Blue Sushi Sake Grill — Restaurant in Westlake

Just got home from a disappointing birthday dinner for my hubby. We go every year (and often in-between), the sushi is always Great! Atmosphere, amazing... but our service...it was good enough until it wasn't. Party of 3...3 apps, 2 of us ordering drinks, 10 rolls plus sashimi.. thats a good table, right? We would of been a full check with dessert. So why did we finish 1 roll and had the check presented to us? First off, i made the reservations like always and advised it was my hubbys bday..(yes, we were 6 minutes late, but..)..he received no greeting as they usually do, no questions if we were celebrating anything when our server greeted us (as she did for the other 2 tables that were sat while we were there). We wanted to celebrate with dessert but she already printed our check & overheard me so she just placed the dessert menu on top of the check on our table. My hubby asked for a beer prior to her printing the check, it was never brought and he piped up again (as he still had 3 rolls to eat!) & i asked some dessert questions. She went over, rang in the beer, reprinted the check and gave it back to us.(we were right next to the server station) ..but again, STILL EATING & what about dessert? We arent asking for anything free, we were going to order 3 as we usually do. So im done at this point. Hubby was upset. I had to ask her why we are getting rushed out as it hasnt even been an hour..she said "thats the way [she] does it", i confirmed meaning she presents the check while guests have taken 3 bites of their entree? And she said yes thats the way she does it. Ok. My hubbs & i have worked in restaurants for 24 years, culinary degrees both....im not gonna totally screw her on her tip or snitch to the Mgr she offered after saying thats the way she does it(which was off putting as i literally told her i just had a question and was NOT being rude and never changed my tone negative) ..but Gurl! That was an easy $80 tip from us that went to $35 (bill was like $245 & No, you didnt know that but why would you?) And the worst part....you were so cheerful and happy telling your other table happy bday when we got there but had a whole other mood when you came to our table. (And That table you asked if there was anything else you could get them and then said let me go grab your check...hmmmm🤔) We should of known as soon as you walked away from me while i was trying to pick & order my Sake and huffed when our daughter requested another moment to look at the menu. Its a shame we couldnt even relax for a bday dinner..i mean...its a Monday 😔 ...but the chefs did do...

Came here Thursday evening (6/26) and my wife forgot her purse, we tried to call as soon as we noticed while on the way home, about 20 minutes after they closed and they seem to cut their phones off immediately at 10PM and say to call back during business hours. Went back in to ask about it and the first question I got from the guy at the hostess stand was "what was in it"?". A set of our house keys and a crochet project if you must know, among other things that aren't your business, but interesting first question! Glad to know that the first thing you do when deciding whether to hang onto a customer's fogotten purse is rifle through it for valuables. He "looked" in a drawer (that is to say opened it and then shrugged without looking) at the hostess stand and said we must not have it. I asked if there was anywhere in the back maybe that you might keep lost items, and he went back into the kitchen and talked to somebody for about ten seconds, I could see him over the partition in the bar. My wife called later hoping to speak with someone who might actually look and apparently he was still there and yelled that "we don't have your bag" into the phone, apparently interrupting someone else who was actually being quite helpful and making a good faith effort. We had it when we went in, we forgot it there, and noticed on the way home, we didn't go anywhere else, it wasn't rocket science to figure out where we left it. It was probably thrown away (doubt it was stolen but you never know with weird defensive communication like that), and it'd be nice to just know if that's what you like to do with your lost and found at the end of the night. Dive bars regularly do a much better job at this, it happens fairly often.

This was a place we really enjoyed and frequented, recommended it to friends, they have a handful of decent vegan options, and we always had a good experience with everyone else we interacted with there, it's a real bummer to have such a terrible experience like this because I feel like we can never go back or recommend anyone else go there ever again. "We don't really keep bags", dude, what? Is that really a company policy, because that's an exact quote from this...

I think this place just opened, so it's understandable why the service was a little slow. We went on a Sunday around 6:30. We didn't wait long to be seated, around 15min, but they sat us at a "communal table". It is one long bar table where the chairs are so close they touch and you have to pull them out completely and do an awkward shimmy to get back close to the table, where you are then elbow to elbow with other people. I am ok with shared tables, but I am thin and felt smooshed next to the people adjacent to me. If you were to reach for the pocket of your coat on your chair back, you would elbow your neighbor in the ear. There was hardly room for a water glass and a wine glass.

We ordered wine off the happy hour menu ($4). It tasted fine but took about 20min to come out. We ordered food before our drinks eventually came. We got 2 sashimi and 2 sushi rolls to share. Each dish came out separately on it's own plate about 15min apart from the last plate. So be prepared to spend some time here. There is hardly any table room on the communal table, so it was not easy to have more than 2 plates on the table anyways. We guessed they bring everything out separately because it wouldn't fit on the table otherwise. Our last dish came out 20min after the previous dish, we think they forgot it. They comped it, which was nice because we didn't ask or complain. The bill only came to $45 for happy hour for the remaining dishes and 4 glasses of wine, which was surprisingly cheap for a sushi place.

As for taste, the sashimi was good. A variety of tastes and textured ingredients added atop the fish. There were 5 pieces per order, but very thinly sliced. The sushi rolls were a bit bland. We got the Lion King and the Hawaiian. The service was good, our server was nice. We realized the slow service with the plates and wine coming out wasn't her fault. I would go again for the happy hour, maybe in a few months with hope some of the logistics get ironed out. The ambiance was aesthetically pleasing (other than being uncomfortably close to strangers and hearing everything they...