Love coming to Gyu- Kaku BBQ! The food is always great and the portions are the perfect size. I would not recommend this Santa Monica location however... The service is not efficient and we would wait at least 5 minutes each time after asking to get a grill change, napkins, more water, the rest of our food, or just forgotten items. I understand it was a little busy, but several tables around us were also seen to be experiencing the same problem with waiting too long for the check, etc. This location may need more servers or help to make the experience better..
S YD
Great location and food is amazing . Highly recommend the cucumber salad . Waiters are the ONLY reason I’m giving it an overall 1 star as they’re incredibly SLOW, hard to grab and get attention when you need to put in more order. And take almost 20min on average to bring the food to table. They NEVER even refill our water once when we were there everytime
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 1
Junwayne Wong
Been a Gyugaku fan for years, been to many locations, when I saw this one in Santa Monica with a 3.0 review score, I think I should’ve trust the score.We made a reservation just in case, arrived on time, turns out there were only 3 tables dinning in, not busy at all, but after a staff greeted us, we still wait another 10-15 minutes because they have to “set up” our table, WHAT THE HECK IS THAT RESERVATION FOR? And for a Gyugaku table setup, it was simply chopsticks + plates + sauce dishes.One of the sauce dish was dirty and oily.Meats are over marinated, and you can taste the toro beef has expired and slightly gone bad.Ask for bowls so we can share the fried rice, one of the bowl was dirty with food residues on it.Our server was careless, in my impression Gyugaku always provides great customer service.It felt like I went to a Gyugaku in a different dimension or parallel universe.BAD.
Atmosphere: 1
Food: 1
Service: 1
love2eat
Worst service. Had to ask for basics like soy sauce, rice and drinks multiple times. Waited almost 1/2 hour between dishes and bussed our own table many times just to have enough room. Food was mediocre at best and expensive for what it was. Would not recommend this restaurant.
LarryH
First time at this location and barely got any service until the end. Waiter was nowhere to be found. Every other table was getting help but mine. I had to flag down other people just to order more food and water. Would ask for things that would never come. Just a bad experience
Kayden Kohan
Gyu-Kaku has been my go to Korean bbq when I don’t want to take the drive to Korea Town. They have such an amazing atmosphere here. The menu is fantastic with so many different choices and all you can eat. Pricing is one of the best to be honest. This place is a must try
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Joel Berg
Had to argue with the hostess to seat our group for our reservation. She made it clear if we all don't show up we can't be sitting in our reserved table. After we sat down in the half empty restaurant, they were out of quite a few items we wanted. Server looked ragged, and the food was sub par. Definitely a step down from the Vancouver locations. I wouldn't recommend this place
Atmosphere: 3
Food: 3
Service: 2
sheri mohamadi
My husband and I love Gyu Kaku and been to other locations but my first time at the Santa Monica location and had a horrible service experience. We had to look for our waiter many times and we had to ask for something several times. This location needs to be managed properly.
Atmosphere: 3
Food: 4
Service: 1
蕎麥
We ordered two people (all u can eat premium package). If u want high quality, not here. Well, if u r here because of friends or u r just super hungry, please come and eat loads. The ice cream was rlly bad. The dessert was chocolate brownie with a vanilla ice cream was just meh… it’s like Cheesecake Factory dessert..
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 3
Service: 4
Zack Boonjue
Staff needs training and some sort of supervision. Never before had I had good food with such bad service at this price.
Never go. Not even 1 star is a waste.The service is rubbish, they don't even seem to know anything when you go in, and the food is very slow.The server stopped at us and told us to take the dishes we were eating, put the dishwasher on the customer's table, cleaned it up, and waited with his hand raised to pay, but he never came. When we went to the front desk, he didn't even tell us how much it was, so he took the card, gave it to us with one hand, and covered the amniotic fluid. They didn't even put it in, so they just gave it to me and left right away without saying hello haha.Oh, I really liked it when I went to Gyukaku in Vancouver, so I came back, but it's really a waste of money. Please don't go.I went there because I wanted to eat yakiniku even after seeing the bad Google reviews. No matter how much you really want to eat, just hold on. This is my first time leaving a review like this. Haha, boss, reflect on yourself.
Atmosphere: 1
Food: 1
Service: 1
Unfortunately I was not happy with the service from this location. The server was rude with my friends, making fun and being sarcastic all the time. He forgot about an item and we have to ask for it so many times. It was my friend's birthday and they literally said that the dishwasher was full and he couldn't bring us a knife to cut our cake, so instead he brought us a broken scissors for our cake. This was unpleasant cause I love this restaurant and it was my friends first time eating there. Unfortunately we had a bad experience.
We have been here many times and this was an absolutely terrible experience. We were over charged for several items that we ordered but did not receive. Our drinks came out after food was being served. We were not given anymore water than what was initially given to us. There were only two waters for three people. The fried rice came out after desert. I can't see enough about how terrible this was. Our server did not even come back to check us out let alone check on us at all.
Always a wonderful experience at this location. The staff works fluidly together and are always so happy. The chefs do great with picking immaculate cuts of meat! Love coming here.
Scott Torres
Very disappointed to say the least for some reason this location can’t get it rightSeems like all the workers don’t wanna be thereI’m a a huge gyu kaku supporter but last night was the final strawFirst we had a reservation at 845 which took us 15 mins to be seatedSecondly we only saw our waiter three times one time to order our food two times to drop off our food third time for a checkNot one time did the person check on us ask for us for anything refills napkins more food etcI had to flag a buss boy to get a waiter which took another ten minutesI understand it may be busy and hectic but your customer should always the first priorityOften time the staff are gossiping among themselves instead of helping peopleLastly its so dirty in there not one person cares go clean in that placeSadly I won’t be coming back to this location
Love coming to Gyu- Kaku BBQ! The food is always great and the portions are the perfect size. I would not recommend this Santa Monica location however... The service is not efficient and we would wait at least 5 minutes each time after asking to get a grill change, napkins, more water, the rest of our food, or just forgotten items. I understand it was a little busy, but several tables around us were also seen to be experiencing the same problem with waiting too long for the check, etc. This location may need more servers or help to make the experience better..
