Sura — Restaurant in Texas Charter Township

(responding to the owner’s reply):

I resigned after having worked just 3 days over the course of 2 weeks. You left out how you penalized me by removing an additional day off my schedule after requesting a day off, leaving me with only 2 days on a full-time schedule to support my family, and then lied about the reason behind it. I tried to confront the owner’s wife about this as she refused to let me talk to her husband, but was interrupted by her false claim that she “did not understand english” and invited me to leave.

Review from a former server:

Pros: can’t say much about the menu given its massive size, but I’ve liked what I’ve gotten to try (gyoza, sushi, avocado bowl).

That’s it.

This is a very closed off, family-owned restaurant. Both their children (whom i’m not sure if they are of legal working age) I have seen helping prep food in the back. One of the things you’ll notice before you even set foot in the building, aside from the “NO PUBLIC RESTROOM” signs posted proudly on the front door, is the word “cocktails” next to the restaurant’s name. Don’t be fooled, as they don’t specialize in cocktails. Order one of their old fashioned’s and see for yourself (overwatered, oversweetened, and overpriced - as are most of their drinks, truth be told)

My three weeks of employment here did help tide me over to find a better job at an actually respectable establishment. If you find yourself working for these people, be prepared to know everything after only a single day of training. And even then, i had to be the one to let the owner know that they probably shouldn’t be using bleach to clean their pop fountain nozzles as it’s not a food-safe chemical (as far as i know, they’re still using bleach to clean who knows what back there). Also, if you’re wondering if they’re all bad-mouthing you to each other in Korean so you’re unable to understand, they most likely are.

If you’re being waited on by a Korean staff member, they’re all related to the owner. Yes, they’re claiming your tip. Yes, they’re also profiting from the overpriced food you just ordered from them. True, they did help out on slower days by throwing me a $20 under the table, but on my last day that I worked, I was screwed out of half a tipout from a 9-top I could’ve easily waited on myself and initially did as I got all their drink orders taken and made (i remember having to repeatedly ask where grenadine was kept and being ignored), but the owner decided to hop on and take over as the “main server”, while i awkwardly stood by as he took their order, confirmed for him that what he had written down was correct, and kept in touch with the table to keep their table as little overcrowded as possible.

I almost forgot the detail of how i was “in the wrong” for showing up at 4pm for my shifts, after being given that time to show up, to which they corrected and said I should have been showing up 20 minutes earlier as 4 is when dinner service starts. But of course, as is everything else there, that was my fault.

There’s also a bell that rings as soon as any food is up, and as a server there, when you hear that bell, you better be ready to drop everything and run to grab the food out of the window. As if being the only server waiting on a whole restaurant isn’t taxing enough, especially on a busy night.

Don’t take my word for it though. Feel free to even just look at the owner’s responses to some other negative reviews, and you’ll get a good glimpse of the level of professionalism they like to maintain. Even just through conversations I’ve had with other servers in the area, as well as running into the gentleman from the above mentioned large party, this restaurant has a negative reputation that precedes it, and I highly recommend looking elsewhere for a quality restaurant experience and a good business to support, especially if you’re spending this much money on a night out.

Edit: Forgot to mention that during training i was informed that any calls requesting a manager would be told to call back by, again, the owners, because the managers...

Wow, I must have gone to a different restaurant after see some of the glowing reviews about this place. Our experience couldn’t have been more disappointing. Both yelp and google have somewhat mixed reviews but my wife wanted to try it since it is so close to our home. A lot of reviews mention bad service. Knowing that I expected the worst. We first tried to go Mother’s day evening for dinner and the hostess explained to us that they were full and really backed up in the kitchen. She said could be an hour’s wait. I would have thought a restaurant would be ready for a capacity full evening. So we went to Ziki Japanese SuShi & Steak House and had great service and a fantastic meal. My wife got off work early last Friday so we thought we would try Sura again and get in before it got busy. When you walk in there is a menu board with a list of specials. One I was interested in. Very few people in the restaurant so I thought service would be good. It was, the waitress was very nice but knew NOTHING about the food or the specials. Usually the wait staff are aware of what is on the menu and what the specials are. Every question we had about the food she had to go and ask. My beer was warm. I wanted to know if the pork special was breaded and she didn’t know. She said it was pan fried. We ordered I got the special and my wife got an appetizer and sushi. My dish came out almost immediately, and it was breaded. As she put it in front of me she said oh and it is breaded. Something I really didn’t want. My fault for the miscommunication. I should have clarified before ordering. My wife’s order came out 15 minutes later. It was the appetizer spring roll with salmon and tuna. The salmon was not cut by a sushi chef. There were inedible black and white (connective tissue?) pieces still on the salmon. A good sushi chef would have cut this off. Then her sushi came out. No ginger no wasabi no gluten free soy sauce option. My pork dish was mediocre at best. My two big pieces of pork were dry and flavorless. It had a small wilted salad that might have passed for a garnish and some orange wedges. It is a very nice room but it has five or six TV’s across the top of the bar that I find very distracting. Not sure why you need so many TV’s or any for that matter. It is a sports bar? Maybe they are there to distract you from the poor service and food? When my wife mentioned the problem with her salmon the waitress just said OH, with no, “I’m sorry let me take it off the bill”. Restaurants like this don’t last long. You can’t serve mediocre food with an uninformed waitstaff and expect people to come back. If you want an asian meal at a restaurant that is truly run like a well oiled machine drive out to Mattawan and go to Chinn Chinn or Portage’s Ziki. Both complete 180’s...

Nope, won't be back. I have been there four times. The first was a great experience - good food, good service, causing me to want to return. The second was the Korean BBQ. Both food and service were good. The third time we got a waiter who was new, unsure of what he was doing, and confused. Service was poor but I was empathetic and put myself in his position. Maybe he was told that he was going to wait tables even though he hadn't received adequate training. I chalked it up to a one time occurance. The fourth time was the nail in the coffin. When we got there, there was one table getting ready to leave and a second one that was just finishing up. And us. That was it for the whole restaurant. It took 5 or 10 minutes for a waiter to show up. Then there was a wait of about 15 minutes before he returned to take our orders. Then we waited for our food for about 30 to 45 minutes. No one else was in the restaurant by this time. One of us ordered a roll to go along with their dinner and I ordered two rolls for dinner. Everything else was served except for the rolls. The original waiter was no longer waiting on us. We reminded our now waitress that we ordered rolls. She said she would check. The rolls never came. The others in my party were finished with their dinners. I never got my dinner (rolls). Waitress came back to ask if we needed to-go boxes. I told her we never got the rolls that we ordered. She apologized profusely and said she would check on it but by this time dinner was finished. I told her not to bother. The rolls were taken off the bill (duh) but there was nothing offered to make up for not getting part of our dinner. There were no other customers there while this debacle was taking place so it's not as if they were overwhelmed with orders. For me, dinner was pretty much ruined because it didn't come and was nonexistent. The food there is good but you may or may not get it. So, nope,...