had a very short lunch period. I was instructed to go online and place the order. So, I followed instructions, but I ran into issues processing the transaction online. I called back to see if they would make a one-time exception as the transaction wasn't processing. On my follow-up call, I explained the situation and was forwarded to the manager who stated, "if I make an exception for you, then I need to make an exception for everyone else." This run-around ended up consuming the majority of my abbreviated lunch period.

Today's experience was exceptionally cold and sterile. I walked into the restaurant (no other patrons). The waitress/clerk was cleaning a table. She briefly (but kindly) directed me to a self service kiosk to place my order, then returned to cleaning. I placed my order, and stood for 15 minutes in an otherwise empty restaurant, without receiving a greeting, acknowledgement, or eye contact from any staff.

I wanted this business to succeed, so I tried to contact the Kotsu Headquarters: The website prompts people to invest in the organization or buy food. The phone leads you to order food over the phone (which was ironic). Unfortunately, Kotsu (in it's short existence) is already showing signs of large-corporation-mentality: seeing customers-as-a-commodity. Based on this experience (and experiences from friends), management is prioritizing protocol over customer service. Since I was not able to connect with corporate headquarters, I'm hoping that this detailed message provides constructive feedback which leads to...

Came to eat here Sunday night 9/4 with my boyfriend. We were excited to try this place and wanted to order some ramen. When you walk in there are tablets you order from, then you take a number and sit down.

We placed our order and sat, 15 minutes later the server asks us, "hey, did you guys place an order?" We did and showed our emailed receipt. She stated that it was not showing in their system and proceeded to add the order into their system.

About 15 more minutes later, no food is coming out and we're just sitting there wondering what's going on. There are two people in the back kitchen and one server. The server leaves to make a phone call outside. When she comes back we ask her about how much longer our order will be taking. She then tells us that they are having issues in the back and that her manager is on the way to solve the issue. At this point we had been waiting over 30 minutes for our order and were extremely hungry and wanted a refund. Per the server, she did not have a ability to give us a refund and that her manager was on the way but told us to write our information down so that the manager can contact us to supply us a refund.

It has now been 5 days since this incident and we have received no call or email from this manager. In the end we were out $41.52, no ramen, no gyozas, no refund. Ultimately we weren't able to even eat out anywhere because by this time the server informed us that they were having issues, everything else around was closed.

Don't bother trying this place out lol you won't get to eat anything and they won't contact you to give you...