Trapper’s Sushi — Restaurant in Washington

I did not enjoy my experience at all and was unlike any visit I've had at Trapper's (Bonney Lake). I never go to the Puyallup location because of my first and last visit that was over a year ago where the manager asked me to e-mail him a photo of my food and he never took the time to answer me back. Since they have a new location now, I thought things would be a bit different. The server I had (I forgot her name) constantly checked up on us and I appreciated her for it, but Darren seemed to avoid talking to our party altogether. He kept asking what rolls we ordered and mixed them up between each person, and he was only chatting with his coworker silently and avoiding eye contact with us. Typically, I would appreciate an interaction with minimal conversation since I'm always trying to watch shows on my phone while snacking, but the food was absolutely terrible from the appetizers to the actual rolls. I had spent $136 that day and I completely regret it. My sushi rice felt hard, but it was the actual contents of the roll inside that made me utterly disappointed. I kept reading the description of my rolls (Mt. Rainier and Trump) and I wish I had taken a photo because my rolls ONLY had some sort of shrimp tempura in it. I was so confused why he did this but honestly I was too afraid to ask. My Trump roll had that tempura plus cream cheese inside ONLY, and the Mt. Rainier roll only had that hard shrimp tempura in it. I would not recommend this location to anyone. It didn't taste like good quality sushi at all and I'm not sure if it was because of an underexperienced chef or if Trapper's is trying to cut costs on giving out fish inside of their rolls. My rolls looked good and correct until I took a bite. I forced myself to eat those two rolls, but honestly $136 is SUPER overpriced for my AYCE experience. I wouldn't be surprised if this review gets ignored or they put their business e-mail only. I would like a solution to this problem because it's absolutely ridiculous that I have to travel all the way to Bonney Lake to have tasty sushi.

EDIT: Trapper’s Puyallup earned its redemption. My experience last night was great! We had RJ and Emery (sp?) but our party loved RJ. He was communicative and friendly. I was especially impressed with his response when we asked him to sear our sushi roll again (one of our party members does not like consuming raw fish) and his willingness to make things right as well as offer to remake the roll if things didn’t taste good. Not only that, one of the chefs (didn’t catch a name—he had a bright pink shirt on last night) was attentive that we brought in our baby in a car seat and he asked one of the servers to bring a sling in so our baby could sit securely. He made us feel right at home from the start and I appreciated that. I’m glad I gave Trapper’s another chance tonight. ❤️

Also, I came back for the same rolls that I ordered from my last visit, Trump and Mt. Rainier, and the Trump roll was soooo good. I feel like my experience would have been even better if the slices of tuna and salmon on the Mt. Rainier roll were bigger. I felt like it was just a small square on top of the roll and did not look impressive enough to...

I think Trapper’s has the potential to be a fantastic experience, but they’re missing some aspects of service and (most importantly) quality control that leads to a less than optimal experience. Having said that, I don’t think it would take much to elevate the experience into something fantastic — they just need to make some changes.

Let’s start with service. My server showed up immediately to take my appetizer order, and then disappeared and I didn’t see for again for a 1/2 hour. The place was busy, but there were plenty of servers for the guest count. With the ability to see into the kitchen, I was able to see several servers (including my own) talking and chatting in the back instead of serving customers.

As for the food, this is where a) the disappointment came, and b) the opportunity for improvement is greatest. I make sushi at home all the time, and with careful food storage and attention to detail, anyone can make exception sushi. Not at Trapper’s though.

First off, the sushi chefs have clearly been told to “grab a handful of rice.” If you have a 5’3’ woman making your sushi, that works great. When they guy cooking for you is 6’2” and has the hands of a giant, you get more rice than fish, to the point that it’s hard to get in your mouth. One of my rolls was over three inches across with only about 3/4” of seafood in the middle. The rest was rice.

Second (and I believe this is an attempt to move rolls off the bar quickly) the fish isn’t adequately chillled, and while the fish wasn’t BAD, it wasn’t fresh either. It was pretty obvious that it wasn’t “fresh off the boat” and had been sitting on the counter a bit longer than it should have. It had lost that sweet & crisp flavor that fresh seafood has, and was lukewarm, bland and a bit on its way to “off.”

The tempura shrimp appetizer I ordered was clearly pre-made outside of the store and was soggy within seconds of hitting my table. The hot rolls coming out of the kitchen were lined up on trays and just sat for minutes on end cooling off before ever making it to customers.

A bit of care in proper portioning of ingredients, keeping seafood cold and fresh, paying attention to your customers instead of your coworkers, and you have the makings of a fantastic experience. All things that are easy to fix, but unfortunately were not what I was able to enjoy...

Trapper's actively solicits customer feedback within the wording of its emails to rewards club members. So...

I'm not sure what pre-pandemic experiences other reviewers had that made them say wait staff quality has gone down.  In my experience, the wait staff at this location has always had the most lacking customer experience of any sushi restaurant in the Puyallup area. It has stayed at the same consistent level as it was before the pandemic; absolutely nothing changed on that front. If anything, the pandemic has IMPROVED the customer experience here by forcing the removal of the wait staff from the customer experience.

Before the pandemic, I almost always was met with resistance from the entry host kiosk about my desire to sit at a table. Every single time I visited this location they would treat me as if wanting to sit down at a table for a meal in a restaurant was an unusual, extraordinary request. That happened even when there were visibly open tables and no line.  Instead of sitting me at an open table, the staff would immediately insist that I sit at the bar instead. Asking to sit at a table instead of the bar was met with enormous pushback. Once dutifully at the bar instead of a table, the staff would often overlook my entire existence. The sushi chefs and wait staff appeared cheerful and like they were friendly people, but they would literally ignore the entire existence of a customer seated in front of them.  Because of the lack of customer service at this location compared to all other sushi restaurants, before the pandemic I often found myself driving further miles specifically to avoid this particular restaurant, despite its incredibly yummy food. Thanks to the pandemic, now that it's become socially normal to order remotely and cut out the entire wait staff experience my frequency of ordering from this location has skyrocketed upward!  By having normalized to-go orders, customers no longer need to hunt down wait staff members just to get a drink and utensils much less to place a food order, and the staff here no longer needs to interact face-to-face with any customers! It's win-win!

The food quality is absolutely delicious and has a broad variety of options, just like at any other Trapper's location. The food is definitely deserving of 4 stars. The food quality has always been...