Should have asked for manager and stood up and gone near the kitchen. And, no, no tip is necessary if service is terrible

Anonymous wrote:I would have gotten up to leave....that makes a statement.

That constitutes stealing and you can be charged with theft. Wouldn't take that route despite the fact that the service was deplorable.

Although I can't explain the "no check until done eating" or "no manager available aspect", I don't think you had the correct expectations for service/wait times for an all you can eat sushi place (especially if it was during a busy time, and the sushi was made fresh). While this isn't entirely your fault (although I question this as well, considering it sounds like you've eaten there before), leaving absolutely no tip seems a little short-sighted and you seem a bit naive.

When you said "all you can eat sushi" were you participating in the deal? I know "all you can eat" deals often have very specific rules like "You can't order a new round of X (sushi, wings, whatever) until the first/second/current round is finished". This prevents people from just ordering and ordering. On the same token, pretty much every AYCE deal I've encountered prohibits take out, for pretty obvious reasons. You weren't abusing the system, but lots of people do so that is why the rules exist.

In my experience, "all you can eat" deals are notoriously slow (unless you are dining at one of those conveyor belt sushi places), so it probably wasn't the best place to eat on a time crunch.

Was there any language barriers in play? If the waitress wasn't super fluent in English and didn't totally understand the time crunch request, she may have just been responding to the "Can I take the sushi to go?" request, to which she has probably had "No" drilled into her head by management.

I'm a little confused as to why you tried to "only pay for the rolls we ate"? I'm guessing it was because the first round rolls would have been cheaper than the AYCE amount?

If your waitress was rude to you, that is a legitimate reason to reduce the tip, IMO. But it sounds like you completely lack self-awareness for the situation around you, and probably exacerbated the situation with your requests. 60 mins for two rounds of fresh sushi may be a bit long, but not unreasonable. You seem completely naive and petty having left no tip.

Anonymous wrote:30 minutes is not that long to wait for an order of sushi prepared fresh if they are busy. If you want quicker service, go get grocery store sushi. If it was an all-you-can eat deal, of course they're not going to let you take it to go. You are the one in the wrong here.

Ridiculous. Most AYCE sushi bars at least have rolls ready and they have enough chefs to accommodate the dinner crowd. I used to go to popular AYCE places and never waited 30 minutes. And an apologetic waitress with a good attitude bringing salad, soup, etc. would have saved the day and gotten a tip.