Shakou Restaurants — Restaurant in Wheeling Township

My family came for a later dinner around 8pm, even though half of the restaurant was empty our waitress emphasized to us that the kitchen was "behind". I thought that was rather unprofessional because if it takes awhile than it does. I will wait for good food. Our waitress just seemed rather new or inexperienced since she had a hard time answering questions about the menu offerings. The menu is also on your phone and was incredibly difficult to navigate. We ended up ordering a shrimp salad, and both regular and special maki rolls. The special maki roll was good but the regular maki rolls were very poorly made. The way the rice looked made it like seem that the rolls were made with some kind of press rather than the traditional way. There was a thicker layer of rice to the raw fish and the rice was so chewy and sticky so it was hard to eat such a large singular piece. All of the maki rolls were stuffed together on a plate where it was nearly falling off the sides- for the cost per 6 piece roll, you'd think presentation was just as important as they do for the special maki rolls. The worst part of this place has to be the loudness of the music. In a 4 top table i could not hear anyone across from me. Our waitress also could barely hear us. Even though i enjoy club/house music i would prefer it quieter to what it was. The vibe of this place made it like the kind of place you go to for cocktails and maybe one or two special maki rolls not if you're actually hungry for a bigger meal especially for how expensive drinks...

Went here for our Valentine's day date. We had booked our reservation out 3 weeks in advance. When we arrived on time we were seated a few minutes after and were told by the hostess that our time at our table was limited to 1 hour and 15 minutes due to max reservation bookings that night.

The waitress was friendly, knowledgeable and nice but very busy with all of the tables in her section so it felt like we waited a while for drinks and to put in our order. We also had to wait for food to come out which worried me because we had already been sitting for about 40 min before entrees came out. When the food arrived it was fresh delicious and we loved every dish.

The music was a loud and fun EDM playlist over the speakers which helped set the mood for the entire restaurant. But the tables surrounding us were filled with families and their younger children who were screaming and running around and at one point throwing their food at the ground and neighboring tables. Then the families were getting up and mingling with each other around us. Overall, it made our experience sort of uncomfortable for us as we just wanted to go out for a quiet date night but felt like where we were seated did not allow us to fully enjoy our experience at...

Do you like decent sushi served in an environment with rude and unprofessional staff? Shakou is the place for you!

We have been here twice and both times have been greeted by a rude hostess, wait staff that are not only slow but rude AND unaccommodating, a rare trifecta in the world of food service. I could see it happening once, though it shouldn’t, but everyone can have an off day. Twice though? That’s a pattern.

In a world where everyone has been impacted by covid and we see reminders how we need to “take care of each other”, the staff at Shakou Arlington Heights must not have gotten the memo. But hey! Don’t forget to tip well because we’re all in it together right?

The food is good, but the staff is terrible and fortunately there are plenty of sushi places in the area that care about both food an experience.

Does Shakou deserve to be shut down? No, but there needs to be a major rework of staff policies.

Many of us are more careful about how money is spent, especially when it comes to dining out. Shakou’s approach seems to be “good food in a terrible atmosphere”. To borrow a line from a movie a few years back, “it’s a bold strategy Cotton, let’s see how it pays...