Sakura, Columbus OH

It was okay.the chef was really awesome! He did some pretty cook trucks, and the staff was very friendly. However, it was extra per person for FRIED rice with the hibachi, and my husband and daughter got noodles with their meal. They were very thin noodles that just didn't taste good at all! They do have yum yum sauce, but it tastes very off. Definitely not the same and I've always had at other hibachi places. They also do NOT serve any sushi.

The rice, veggies, and shrimp however were delicious. Along with the soup! I would definitely recommend this place, just don't get the noodles!

The food was great the server were great everything was marvelous I will be going back and telling other people about the the restaurant. Thank to my family.

Honestly I wouldn't even give this one star this place was horrible I'm from Toledo our Sakuras is on point full of flavor great entertainment and free Saki the chef seemed tired and lazy the grill was not clean when we arrived the food had no flavor they barely gave me any vegetables the sauce on the salad taste like garbage and the soup like the bottom of a turtle tank we were over charged for drinks I had to have the waiter redue my bill I will never eat at this place again waste of $120

The chef was awesome. He bounced an egg on his spatula like it was a ping-pong ball without breaking it. The soup was really good, the chef was fun, and I'm Definitely coming back sometime.

The place is clean and well decorated. I think a week night may not give the best showing of how good they might be, but what I saw for a Monday night did not impress me. The food was good enough, but nothing spectacular, and was well prepared, but not with the kind of energy people come to expect from these places. I think it would be different on a weekend, but Monday didn't feel super welcoming and happy to see us.

The service was bad. There was no communication. The cook was barely even trying to entertain. I don't think he smiled the whole time. The food had barely any flavor. There were 3 couples sitting there and they automatically gave this guy a tip on our check. He didnt even deserve half of what they gave him. He got a $30+tip from our table. No wonder he doesn't try. Maybe if he actually had to work for it. I would never go back to this place. Ever. The Heath location is way better. Definitely a disappointment after our 1 1/2 hour drive.

Our party of 12 family members went to celebrate a birthday and had an enjoyable eating experience and found pout chef entertaining. Howevet, one member of our party had requested special food restrictions including no butter. The chef separated the food during prep but on the same grill and using the same utensils which meant that he could not eat the goods prepared for him.

My family loves going here. This is my son's favorite place to eat. If he does a great job in school or sports we reward him with a trip to Sakura. We generally try to go around lunch time when the prices are much cheaper. The food and service has always been good. It's worth checking out.

Had dinner with my daughter and her boyfriend. We are all wearing t-shirts and shorts. Clearly a party of 3 our bill said a party of 4 which kicks in the automatic gratuity. When asked why they made us a party of 4 I was told it does not matter the party size for the gratuity. At the bottom of the menu it states parties of 4 or more a 15% gratuity will be added. I would have tipped 20% like I always do if we had been billed right. Don’t judge a book by its cover.

The service was awesome but the place looked old and dirty and could use a good house cleaning. The food was so so I've had hibachi at a many different places and this was only on par with normalcy

1st time here and I enjoyed it. Although when asked “can I get you anything else? ” We did ask for more sauce and the hostile, stingy attitude was a bit unnecessary. Way better than GENJIS though

Worst meal i ever had. Restaurant is filthy. Floors, Menus, seats and table were sticky.
Meat chicken and shrimp were defrosted.

The food was good but nothing amazing. My shoes stuck to the floor, the building was not well kept at all, my toilet wouldn’t flush when I went to flush. I would not come here again. The only perk was on a Sunday we didn’t wait for a table, and wouldn’t need to wait with a large group without reservations.

I visited Sakura on 6/23 for lunch. After taking the majority of my food to go, I found what appears to be a worm in my food. When I contacted the restaurant via phone employees were in the background discussing that they didn't know how to handle the situation. I went back up to the restaurant to show them in person and they never apologized or took ownership, instead they tried to say it was a burnt bean sprout and then a burnt yakisoba noodle, However the picture below has ripples and the texture of a worm. They asked me to write a statement and sent me on my way with the worm. This experience was the worst and to add to it. We sat at the bar for an hour and no one asked us for a drink order. WILL NEVER DINE THERE AGAIN

This is a hit or miss establishment. I have visited this place twice in the past few days. What a difference a day makes. On 5/19/2018 it was me and my adult daughter. On 5/20/2018 we both went again with her mother.

