NARA Sushi & Hibachi Steakhouse — Restaurant in West Bloomfield Township

I had a nightmare level experience at Nara a few days ago. I took a few days to ponder how I would share this disappointing experience. It was so bad that I didn't know where to start. The ONLY good thing about my visit was that I got to celebrate my brother's birthday. My experience was so bad that they could offer me a complimentary meal every week for the rest of the year and I still would never return to this restaurant!

My first issue was the parking. I pulled into the lot and saw an empty parking space right in front of the restaurant, so I parked there. As I prepared to exit the car, a valet approached me to notify me that I couldn't park there. I asked why and he said that the owner instructed him not to allow anyone to park in front of the restaurant. I asked him how I would know not to park in front of the restaurant if the parking space was free and clear. I am talking no sign and no traffic cones blocking the parking space, it was absolutely free and clear. I was told that they had not finished setting up valet, so the parking spaces had not been blocked off yet prior to my arrival. At this point, I thought someone had to be pranking me for a new hidden camera show. This was too ridiculous to be real, but it was indeed real. To make a long story short, I ended up being allowed to keep my car parked in the front only after I went in the restaurant and asked for a manager. The manager went outside with me and after discussing the matter for several minutes, the valet agreed to let me park there, but he informed me that next time I would not be allowed to park there.

The nightmare visit continued inside when half of our party of 20 got seated about 10 minutes after our reservation time, but the other half had to wait an additional 75 minutes! Yes, I said one hour and fifteen minutes.

Oh wait, did I mention the party of 21 that came an hour after us? Imagine our disgust when their entire party of 21 got seated while we were still waiting to be seated.

Once we were all a few minutes away from passing out from hunger, we finally got a table. The rest of our party was finished eating by the time that we got seated. I wish that I was exaggerating. They literally were boxing up their leftovers!

Next it was time for us to order. I am gluten sensitive, so my food had to be cooked in the kitchen. My meal was unbelievably salty. Seriously, once again I am not exaggerating. I had to have someone else taste it to confirm that it wasn't just my taste buds, it wasn't, my sister thought it was salty too. Not just salty, it was super salty. I'm talking a high blood pressure activating level of salty. I returned my food and opted not to have it remade.

Once our party finished eating, I left Nara and promptly drove down the street to J. Alexander's for dinner. It's never a good thing when you have to leave a restaurant to go to a different restaurant to get food that is edible.

If I could give my experience at Nara zero stars, I...

On the last Saturday of March, management and some staff engaged in what I believe to have been racial profiling, retaliatory behavior, and discrimination against me. They displayed poor customer service and informed me that I could not dine at the hibachi grill as a party of one, despite having a reservation. Before I requested to speak with management, a disgruntled female lead hostess argued with me about a policy that discriminates against solo diners, without offering any alternatives for over eight minutes. This rude employee told me that I would not be able to dine at Nara at all.

When management intervened, they reiterated that there was a policy preventing solo diners from experiencing teppanyaki and stated that there was nothing they could do to accommodate me. The manager told me that had I called before my reservation, I would have been made aware of this policy. However, I had indeed called twice: once to push my reservation back from 8 PM to 9 PM, and a second time when the operator mistakenly scheduled my reservation for 8:30 PM. I had traveled nearly 40 minutes and over 20 miles to enjoy a nice dinner, and I was never informed of this policy until I arrived. Nowhere on OpenTable, Nara’s website, or by signage within the restaurant is this policy mentioned at the time of my reservation on March 29th.

After expressing my frustrations to the manager, he offered to let me sit at the bar (which was dimly lit, crowded, with patrons smoking, and a loud DJ) or at a booth. I was not interested in either option due to the amount of money I intended to spend on my meal, including hibachi entertainment. I was determined to dine at the hibachi grill.

Fortunately, I met a wonderful group of women who intervened while I was being mistreated and invited me to join their party after one of their guests didn’t show up. Unfortunately for Nara, they have earned a zero-star review from me. I would provide more detail about my experience, but the character limit is too restrictive.

If you are a person of color, proceed with caution when entering this establishment. They have a history of discriminating against women and men of color, particularly African Americans. Just read through their reviews. Nara management, if you're reading this, do better. I encourage you to work towards creating and enforcing policies that do not discriminate against anyone.

As the saying goes, “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose...

You know I love to give my honest feedback when I visit a restaurant!

So we had a dinner party at NARA Hibachi & Sushi Lounge in West Bloomfield tonight at 6:30pm. We had a party of 8 women.

Now let me be frank, 3 of us were late so they couldn't seat us until we all arrived. They have a no show cancellation policy which states it's a $25.00 charge per person that doesn't show in your reservations. But understand this, we all showed. So we waited a while because they stated they had to sit all their 7pm reservations before they could "see what they do" so we waited and waited and waited. We finally approached the desk again and asked how long. She said she cancelled our reservation and there will be a $25 per person charge. We explained we are all here and waiting to be seated. So they finally decided to seat us. They said they can only seat 5 of us at the grille area and the other 3 have to sit in a booth. Mind you there are 3 free seats next to us the entire time. I asked 3 people if our 3 friends could join us. The server said of course they can sit here, I'll be back to get them. He came back and said management said no and apologized. Then the chef was extremely nice his name was VEGAS MIKE, he was super friendly and served us great food. He said he doesn't understand why our friends are not over there with us and he proceeded to flag our friends down to sit there but they already received their food and didn't want to transport it across the restaurant. The manager was walking around and checked on the couple next to us(opposite color of us) several times to see how their services were so I finally asked him to come here. I asked him to explain why my friends couldn't sit with us and these seats were empty. He said, "well hibachi restaurants are different, we cant overcrowd the space" I asked him how it is overcrowding when those are our friends. He said that's just how it works. I said well why are those chairs there? He said they use those chairs in other areas if they are needed! I said well if we were on time for our reservations, then we would y'all have seated all 8 of us? He just did a blank stare then asked, "is there something else I can help you with?" So this is the outcome of our treatment. By no means do I blame the chef because again Vegas Mike was exceptional but the management here SUCKED and I will not patronize this establishment again. I would have walked out if they didn't have my friend's card on file to charge her...