KPOT Korean BBQ & Hot Pot — Restaurant in Webster

We chose this restaurant to celebrate my 45th birthday, bringing along 9 adults and 4 kids. Upon arrival, we were immediately asked to make a decision: would we be dining with Kpot or BBQ? The entire table had to agree on one option. I wasn’t sure what the difference between the two was, and the hostess didn’t offer any explanation. This wasn’t mentioned during our reservation either.

Inside, the restaurant was quite smoky, and the decor, while modern, felt a bit lackluster. We were seated in a long booth with chairs on the opposite side, and once you’re inside, you’re essentially stuck there. Each table was meant for six people, but with 13 in our group, we had to make do with just two burners—setting the stage for what was to become a chaotic experience.

Each table was given a notebook where you could order your proteins and vegetables. Drinks, however, had to be ordered from the server. The selection of proteins was impressive, with a variety of beef, chicken, and seafood options, but the veggie choices were disappointing—corn and raw potatoes, for example, that never seemed to cook through.

When the food arrived, the concept was that we’d cook it ourselves, but for such a large group, it quickly became overwhelming. With everyone cooking on the same small burner, no one could agree on how or what to cook. It felt like a free-for-all, and it certainly wasn’t fun. There was no guidance from the server about which sauces to pair with the food or how long to cook certain items—everything was on us.

As we were nearing the end of our first round of food, we realized we had no silverware. We called our server over, who explained that we had to get our own silverware from the sauce bar. Keep in mind, half of our party was trapped on the interior side of the booth. This meant that only a few people could run back and forth to grab both silverware and sauces.

One of our burners wasn’t heating properly, and three of my guests later realized they had eaten some undercooked food. Unfortunately, the situation worsened when my 78-year-old mother, father-in-law, and mother-in-law all became sick after dining. They had been seated at the table with the malfunctioning burner.

Despite multiple requests for help, the server was slow to respond—or didn’t respond at all. The table became increasingly cluttered with used napkins, dirty plates, and discarded seafood carcasses. After asking several times if the mess could be cleared, the server instructed us to pile everything at the end of the table so he could pick it up. He only started cleaning up shortly before my birthday cake was brought out.

By that point, I didn’t even want to take photos because the table was so piled up and unsanitary. When my birthday cake was finally presented, we were still waiting for new plates and people were constantly running to the sauce bar. To top it all off, we were presented with an $800 bill and quickly told we needed to leave because our two-hour dining limit had been reached.

We had been so excited to try this place, but it was an incredibly disappointing experience. To make matters worse, the women’s restroom was in terrible condition—it smelled, there were no purse hooks on the door, and I had to lay my coat on the bathroom floor.

We won’t be returning to...

I went here last night around 10:30 p.m. I’m from New Orleans and my daughter wanted to come here for her sweet 16 birthday. It was our first time here. Upon arrival I approached the podium and the lady was on the phone initially. I had no idea what to do, she looked at me and didn’t even say one moment plz ma’am or anything, and didn’t acknowledge us, so we sat down. Literally, as SOON as we sat, the same lady said “may I help you?”. I was annoyed and I said “yes, this is our first time and idk what to do”. She said to follow her and she sat us. A guy, I believe his name was Steven, came and asked if we were doing hot pot or bbq and I informed him that I wasn’t eating, and that both my kids would be doing both. He asked how old my son is and I said 9 years old. He slimmed and rolled his eyes and tilted his head and says “come on now, is he REALLY 9? I’m going to give you the discount anyway but come on…”. I said “so, you think I don’t have enough money to pay for the food or something? Why would I lie about his age?”. He rolled his eyes again and said yeah ok. I was offended from the moment I stepped into this establishment. Maybe because I’m black, but does Steven , or any of the other employees, ask EVERYONE if the ages they give for their kids are REALLY their ages? This happened, and it happened in front of my kids. I’m offended and humiliated. I asked about a birthday song for my daughter, and Steven says “I think they give cheesecake or something, I’ll see about it “…. Didn’t even say like oh happy birthday. I ended up telling him I need to pay so we can leave. Steven then says “oh SOMEBODY is having a bad day huh? With a slight laugh. I’m offended. Beyond offended and so are my children! I paid and we left. Never will return and I hope they offer some sort of training so their employees won’t assume that black people shouldn’t be properly greeted when patronizing this establishment, and so the employees also won’t think that black people have to lie about the ages of their kids to get discounts! Because I would have been a bit less offended had my son been maybe extra large in size or something, but he’s literally an average sized 9 year old. Disgusting and I will never return.

Update edit: I spoke to the manager, Mrs. Ivy I believe her name was, and she offered to have my kids and I come back, and she really took care of us, not only provided us the full meal of both the hot pot and Korean bbq, she asked Mr. Steven to apologize to us and he did so with a group of his fellow employees and apologized to my whole family that was there and I thought his apology was sincere and heartfelt, and I truly appreciated the experience that day! Thank you to the Kpot managers and staff for rectifying the situation and making it totally right! We will definitely be back when we come back to Texas! I understand we’re human, and flawed, but they did a heck of a lot of making up for our initial experience, THANK YOU! Other businesses should take notes from kpot on how to make things right with customers! I changed my stars to...

The Webster branch is a newly opened branch for a while now. I've seen that the KPOT Buffet chain has several branches. It's a restaurant that combines individual Asian hot pots with a central Korean grill at each table. Let me start by saying that this review is from my own perspective as a Thai who is very accustomed to eating at this type of restaurant.

Starting with entering the restaurant, there might be a bit of chaos in queue management, despite having three staff members organizing the queue, they still seem new and not very smooth in their operations. I waited for about 20 minutes before getting a big table.

The restaurant allows you to order food with the staff or use a tablet on the table to place orders yourself. Ordering isn't difficult, as both the plastic-coated menu and the tablet display pictures of each item. The quality of the ingredients served is good, and the portion sizes are reasonable, allowing you to order a variety of dishes. There's a wide selection of broth flavors, all rich in taste.

The food station only has sauces, appetizers, and desserts to pick up, and I want to deduct points here because it's quite dirty. There are stains from sauces and desserts everywhere, making it unappealing. These stains could drip into the sauces, appetizers, or desserts next to them.

There are many staff members in the restaurant. Once, they served food to the wrong table. When I called them to point out the mistake, they acknowledged it and helped find the dishes I had ordered but had not yet received, showing a great effort to assist customers.

Throughout the meal, I felt okay with this restaurant. The smell inside wasn't too strong, indicating good odor management. There's also a cocktail bar area, which seems quite serious with a variety of alcoholic drinks available, but I haven't tried it yet. Personally, I don't quite see how it fits in, sitting and drinking cocktails while surrounded by the smells of grilling...