Last night i checked out the new Yo Sushi restaurant in Dublin. I love the Yo Sushi story, the entrepreneur behind and in general sushi – so i was looking forward to it and massively disappointed. In Ireland its run by the same group that run Abrekababra and alas, it has some of the flavourings of the 3.30am popular fast food joint.

It was a Total FAIL. We were pointed to our seats, nice ones in front of the sushi preparation area… that was it from our waitress. Seriously! not even offered a drink or Miso soup. At any one time there were less than 4 different types of food on the conveyor belt. Often the conveyor belt was almost completely empty and there wasn’t a free seat in the house. Realistically they could have done with double the staff.

The food preparation wasn’t what you’d expect from a sushi restaurant either. A machine made the rice squares which fell apart when the met with soya sauce. The only time we saw the food preparers with a knife was to open the cling film on the cooked prawn toppings. And if you wanted raw fish… the choices were slim.

The waitresses’ would complain to the sushi makers that customers wanted their orders / were annoyed there was no food on the conveyor belt and they would argue back that they would have to wait. Understandable but not what you want to see as a customer.

Granted its a new restaurant and hopefully they will get their act together, god knows Ireland needs a good sushi restaurant – I miss AYA in the early days when the chefs were really chefs.

The final nail in the coffin was us leaving, there were no deserts – which was the majority of plates when we started so we decided we’d go somewhere else for desert. I got near the front door and found a queue to pay – but no-one at the cash desk. The staff were busy seating new customers in our seats already but none were available to collect the money. One group who were walking out after 2 dishes just left cash under a stapler in frustration. Eventually a girl came over to the desk and apologized nicely, then went on to explain there would be no receipts as the till wasn’t working. I explained it was a work related trip and needed a receipt. Sorry was the reply. So i handed over the credit card, five minutes later i was told sorry our line isn’t working either. Again i explained that the very least i needed was a visa receipt. A blank smile. the customers in the queue who could pay cash jumped ahead and escaped the restaurant. “Sir, your just going to have to pay cash…”

Massive FAIL on the management part in YoSushi, Major FAIL.