Volcano Steak and Sushi — Restaurant in Woodstock

February 25th,

Went there with my girlfriend and right away it was pretty unpleasant. All the workers were huddled over the host stand and I felt like I wasnt welcome. It was an inconvenience for me being there. We then got sat at the Habatchi table and saw that every entree gets served with a few shrimp. No problem, just that me and my girlfriend are both allergic. We could sit by someone eating shrimp, even have it made right in front of us, just not actually eat it. So I informed the waiter about it, “Can I get it without shrimp or maybe something else besides the shrimp?” “Shrimp comes with everything” she said,

I replied with, can we just not get it then, dont even need to substitute, just dont put it on our plate.

And before I continue, I understand cross contamination and they are trying to be safe. But there was ZERO effort to help not make us feel like outcasts.

How about cooking the shrimp first? And then cleaning the grill before the rest of the food. Cooking it last would also work? Make some effort please.

She said that they can cook our meals in the back of the kitchen and then bring it out for us.....which I’m thinking whats the point of Hibatchi then ya know? So she informs us that we will have to move and sit away from the Hibatchi tables, the server says that and then walks away. Didn’t show us where to sit, just that we couldnt sit there anymore. Then another guy comes over from the pile of employees that were all cuddled around the host stand and says here you go, and sits us at a table. A few minutes later a new server comes over and asks what we want, he was pleasant and nice, clearly had no idea of the previous drama that just unfolded. Overall he was good, just good. Nothing special but he wasnt rude and didnt make it worse.

The manager, now she made it worse. Her coming over to “apologize” all though a sweet thought was not sincere, and really, she shouldn’t have to apologize for our allergies, were not sorry for then and neaither should they. I would recommend doing something with compassion or just not doing it at all. Zero attempt to make us feel welcomed. She was also a big part in why I think all the employees were just sitting around the host stand. Yes it was around 530 so the dinner rush didnt hit yet, but come on, I dont wanna hear about work drama and how you cant wait to get off work and how tired you are. Do that in the back like all the other restaurants, not in front of the guests.

Be informed, before coming to talk to a customer know what your walking into, she claimed we had a gluten allergy along with our “shellfish” (communicated that it was only shrimp but understandable). Seek to understand and listen to the guests. I know that the employees are being shown that its okay to act that way by the way the manager conducted herself tonight.

No we wont be back, and yes this is an pretty harsh review of a place that is clearly successful and I hope it stays that way. But when you leave a place feeling like how we did, this is warranted. I felt like I was the biggest inconvenience for them.

End on a good note,

Thank you to Jensen for...

Came here to order hibachi and a sushi roll. Hibachi was a good experience. Our chef was funny and conversational. Our waitress was awful. Mean and dry and cold. This was amplified when we got a bad sushi roll. The first bite of sushi tasted wrong. As we all know eating bad sushi can be the worst and can make you sick. So we didn’t eat the rest and gave it back saying it tasted bad. Scared to order more sushi we said we would just take the hibachi instead. She got really mad at us and said there were no refunds. I didn’t spent a lot of energy on it cus it was date night. We share the hibachi and when we went to pay the sushi roll still on there. I asked her to take it off and she said should could not because we took a bite already. In the nicest way possible i reminded her that the only way I could know it tasted bad was to take a bite. She stormed away to her manager. Her manager gave me the same story but said she would make an exception for us. Normally they don’t do refunds and that the sushi can’t be bad because they just made it.

Not wanting to provoke the situation any further I accepted the refund disengaged. She didn’t want to hear my perspective.

I paid the bill and left a 10% tip due to rude service. I was going to leave a 1 star review but I did get a refund and they did make it right albeit with guilt tripping.

Side note the...

We went for my son’s high school graduation. We were so excited. There were 7 of us. We were all there on time. We didn’t get seated until 7:30. However, there was a guy yelling and having tantrum about how he wasn’t seated at his 7pm reservation so he was seated just before us. I didn’t wanna make a scene because it looked to me like you guys were very shorthanded so I was being very patient. I guess next time I need to make a scene. Then our server took forever to come see us. Once we got our little soup in our salad in our first rounded drinks, we never ever ever saw him again. Everybody in our group wanted refills and we did not get them because he never came back. Then our chef kept putting steak on the grill where he had fish and I don’t eat fish. Then on top of that, he was very heavy-handed with the salt and pepper and it was so salty that some of us didn’t want to eat it but we were so hungry we ate it, I couldn’t eat my steak because the fish taste and all the extra salt we have been there several several several times and it was never this bad and nothing was done for making us wait over an hour for our reservation and the poor Service came back. He spent a lot more time at other tables than ours , just wanted to let you know that the graduation dinner was not fun and that’s the only place he wanted to go was...