Here are the fails from my second visit there (only a day later).

Fail #1: Broth soup DID NOT contain fine noodles that were there the day before. They blamed it on the chef.

Fail #2: Ordered Sukura Special which is suppose to inlcude a rice wine. Halfway through the meal we realized we didn't get it (It's the first thing you get!).

Fail #3: End of meal was suppose to include ice cream. We had to remind them of that too! We passed out of complete disappointment

There are common themes in the bad reviews. Here is where I had similar experiences.

Fail #4: Sticky floors. It depends on where they seat you and the areas you have to walk through. On second visit we were lead to the back on a pathway NOT carpeted. It was audiably sticky with every step. Yuck!

Fail #5: Salty Food. It depends on the cook. My food yesterday was perfect, but today I was served by the chef in the SOLID BLUE HAT. He is heavy handed on the Soy. Ruined my filet mingon with too much soy. Chicken was cooked to an unpleasent toughness. Hours later I feel the salt eating into my stomach walls. Beware the cook with the SOLID BLUE HAT.

Fail #6: Cold Steamed Rice. This had more to do with another couple at our table. Steamed rice was brought to them before the chef arrived. It sat there cooling for about 15-20 minutes before the cook started cooking. Sad cold rice. My X-wife spoke to the couple about this after our adventure.

Fail #7: Gratuity. It says in the menu that they automatically charge 15% gratuity for parties of four or more. That's a lie. Two people yesterday 15% gratuity. Three people today 15% gratuity. Spoke to the manager about this and it's just the way it is and they have not updated the menu.

Lastly, yes it was awful on day two. I spoke to the manager she listened but could do NOTHING to satisfy us except to remove the 15% gratuity from our check. I even said I was going to review the place online.but she didn't care. Also, I would not describe her has apologetic. She was rather indifferent.

I'd give this review one star except, I did have a good experience there that caused me to return a day later. However, it was luck on the draw. The place is inconsistent and if you have a problem, don't expect resolution. Oh, and did I mention the bar was not manned! Sad.

Nice Stirfry Hibachi food. Price is $$ to $$$. Cooked at your table. They have sushi at times, but I'm not a fan.

We have been going to hibachi restaurants for years and have gone to Sakura many times. The last couple of times it has really gone down hill. This past weekend my family and I went for my son’s birthday. I unfortunately do not have enough time in the day to list the complaints. It was so bad that I will never walk into that place AGAIN. RUDE RUDE RUDE. The food was just okay. The hostess, Anita was probably the rudest hostess that has ever greeted me. (I worked in the restaurant industry for years so my standards are pretty low because I understand everyone has bad days.) The chef came out, did not say hi, did not talk AT ALL.
He had already started serving food without passing out the sauces. I asked for the sauce to go with my shrimp and he told me to wait. Wait for what? Our food to be cold? Then he handed everyone one of the sauces a few minutes later and I asked for the other sauce. He looked at me and said, wait a minute. Kept cooking and handed me the sauce. I had to ask for him to give everyone else the same thing. The rudeness continued throughout the meal. The girl that was refilling water was listening to headphones. My mother tried to ask her for another drink and she never even looked at her, because she was listening to headphones! By the end of the meal, the only thing that the 6 of us and the other couple at our table were talking about was how bad the experience was. It was such a shame as it was a special occasion and we were looking forward to having fun and a great meal. When Anita came up to ask us how we wanted to split our checks. I expressed my disappointment in the evening. I am well aware that it is better to know when a customer is unhappy so that you have a chance to make things better. Then you don’t have someone posting negative reviews and telling everyone they know about their horrible experience. After telling her a few of the reasons we were all unhappy, she looked at me and said, oh sorry, how do you want your checks split? That was her idea of making a customer happy. So between the 6 of us, we spent almost 200$. After my family went to the car, I found her at the hostess stand and asked if the manager was there, she told me no. I asked for the manager’s card and to write her name down. She grabbed a card, wrote down a name and literally ROLLED her eyes at me when she handed it to me. Writing this review is literally making me boil again so I will stop with that much information. For a restaurant that wasn’t even at 50% capacity on a Saturday at 6: 30 and has a lot of completion, good luck staying in business with staff like that. Good riddance, maybe someone that knows how to run a restaurant will buy it when they go down.

