Sumo — Restaurant in Steubenville

So I want to start off by saying I have been dinning with Sumo for 3 years now and even though it's not the best hibachi it's on the cheaper side and isn't bad for what it is so we do dine here but mostly we get take out. Rather often, honestly 3-4 times a month at least and until recently moving we were living 25 minutes from sumo so we were traveling almost an hour all together to dine here. Tonight was definitely our last time getting ANYTHING from here. Called in to place a take out order at 10:35 pm (open till 11 on Saturday) it was still cutting it a little close so I was thinking they might say it was too late to place an order, which wouldn't have been a problem. Instead they let us place the order and said it would be 30 minutes. I thought once again it was odd he was letting us place the order when they closed at 11 and he's saying it would take 30 minutes (11:05 is when the order would done). We pulled in at 11:04 and every light in the place was off and not a single car was in the parking lot and the door was locked. I never in my life have experienced something so unprofessional. I would also like to add it was the OWNER I placed the order with on the phone, like I said I've been dinning here for 3 years and have spoke with him many times and I'm positive it was him. For the owner to not just be in the building when something like this toke place but be the one who actually did it is mind blowing to me. All that being said it only leaves me to believe this was done on purpose out of pure laziness and unprofessionalism. Doesn't seem like it was a coincidence that I was told my order would be done 5 minutes after they closed, and never have a seen every employee be out of the restaurant 5 minutes after they close!! All he had to say was it was too late to place an order and he could have kept a loyal customer but I can promise I will never give this place another dime. Also, I would like to add anytime I have ever been 5-10 minutes late to pick up my takeout the owner will personally call me and make sure we are still coming so once again this was no mistake just...

I honestly hate doing this, so much so I’ve been putting off reviewing for months. I loved this place when I found it, I introduced many friends to it because Sumo was such a reasonably priced, delicious hibachi place. I’m from the WV border in PA, so I would happily drive to Steubenville for how good the food was, so much so during the height of quarantine in June when I was desperately craving sushi, I took the drive to a place I knew I could get good quality fish for a nice price. I was starving so I went for it and got the Chirashi Sushi, which is a sashimi platter with rice. As soon as I took the first bite of fish I knew something was wrong. Benefit of the doubt, I put the white fish down because it’s not my favorite so it may have just been my taste that day. I went for the salmon which is my favorite. I should have stopped eating because I know what old sushi tastes like. I didn’t listen to my gut. Without details, needless to say within Twenty minutes of eating my stomach let me know that I had eaten something bad. Needless to say I was chained to the bathroom for the next 2 days. I understand that it’s got to be hard maintaining the usual standard and freshness of ingredients during this epidemic with less customers, I totally get that. On one hand, maybe I should have known better than to order sushi when I knew business must be slower. The thing is though, if the restaurant didn’t feel it could keep up the quality of its sushi to the point it was old, left out, or what not, it should have been taken off the menu for the time being. Sushi is not something you can cut corners with, people will get sick. I was sick for days almost instantly after eating it and I knew from the first bite it was bad and threw 90% of it. I used to love going to this place, but I can’t trust the quality now after getting sick, so sadly no more...

I became ill and had to vent my PEG tube after 1 bite to prevent vomiting. I spoke with the owner, John, and he wasn’t concerned at all regarding the quality and safety of the food although he continued to repeat I needed to contact DoorDash to resolve the issue.

I asked directly if he was concerned about the safety and quality of food leaving his establishment as DoorDash isn’t responsible, John’s reply was a quick & angry “No, contact DoorDash for refund”.

I did receive partial refund from John after 3 phone calls to him. With each call, I never asked for a refund at all, my only reason for contacting John was to make him aware the food prepared at Sumo I ate made me ill. I stated that to John multiple times, he continued to ignore my concerns , until the final “No” answer I mentioned above.

Overall, I’m still more concerned about the safety and quality of food being served than getting a refund and Sumo has made it clear they have no concern regarding food safety.

It’s sad to see a local establishment have zero regard for health & safety of food served to patrons within...