Hiko-A-Mon — Restaurant in St. Matthews

My wife wanted to get sushi for dinner with some friends to celebrate her birthday. I saw this restaurant had a traditional Japanese sunken table and to my knowledge, it's the only place in town that offers such an experience. Thinking this would be a unique experience, I called the restaurant weeks in advance and the hostess who answered the phone told me the table was available and that they would be excited to help host my wife's birthday dinner. I got off the phone having made a reservation for 8 people at 8pm in the sunken table room, leaving my name and phone number as usual.

Fast forward to the evening of the dinner, and when my wife and I checked in (with a birthday cake, candle, etc.), the hostess proceeded to tell me that they had given the sunken table to a larger group of people who requested it AFTER us, and that the hostess who took my reservation had allegedly not written down my phone number, which prevented the restaurant from calling me to ask whether I would concede the sunken table for another one.

When I asked the hostess how they could possibly think it was okay to simply bump someone from a specific reservation for the table they know is their main attraction and for a patron's birthday without so much as a phone call, the hostess had no explanation. All she said was that there was "nothing they could do." I then asked to speak with the manager and the hostess told me she was "too busy" serving tables to speak but would come by our table (a regular one) to apologize later.

The manager did not apologize. In fact, no one from the restaurant aside from the poor hostess who really did not bear the blame for this fiasco, bothered to come to our table at all, let alone apologize.

This is beyond unprofessional. Taking and holding reservations is the most basic function of a restaurant. The fact that this place not only revoked my reservation for my wife's birthday dinner but did so without even attempting to contact me is beyond the pale. For the manager to then not even bother to say that she was sorry is even more unbelievable.

Beyond this, the food at this restaurant is okay at best. My strong recommendation is that you go someplace else - somewhere where your reservation actually...

I have previously recommended several people to this restaurant. I regret that now. My son and I have the same birthday and he picked Hiko-A-Mon for our dinner this year. Made reservations 5 days in advance. Confirmed reservations. Arrived and was told we needed to wait if we wanted the booth we requested in our reservation. OK, fine; we only waited 7 minutes and were then sat in a half-booth. Then, once we were sat no one came over. The table next to us with two older (very well-dressed) people was sat after us. They were greeted and had drinks within a few minutes. However our server didn’t come. I sent a text when we were sat and by the time we decided to leave it had been 27 minutes sent I sent that text. Right when we were making the decision to leave the hostess saw us still seated. You could see the surprise on her face that we didn’t even have water. She ran to the back I’m supposing to get a server. Then a server that had been out to the section several times to attend to the table on our other side, came out, went back to make waters and finally came to the table. No name. No introduction. No apology. I asked if they were our server and they said yes. I said “But you’ve been over here several times?” “I’m sorry. I’m new and it’s a lot of tables.” I just said that I won’t add our table to their workload, got up and left.

Look, I get it. I worked in a lot of restaurants when I was younger. But I’ve never seen a situation like this without it even being addressed until pressed. Where was the manager that should have been helping the new server? I’m sorry we chose this restaurant and ruined a celebration for two people. I won’t make that...

This restaurant is probably one of the finest Japanese places in town. The whole ambiance is nice and cozy and service was great. their menu has good variety (with a huge list of sushi rolls), and everything just has a sense of class. The first time, I went in a party of 10 and they promptly got our table ready. They have a sit-down, bamboo floored dining room that's exclusively reserved to one party every night, but unfortunately I missed out on it (I highly recommend you try it though since it's really comfy). The food was prepared quickly, especially the sushi rolls, and the servers come out to you with a lot of kindness and discipline. Near the end of our dinner, however, we we're surprised to learn that our dinner (costing at least $180) had been paid by the owner. At first some of us believed that another had paid but in truth the restaurant did pay for our food, probably because of rudimentary Japanese culture. I'm very likely to come here again and try more things on their menu since they have really good pricing of an average of $11 for a sushi roll and $15 for regular dishes. Overall, great...