Why did I give this a one star? Because of the service and attitudes of the place. We went at 6: 45pm on a Friday night, memorial day weekend.

First, we waited to be seated. NO ONE was there. A guy kept coming out to fold napkins and saw us on 3 separate occasions, but did not tell anyone we were waiting to be seated. He was more interested in his smartphone and "pretending" he was working. Another server was also playing on his smartphone near this guy. At that point, I was going to leave but my husband said: "give them another minute". Finally, a lady came out of the kitchen area to seat us.
STRIKE ONE! TIME to SEAT: 7 minutes with NO ONE waiting and only ONE table in the whole restaurant occupied, the staff saw us but didn't care to notify anyone we needed to be seated.

Second, we saw the bar area. We were going to sit at the bar and have a drink & maybe eat there, but NO ONE was there! It was a poor excuse for a bar, only a few bottles visible and it looked like it doubled as a storage area. When we were eating, we saw the same woman that seated us go back and forth from the bar to the dining area to make and deliver drinks.

Third, after being seated, no one explained hibachi experience, how many people needed to be set at a table in order to get the food started etc. Everyone was pretty much silent and didn't offer any information or enthusiasm. We just kinda waited until finally the food got started.

Fourth, the menu said they had sushi. Even though it was all "cooked" sushi, we were going to order one roll, but they said, "sorry, we don't have any sushi". So a whole page on the menu was not applicable to the restaurant. Ok then, next!

We got the "Feast for Two" which included chicken, steak, and lobster, rice (fried rice was extra) bean sprouts, veggies, shrimp appetizer, soup, and salad (and a drink and a ice cream that was never given or offered to us). The hibachi chef was fairly entertaining and good. The food was average but still ok. Our server was just average, nothing impressive, just doing a job and we could tell he wanted to get back to his phone. We did not get the drink OR the dessert as advertised to go with the meal.

Fifth, they added a 15% gratuity to the bill automatically. They state this on the menu that they will do this. They must have a LOT of lousy tippers and want the chefs compensated. Unfortunately, the tip came out to be ONLY around $11.25 with this. NOW.we would have tipped a $15 or a $20 automatically, but since the tip was already included ON the bill, we just left the tip as to how it was. Now we could have given more, but the poor service of the staff and the restaurant half looking like no one cared led to us not leaving anything extra.

Overall, the restaurant looked like it could have been something pretty cool. But the floors were horrible and it just looked like no one really cared about maintaining the place and it looked to be falling into neglect and disrepair. This, along with the poor customer service and the attitudes of everyone there acting like the customers were an annoyance or a chore, led to my poor review. We found it interesting that others who came in were looking for staff to seat them as well.

Recommendation:
1) Clean up the place!
2) Don't use customer viewable areas as storage.
3) Have staff that is eager to get a customer.
4) Keep the staff OFF of their smartphones in front of customers.
5) Get a bell or buzzer for seating if no one can be present so no one needs to wait.
6) If you are going to have a bar, stock it and make it look inviting.
7) If you are not going to have a bar that is truly a bar, then cover it up and use it as storage or drink prep area.
8) Look like the business really WANTS business!
9) Modify the menu to have what you actually offer.
10) If you advertise getting a drink and dessert with a special meal, then GIVE IT TO THEM!

Great service and great food. It is one of few Japanese steakhouses that don't serve onion dressing.

The food was just ok. Flavorless. Expensive for small portions and tasteless cuisine. The restaurant was dirty. Tables not in use were used as storage- say what? Bathrooms disgusting! Whatever happened to cleanliness is next to Godliness?