The quality of JA has gone down incredibly. I've gone here a little over a dozen times or so since they've opened. The quality has gotten progressively worse over time, but it's always been a "Well, we're tired of burgers, what other choices are there?" option. But after the last visit I'll never return again, and here's why:
I took a party of friends to JA late on a Saturday (around 9:00pm). The hostess told us that we should avoid the buffet and get orders from their little custom hibachi section. Huh?
First off, this is a buffet, and the hostess tells our party NOT to get the buffet food? The entire point of a buffet IS the buffet. JA stays open until 10:30PM on Saturday,. That means there's an hour and a half left before they close, and they're already telling people not eat there at 9:00pm? That should have been warning sign number one, but we were tired and hungry, so we opted to stay.
We go to the hibachi as suggested, and there's three guys behind it eating on a little makeshift table. We wait about three or four minutes with our plates, politely trying to get their attention. We didn't interrupt them as the entire thing felt... well, awkward. Finally, they look over at us, laugh, then go back to eating. Wait, what? Well, can we get something made? No response. They just ignore us.
We decide screw it, there's five of us, we're hungry, and nothing else is open at the moment and the one place we could go just happens to be the one place a party member didn't like (Sorry, Five Guys!). So we attacked the dying remnants of the buffet, and... yeah. Not much left, the food is dried out and it's all the lil' pieces everybody else didn't want. We heard the warnings, but unfortunately hunger made the executive decision for us.
While we were there, about 6 other people came in and picked at the remnants (at least I didn't feel bad we were the only ones). We felt like midnight vultures, everybody who straggled in felt to be of the same opinion and mind. "Well, it's... food?".
We all kind of agreed that nope, this is NOT good . But we decided just to leave it there, and move on. Story should have ended there but didn't.
As we left, the hostess asked how our food was. I was honest, said "Eh, it wasn't that great." and she responded "I TOLD you the food was bad." in an accusatory manner, like this was somehow all our fault. "You should have gone to the hibachi like I told you." Ahh, yep. There it is. It's entirely /our/ fault in her eyes. Great.
I'll admit, I was kind of hoping for a /slight/ discount on the bill given they knew the food and service was "under par" (I'm being nice). Nope. Oh, and here's the $60+ bill for five people. Awesome.
So yeah. I have severe issues with a restaurant knowing their food is bad and continuing to serve it. I admit, we were stupid, but when you're hungry and tired, it can lead to bad decisions. But as a business, if you're serving food that's bad, and you know it's bad, it's your responsibility to STOP serving the food and do something about it.
The JA had been declining in quality since I first started going. It used to be our "safe" choice. Not great, but acceptably average. But after the continuing decline, then this... I have to say I won't be back. read more