Koizi Endless Hibachi & Sushi Eatery — Restaurant in Tampa

I really want to give this restaurant five stars because there was absolutely nothing wrong per se. The challenge is that we had a very large group with lots of kids and for our particular needs, the restaurant was a little too much planning and organizing. Food tasted very good, not culinary masterpieces but extremely decent and no issues with any of the entrees that came out. The challenge is that it is an endless all-you-can-eat place, but it's not a buffet or a revolving restaurant or even cards bringing food out. You have to order every single time and the wait for the food to come out was usually somewhere between 10 to 15 minutes and sometimes more than 20 minutes. When you are super hungry, you want to devour everything before it even hits the table. And so you keep ordering but then you have the obligation not to order extra food so that you don't have to pay extra. So we ended up waiting for a lot of dishes and some of the kids stopped being hungry after they were waiting for 15 or 20 minutes. We went there on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving so I'm not sure if it was a bigger crowd than they anticipated but there were very few wait stuff. Our waiter Steven was good about running back and forth and serving so many tables at the same time. But he should have had some more help. Water was not refilled most of the time that we were there. Toward the end of our visit, he did think to bring us a pitcher of water so that we can refill our own. The ice cream dessert was really good as well and generous portion. Please be aware that if you just order the name of the dish, you need to specify the number of pieces or they will bring you a smaller portion. The number of pieces on the menu may be the takeout order pieces and not the eat in. I really didn't get to take as many pictures as I do for most of my locations because the kids were basically inhaling the food before they could even put it down on the table. The sushi portions were average, but the entree portions for things like Mongolian beef were quite small, tapas size. The hibachi rice and Singapore noodles were a decent entree size but...

Swung by this sushi and hibachi buffet for dinner. At about 8:45 pm, there was still a wait. While we were told it would be a 20 minute wait, it turned out to be only 5 minutes . However, once we were sat, it was about another 10-15 minutes before a server came to our table. It was busy but emptying out quickly by this time, and all of the tables around us had dirty dishes sitting on there. Fortunately, a server did swing by and take our orders. Of note, this is not an open self-serve buffet, but an “a-la-carte order as much as you want with your server” buffet. I will say, the food does come out quick when the orders are placed. Within minutes, we had appetizers, hibachi and sashimi at the table. Even the sushi rolls came quick, and they were large and fresh. I would caution on over ordering initially, and to just order the sushi rolls as you start to finish each one. By the time our last couple rolls came out, we were stuffed and felt bad wasting the food. For dessert, the fried donuts were good, as was the ice cream. Overall, all of the food was delicious and fresh. The hibachi was cooked and seasoned well. With the sushi, I’m surprised the place doesn’t do half orders of rolls because each one was huge (8-10 pieces, full-sized rolls). In general, our server was attentive and friendly, but did go missing a couple of times. Last call for food was about 9:40 pm even though they close at 10 pm. By the time we left around 9:50, we were the last customers left. For the price ($18.95 pp), this place can’t be beat and we would definitely be back again, even with some of the...

My wife and I regular at koizi once-twice a month if not a week sometimes. This sushi buffet establishment is almost always a nice time! They are almost always packed and I think our only issues we’ve ever really had are some of the waiters that work there being a bit odd or inattentive. Short of that the only other thing I’d say I’ve had an issue with this place is their tendency to allow imperfections in appearance or with their menus tend to be kind of shocking for a $20 buffet. The menus are almost always broken or coming apart if it’s been too long since the last time they replaced them. Same thing can go for the seating unfortunately as they will leave seats left exposed or damaged for months at a time. It’s not the first time for either of these issues as this is a normal thing to see at other Koizi restaurants in the Tampa area that we’ve gone through. The koizi role is otherwise the best thing they’ve had and I’m not sure why they keep removing crab Rangoon and replacing them with the fried crab and cream cheese that are horrible if I’m being honest in comparison to a good crab Rangoon. Otherwise we generally have a very good time coming to these establishments. In comparison to other similar restaurants around I’ll say that Saki has a slightly more genuine menu for the price where the quality normally exceeds expectation, hibachi express has a damn good spicy tuna roll, and Ginza was horrible. Pony tail needs to keep his eyes to...