Sushi Pier Tahoe — Restaurant in South Lake Tahoe

This place has a lot of good ratings so I was looking forward to it. Turned out it is a very American sushi place, which would’ve been acceptable if the service wasn’t this bad. First as we walked in at 2:30, we were told that we could only do all you can eat dinner price. We said that the store information says lunch price goes to 3. The server then asked what time it was (?) and then said oh okay yes you can still get the lunch price. If we had not had the courage to confirm with her, we would’ve been charged with dinner menu price. Then they seemed to only have 1 waiter to take orders and serve. It took him a while to finally come to our table. He wore a mask but his whole nose was exposed as he brought out food and talked to the customers. His attitude also didn’t feel like he wanted to explain how to order for us. The food. They only offered rolls and nigiri, no sashimi. And when the food came (with some orders missing), we realized that they rolled A LOT of rice in the nigiris and rolls. We eventually had lots of rice left. When we tried to do a second round of order plus ordering what we didn’t get in our first order, the server came to tell us that we needed to finish the rice otherwise they’ll charge for the rice. I told him they put way too much rice, and he said that’s not what he could decide, and then went on to say that if they only offer meat then they won’t be able to run the business. When he was saying all that his attitude was rude and as he took away the plate he knocked over my chopsticks and never apologized either. So. Here’s my problem with it: I understand that we don’t want waste, me either. Then maybe don’t put that much rice. I don’t think it’s right that I’m being told that I’d be charged of the rice that I never expected to be this much. Also, if there were the options of sashimis, I would’ve ordered those then there wouldn’t be any rice waste. If they’re worried that people would eat too much meat and they won’t be able to run the business, then maybe just consider don’t offer all you can eat. Don’t offer all you can eat but only expect people to get filled up by rice. Obviously no one comes to a all you can eat sushi place to get all you can eat rice, so either you don’t offer it and only sell by a la carts, or you accept that people will not be finishing that much rice you stuffed in the rolls and nigiris. This restaurant and this server absolutely ruined our mood and I would not recommend this place to anyone who’s looking for genuine and...

30 year local, been coming here since they opened. How sad to see that over the last five years they have gone downhill so badly. The quality of the food has steadily declined, and yet the price just kept climbing without end. Today we tried satisfying the sushi crave, since we normally and much more happily dined at the former Satos down the road. We got to Sushi Pier a little after 2:30, their dinner prices start at 3. So we tried talking to the waitress about the AYCE. I had called ahead to make sure they were doing dine in, the whole bit, masks, etc. This girl was so incredibly rude, she wouldn't answer our questions at all. We told her multiple times we came for lunch, to which we wanted to pay the lunch price. She told us there was a half hour wait since they were only seating 3 individual people at a time. (Mind you, they could have sat easily a party of two at the far end of the bar 6 feet from others.) She said that even though we came for lunch, and would have to wait 30 minutes for lunch, we would still pay dinner prices. She wasn't sure though, even though she repeated 3 times with conviction. (This place very seldom hires mature adults in management roles.) So she goes and asks this other kid, who doesn't even bother to look up from what he's doing. So I'm not sure what kind of communication they practice here, but she comes over, and now very knowledgeable that coming for lunch, and having to wait for a table, she would be more than happy to charge us dinner prices. We both had gotten off work, barely made it through the tourist garbage that cluttered the streets, and still made it a half hour before dinner. I know the owner, so I guess it explains why the place has become yet another Tahoe Craphole. We definitely will not be coming back to give this place another shot, just really sad to see how bad it is. Carson is starting to shape up the same way sadly. Oh, but if the staff or owner reads this, they'll be happy to know a group of five was getting out of their car to come in for lunch. I immediately felt obligated to enforce the restaurants unusual practice, and told them about the wait and that they would be paying $31 + tax for dinner even though they came for lunch. They shortly got back in their car, and left. So, you guys are...

Major disappointment. We started with a King Kong and Mr. pink roll. The fried tempura was tough and tasted like it was cooked days prior and reheated. Made another attempt, I ordered a How We Roll which didn’t contain anything fried…it had the same tough/“left out too long” flavor and was served at a disturbing more-than-Luke-warm temperature. Happy Ending wasn’t happy at all. Service was equally bad. We were seated long enough to get our first 2 rolls and we’re never approached by the server taking drink orders. I noticed the server wasn’t doing much and perhaps was distracted. I asked our chef if he could take our drink order. He turned to the server to let him know, and then it took another 20 minutes for him to attend to us. All the while (mainly out of curiosity) I watched him and the entire time, he simply walked around and would stop occasionally to look to calculate tickets in his server notebook. My drink came towards the end of the meal and I only accepted because I figured they couldn’t screw up a beer to badly. With 3 hardly touched rolls in front of us, I politely let the chef know that we didn’t care for the food and asked him to close us out. His response was, “ok.” We were presented our full check unapologetically. We made payment and the server returned to us and asked “do you have cash?” He explained that the machine wasn’t working because of the smoke from the fires (?!). We searched our wallets and car and simply didn’t have cash. He said “you can go to an ATM and come back.” Feeling like their problem was becoming our problem, we still offered 3 other cards and all indicated a processing error. Finally he asked if we had “like 20 bucks.” We once again explained that we’re happy to pay but didn’t have 20 bucks. Finally we dusted off the check book, cut a check and stuck it on the counter. The staff just looked at it and shrugged…I’m not even sure that they knew what it was. I reassured them that they could give this to their GM and that he or she would know what to do with it. I’m writing this a couple hours after, sick to my stomach and have a headache....