Sumo Sushi & Grill AYCE - Tacoma — Restaurant in Tacoma

Clean restaurant with cool robots that give you your order. It has a very nice atmosphere and the ordering system is quite unique. You use their site to order by scanning the QR code. You can order 15 items max per 15 minutes. There is a 90 minute time limit though.

It takes literally a million years to get anything though. We were here for TWO HOURS and didn't get all of our food. I wanted to like it, I really did. The karaage was chewy and cold. The sushi was not chilled. The steak app and side were good. No dish to put your soy sauce in, had to scrape out the wasabi. Everyone is running around and trying their best, I can tell. It just isn't enough. The good reviews are from the free ramunes. I witnessed the robots bringing food to empty tables and tables with new people with food from old orders. Many people were complaining to the staff. We warned people to turn around on our way out.

I can tell by watching the sushi chefs in the back of the restaurant that EACH DISH comes in ONE ticket at a time. They are all just randomly scrambling to complete these tickets. Imagine it. Every table is able to submit their orders (15 items) at the same times. How hectic must that be for your poor staff?

My tips: -They need to prepare all the sushi for each table at the same time. Put it all on one big plate. We don't mind sharing from a big plate if you give us small, empty, individual, personal plates. -Do it assembly line style and have one person do the rolls, one do nigiri, and one do maki. -Have the servers take the orders. This will limit the number of items able to be ordered at one time AND limit the amount of rounds each table can order. -Assign one person to just stay on drinks. Ffs it was annoying to not at least get my water. -Utilize your servers to serve things more. Use the robots, sure! But don't RELY on the robots.

My favorite restaurant in San Marcos, TX does AYCE sushi and yall need to call them for some professional tips. They had it set up nicely and it WORKED. They are called Kobe. Call them, Sumo. They may be able to help you.

Update 7/14/24 We decided to give them a second chance and it wasn't bad. We went right when they opened for lunch on a Wednesday and there were only 1-3 other tables there throughout our hour there. We were able to get all the food we ordered and nobody stole our plates this time, probably because there were only ever a max of 3 tables though. The sushi was acceptable, but I would note that the proportions are off. They load the maki rolls with the fish and don't balance them well with rice. Extra fish sounds nice, but it messes with the taste and balance of a good maki roll. The hot food was pretty good though. The unagidon was tasty and the katsudon had curry sauce on it with potatoes and onions. The calamari, tempura shrimp, takoyaki, yakisoba, and beef strips were also very good. Fried rice was meh, needed more seasoning. The only negative is that their lunch menu was limited. It did NOT include sashimi or nigiri (my favorite/REAL 🍣 sushi). Luckily they had the maki rolls, which are also a form of real sushi, so I was satisfied with that. Did not order drinks, servers were attentive and refilled the water, took empty plates quickly. Easy to do with only a few tables, but we tipped well anyway. Overall, I would STRONGLY suggest only visiting this place when it's DEAD: weekday 11am-1pm or thereabouts. But this food and service for lunch definitely improved the score to 3...

I've been here a handful of times, and my most recent visit was especially enjoyable. They've updated their menu structure—you now choose between a Silver or Gold option, which applies to the entire table. We went with the Silver tier, which was $17.95 per person for lunch. (Dinner pricing may differ.)

What We Ordered: We tried a variety of dishes: calamari, chicken karaage, chicken katsu don, shrimp tempura roll, gyudon, grilled shrimp, and udon. The standout for me was the calamari—three large, perfectly seasoned pieces (tentacles), crispy and delicious.

How Ordering Works: You scan a QR code to access the menu. You can order up to 15 items every 15 minutes (even if you order fewer, you’ll still need to wait the full 15 minutes before ordering again). The digital menu is user-friendly, with photos and descriptions available under each item. Food arrives via robot server. The robot has three shelves, and the one with your order will light up. After collecting your dishes, you can press the Finish button on the screen so it can move on to the next table. Tip: If you're unable to order from your phone, they offer tablets as an alternative.

Self-Serve Bar: Located toward the back, the self-serve area is well-stocked with extras: Hot items: gyoza, veggie rolls, vegetable tempura, breaded fish, chicken skewers, French fries, and what they called “BBQ corn” (which reminded me of elote). Cold sides: seaweed salad, cucumber kimchi, kimchi, crab salad. Soups: miso soup available. Condiments: tempura sauce, yum yum, spicy mayo, wasabi, pickled ginger, ketchup, and more. Desserts & Drinks: There’s a small dessert bar with cakes and popcorn. A boba-style drink station featured milk tea, Thai tea, and strawberry lemonade—all included. Other drinks are available for purchase through the online menu.

Service: The staff was friendly and patient, especially when explaining the new menu system. They also cleared plates frequently, which helped keep the table tidy.

I was only there for a short lunch break and couldn’t try everything I wanted, but I’m definitely looking forward to coming back to explore more of the menu.

UPDATE: I tried the Gold menu and it did have some good options. The grilled NY Steak was cooked perfectly. The garlic butter sauce is really sweet, the black pepper sauce is too strong. I would prefer to not have any sauce on the grilled steak, short ribs, and shrimp. This time, the self serve had fried shrimp, it was one of the best dishes, including the ones we ordered. The sashimi wasn't as good as it has been in the past. Out of the Gold Menu options, the Calamari and NY Steak were the best. All fried options have too much breading. The handrolls...

5/13: adding to my original review. Just went back in and a lot has changed! The layout of tables is different. The appetizer bar moved and is much bigger and has more variety now! Included these huge braised beef ribs! They were good but 75% bone and 25% actual meat. They have cream cheese ragoons, baked mussels, salt and pepper shrimp which were also good. I even saw some skewers, and chicken. They also added a freezer with ice cream and a fridge with boba 🧋the menu looked updated as well, they now have a hotpot style thing and sashimi! The nigiri 🍣 pieces are also bigger, before they were a bit small. Wouldn’t recommend the short ribs, very very thin and weird flavor.

OG REVIEW: My spouse and I were so excited to try this place! And they did not disappoint. Of course there’s pros and cons but that’s to be expected within the first few months of opening! I’ll start off by saying the food was great, I’d recommend the white tuna nigiri! My spouse loved the chicken karagge. I did not like the tuna tataki definitely not my thing tasted like lime and tajin on tuna…The robots were so cool! Overall they were great but at times other people would grab food that was not theirs so when the robot got to your table the robot wouldn’t have any food on it. Or the robot would deliver to empty tables. Also, you order off your phone and can only order every 15 minutes. I was very impressed that they had wayyy more than sushi! They had rice dishes like chicken teriyaki or even fried noodles! And my favorite other than the sushi was steak and shao mai! All included in all you can eat which is $29.99. We went on a Friday night overall the food would come in a decent amount of time but some dishes here and there would never show up and we would just order it again. I would recommend this to others who love AYCE! Was such a fun...