Great location and food is amazing . Highly recommend the cucumber salad . Waiters are the ONLY reason I’m giving it an overall 1 star as they’re incredibly SLOW, hard to grab and get attention when you need to put in more order. And take almost 20min on average to bring the food to table. They NEVER even refill our water once when we were there everytime
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 1
Been a Gyugaku fan for years, been to many locations, when I saw this one in Santa Monica with a 3.0 review score, I think I should’ve trust the score.We made a reservation just in case, arrived on time, turns out there were only 3 tables dinning in, not busy at all, but after a staff greeted us, we still wait another 10-15 minutes because they have to “set up” our table, WHAT THE HECK IS THAT RESERVATION FOR? And for a Gyugaku table setup, it was simply chopsticks + plates + sauce dishes.One of the sauce dish was dirty and oily.Meats are over marinated, and you can taste the toro beef has expired and slightly gone bad.Ask for bowls so we can share the fried rice, one of the bowl was dirty with food residues on it.Our server was careless, in my impression Gyugaku always provides great customer service.It felt like I went to a Gyugaku in a different dimension or parallel universe.BAD.
Atmosphere: 1
Food: 1
Service: 1
Worst service. Had to ask for basics like soy sauce, rice and drinks multiple times. Waited almost 1/2 hour between dishes and bussed our own table many times just to have enough room. Food was mediocre at best and expensive for what it was. Would not recommend this restaurant.
First time at this location and barely got any service until the end. Waiter was nowhere to be found. Every other table was getting help but mine. I had to flag down other people just to order more food and water. Would ask for things that would never come. Just a bad experience
Gyu-Kaku has been my go to Korean bbq when I don’t want to take the drive to Korea Town. They have such an amazing atmosphere here. The menu is fantastic with so many different choices and all you can eat. Pricing is one of the best to be honest. This place is a must try
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Had to argue with the hostess to seat our group for our reservation. She made it clear if we all don't show up we can't be sitting in our reserved table. After we sat down in the half empty restaurant, they were out of quite a few items we wanted. Server looked ragged, and the food was sub par. Definitely a step down from the Vancouver locations. I wouldn't recommend this place
Atmosphere: 3
Food: 3
Service: 2
My husband and I love Gyu Kaku and been to other locations but my first time at the Santa Monica location and had a horrible service experience. We had to look for our waiter many times and we had to ask for something several times. This location needs to be managed properly.
Atmosphere: 3
Food: 4
Service: 1
We ordered two people (all u can eat premium package). If u want high quality, not here. Well, if u r here because of friends or u r just super hungry, please come and eat loads. The ice cream was rlly bad. The dessert was chocolate brownie with a vanilla ice cream was just meh… it’s like Cheesecake Factory dessert..
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 3
Service: 4
Staff needs training and some sort of supervision. Never before had I had good food with such bad service at this price.
Atmosphere: 3
Food: 3
Service: 1
Restaurantji Recommends
Never go. Not even 1 star is a waste.The service is rubbish, they don't even seem to know anything when you go in, and the food is very slow.The server stopped at us and told us to take the dishes we were eating, put the dishwasher on the customer's table, cleaned it up, and waited with his hand raised to pay, but he never came. When we went to the front desk, he didn't even tell us how much it was, so he took the card, gave it to us with one hand, and covered the amniotic fluid. They didn't even put it in, so they just gave it to me and left right away without saying hello haha.Oh, I really liked it when I went to Gyukaku in Vancouver, so I came back, but it's really a waste of money. Please don't go.I went there because I wanted to eat yakiniku even after seeing the bad Google reviews. No matter how much you really want to eat, just hold on. This is my first time leaving a review like this. Haha, boss, reflect on yourself.
Atmosphere: 1
Food: 1
Service: 1
Unfortunately I was not happy with the service from this location. The server was rude with my friends, making fun and being sarcastic all the time. He forgot about an item and we have to ask for it so many times. It was my friend's birthday and they literally said that the dishwasher was full and he couldn't bring us a knife to cut our cake, so instead he brought us a broken scissors for our cake. This was unpleasant cause I love this restaurant and it was my friends first time eating there. Unfortunately we had a bad experience.
We have been here many times and this was an absolutely terrible experience. We were over charged for several items that we ordered but did not receive. Our drinks came out after food was being served. We were not given anymore water than what was initially given to us. There were only two waters for three people. The fried rice came out after desert. I can't see enough about how terrible this was. Our server did not even come back to check us out let alone check on us at all.
Always a wonderful experience at this location. The staff works fluidly together and are always so happy. The chefs do great with picking immaculate cuts of meat! Love coming here.
Very disappointed to say the least for some reason this location can’t get it rightSeems like all the workers don’t wanna be thereI’m a a huge gyu kaku supporter but last night was the final strawFirst we had a reservation at 845 which took us 15 mins to be seatedSecondly we only saw our waiter three times one time to order our food two times to drop off our food third time for a checkNot one time did the person check on us ask for us for anything refills napkins more food etcI had to flag a buss boy to get a waiter which took another ten minutesI understand it may be busy and hectic but your customer should always the first priorityOften time the staff are gossiping among themselves instead of helping peopleLastly its so dirty in there not one person cares go clean in that placeSadly I won’t be coming back to this location
Atmosphere: 1
Food: 1
Service: 1