Inakaya Watanabe — Restaurant in South Carolina

(Edit in response to owner's response): Firstly, yes I did need to ask what was on your menu, because unfortunately, as the "restaurant expert" you are, you don't have a website with which to take orders or show what your restaurant offers to eat. For some reason you hide this information as a picture on your facebook page. And rather than simply answering what ramen was available you asked me to hang up the phone and go search for that information on what you referred to as your "website". My apologies as a customer for not knowing better, next time before my wife and I go out to eat we will  make sure to memorize the menu and all applicable facebook pictures of said restaurant. You mention another customer had the same issue at the exact same time, perhaps this isn't a customer problem. Not that anything could possibly be you or your restraunts fault. I think your response does far greater damage to anyone considering choosing this restaurant than mine does.

Secondly, since I'm assuming this is the individual I placed the order with, you stated the order would be out in 10-15 mins but probably sooner since it's just ramen. My phone saves frequent location data, from the time we arrived to the time we left was over an hour, for pickup. The timeframe of 45 minutes must have also included the time it took to actually get someone at your restaurant on the phone since that's the only way you do business. Rather than admit it took longer than you stated you would rather claim it wasn't as long as my original review stated.. I guess I'm not in that industry so what would I know. Again, I've been to this exact location several times and always had a wonderful experience. However, to claim there isn't anything dishonest about a gratuity is a blatant lie. Why hasn't this always been policy, why is your facebook page the only place you put this information? Why not include it in the total. Why not present it as the total for a meal when accepting payment? It is inherently dishonest and goes to show how far behind the times you and your restaurant are. If she is so "deserving", as you say, of $2 perhaps consider incorporating that into her base salary instead of relying on stealing it from your disgruntled customers before crying victim when they tell you how they feel about it. I would have gladly given her $4 if your managements policy on tipping was based on quality of product and service rather than theft. Over the last 5 years I've probably been to over 500 restaurants, for both pickup and dine in, never once have we received a gratuity charged and never once have we tipped less than 20%. Also in over 10 years the only other review I've left was for 5 stars. Based on your response, it's clear you don't realize why your business isn't succeeding and you seem scared of losing more customers. Your general condescending tone shows you view the issue as being outside yourself and establishment. Your cooks clearly do work very hard to provide great quality food, but they are fighting a losing battle with a management eager to shine the chip on their shoulder. Your response has reinforced our opinion and view of your restaurant and we will gladly be taking our business elsewhere in the future as we encourage anyone reading this to...

Upon arrival and entrance to the restaurant the wait for seating with the hostess wasn’t long and we were seating at what at first appeared to be a nice table location with space. After being seated however another group of kids was sat right next to us in a booth, and the proximity of the tables to each other was very appalling and close in proximity. Which in its self was a terrible experience as the whole other table of unknown people/kids proceeded to watch and make fun of my wife and I throughout our whole meal.

The wait for our ordered drinks wasn’t long, but our appetizer took about 15-20 minutes to arrive, with our waitress disappearing shortly after. We weren’t offered a refill on our waters or beverage.

After waiting about 45 minutes my food arrived and we were told my wife’s sushi was still being made. I ordered the steak, which came out fine but there was nothing great to really remark about it. Id also ordered a vegetable roll which was very sad to say the least. It was made with lettuce and tomato. A freakin salad with rice. Cheaply made!

When my wife’s sushi arrived the raw fish wasn’t chilled or cool. It was warm/hot. It had a very strong not fresh taste and my wife could only stomach around 3 pieces before saying she was done and couldn’t attempt to eat anymore.

This place is severely over rated and it’s definitely not a great/classy type of place to bring your wife for an outing. The food isn’t cold/fresh and you’ll have a bit of a wait while being watched like a hawk by near by customers at their own tables. It says a lot in its self when I say the best part of the meal was the ice water and soda.

My advice is to go somewhere else, the food and quality is not worth...

A little background on us, we have recently moved to SC from buffalo NY. We have spent many nights eating at different "Japanese"sushi restaurants.My wife and daughter and I were very excited to try this restaurant because of all the great reviews. We were seated quickly and everything was living up to the hype. The tempura appetizer was good,a little greasy but maybe their oil wasn't up to temp as it was 5pm(their opening time). We ordered three sushi rolls and then our entrees. We were quickly served our miso soup and house salads which were both as good as any other that we had had(yes, we have had bad miso) and then my daughters entree came out.(bento box) it looked good,but hers was the only entree to come out. Minutes went by and just her entree. Then, after 5-6minutes my entree came out(ribeye steak ordered med-rare came out well done) still no entree for my wife. When I asked about her dinner, I was told something about different meals at different temperatures and wanting things to come to the table at the correct temperature. By the time my wife's entree came out(3 minutes later...ramen noodles with shrimp pieces) my daughters dinner was cold, mine was Luke warm and my waiter was not helpful to my concerns over the timing. Then our sushi came out. California roll( bland but not terrible) firecracker roll(very fishy spicy tuna)and Godzilla roll(deep fried but not a light tempura, a dense heavy bread crumb crust,swimming in some sort of sauce) Pros: staff was very friendly Cons: all of the other reviewers who think this is a good Japanese sushi restaurant Damage:$80 ugh:( In closing, if you want an idea of how the quality of your meal is going to be, just look at the...