Don Pocha Korean BBQ — Restaurant in Upper Arlington

Very disappointed with our experience. Came here with a group of friends celebrating a birthday on Saturday. At first everything was fine, we ordered drinks, some apps, all fantastic! I mentioned to our server that no one at our table had ever been to a Korean BBQ and asked to explain more about the experience. She quickly ran through everything, explained the sides we would get with our meals but didn't do a great job explaining the portioning sizes. On their menu it says one bbq combo was enough for 2 people to share. So we assumed the sizes of everything were smaller since the experience was meant for sharing. We ordered 2 beef combos, a pork combo and a vegetarian plate to share for our group. After this point our server disappeared for a very long time. A different guy came to our table, he dropped off our food, made sure the cooking grate was over the grill and left. Our table is now covered with so much meat! Way more meat than we were expecting!! We weren't given any cooking utensils for cooking our raw meat, we just had chopsticks. My friend got up and asked for a steak knife for cutting our food. She was told they didn't have knives and handed her a butter knife.. After this, we've been making due with what we had. Its been about 25 minutes since our food had been dropped off and our server emerges finally...asked to change our grill grate and leaves again. Doesn't ask how anything is, doesn't ask if we need anything, she just leaves. 2 minutes later, the guy who dropped off our food quickly comes up to our table with a bucket of tongs and scissors for cooking and cutting our food..and brought new chopsticks so we weren't cross contaminating anything.. after that we are very unhappy. With our server gone again, a different guy then came to our table to see if we needed anything but he seemed very confused. We still had so much uncooked meat by the end that we were trying to get as much on the grill to cook as we could before they closed. Our server popped by again to change the grate, asked us if we wanted boxes and went away. Its 8:55, the restaurant is empty by now and 3 employees are sitting a couple tables away just staring at us. Our server dropped off 2 boxes and had the bill in hand. Originally we were going to split the check with what everyone ordered. She stated that the bill was altogether and since we were a large group she had already added gratuity to our bill. Then looked us all in our eyes and said "You guys have Venmo, right?" Then walked way. Our bill was way higher than we were expecting and there became alot of friction in our group of who was going to pay for what, all the while trying to cook our raw food and box up what we could. Our server kept coming over every few seconds trying to get our check. It was very obvious we weren't wanted and we were being rushed out. It became a very uncomfortable situation very quickly. After we paid it was very obvious they weren't going to let us finish cooking what raw food we had left so we had to ask for another box to take our raw meat home and cook immediately. As soon as we walked away from our table, the employees that had been staring at us and making us uncomfortable started cleaning off our table immediately. It had just turned 9:30 when we walked out the door.

I was very interested in this restaurant for awhile and was very excited to try it. It was one of the worst experiences I've had at...

[Response to owner's revised response: What exactly do you gain by making this silly distinction between your staff member directly asking for a tip vs. some 3rd party software that you yourself use (and by way of usage, endorse) asking for the tip digitally on your behalf. lol I have no reason to know about any software. All I know is that I was shown a screen on a portable handheld device soliciting a tip. You yourselves could select the "No Tip" option for me, but in this instance, you presented it to me. Presenting me with the tip screen = asking for a tip, period. So what exactly am I misunderstanding? You also alluded to DoorDash. I tip 20-30% on DoorDash because the Dasher is driving to the restaurant, waiting for my order, driving to my house, putting it on my porch, and leaving my neighborhood. Although you are comparing the similarity of your computerized checkout procedure for your carryout service with the likes of DoorDash, my point is that you or your computer asking me for a tip in the carryout context is substantively inappropriate. If other restaurants do the same thing, give me a minute so I can to go to those establishments and also give them a 1 star. Tipping culture is out of control. Enough is enough. Anyway, on my carryout receipt, there is a tip amount for $5.80. Obviously, your computer asked for that amount because I certainly didn't make that number up. The only reason why I acquiesced and paid the 20% tip was because the person who collected payment partially waited on our table during our previous dine-in visit and was very kind. Btw, did you even give her the $5.80? Please do.]

I like this restaurant, but I give an automatic 1 star for being asked to tip on a...

I love the food, the service unfortunately was so bad. The server turned on the gas without placing the grill plate which after 20 mins it became a joke that its for keeping hands warm. When finally the food arrived, the grill plate was placed so more waiting. We were missing the lettuce to do wraos, we checked the other table, they got none as well.. we thought we better ask anyway. Server said they do have them and will bring it out. We had to ask 2 more times to the point we sounded like almost begging. She finally brought them when we had finished cooking ALL the meat. As expected, we had eaten the other food we order and had the meat leftover. We asked for the check and a box, the bill came, no box. Took our card, came back no box, we asked again.. nothing. Finally a young man who probably wanted to clear our table asked if we were waiting for a box, and profusely apologized, ran and got one. On the way out, our server was chatting and laughing with the other ladies. I will go back since we love the food but hopefully not to the same level of service

Update: went yesterday as a visiting friend wanted KBBQ, 1 thing is for certain they do not make right anything that is wrong. Ordered mul nangmyeon and the noodles came out a big glob balled up, cant break them apart, we got noodle chunks. I pointed it out to the server and all we got was "im so sorry" and she walked away. We didnt eat it and server had the nerve to ask if we want it packed to go. Will probably tell friends to pick some other cuisine rather than take another chance...