I will preface my review by saying I hate to leave bad reviews. Restaurant business ownership can…read morebe hard enough but when a review is truly necessary, good or bad, it should be left and this is one of those situations.
I will start with the good and reason for 2 stars and not 1. The food was good. The salmon was well cooked (not dry/overcooked as many Japanese restaurants can be guilty of) and the rolls were all prepared very well by the chefs.
Now for the negative. A lot of Rancho restaurants are not packed at night so it's not a reflection of this place that it was empty upon entry. I'm just referencing that to emphasize there wasnt an excuse for what I'm about to explain. Our small group of 4 adults and 2 kids were seated and greeted upon entry. Drink orders were taken and we were told chopsticks and forks would be brought (they never were). We placed our order before the party of about 10 came in and placed theres and that's when the wheels fell off. The rolls came out promptly, however, the three bento boxes and soup didn't. We waited and waited and waited. 30+ minutes go by and nothing. Finally one of the bento boxes comes after probably 45 out but the server started to give it to the other party. We had to quickly flag the server down to tell him it was ours. More time starts to pass and our remaining 2 bento boxes still haven't come. We see our bento boxes get placed down on the counter where they sat. The server took them to the kitchen and didn't reappear with them until moments later when he promptly gave them to the other party. Before we could flag him down AGAIN, the two members of the other party started digging in (despite one of them telling us outside that his friend knew it wasn't his but didn't want to wait any longer). So now it's been over 45 minutes and while our whole party is basically finished with their food, two of us still have nothing. Here's where it gets worse...
We flag down our server, who hadn't checked on us thinking he might recognize, "hey, you don't have your food. That doesn't seem right." Nope. When we ask if our food is coming, he said the kitchen screwed him up and he could only bring out food as fast as they make it. We then tell him we are pretty sure he gave our food to the other table, he looked flustered and said he would check. The stand in sushi chef (very nice guy) came by to apologize and try to alleviate the blame from the server to him. Very kind of him but not true. The server then twice brought us the other party's food, but we did the right thing and said, no, that's not ours. Eventually 1 bento box came out but not the 2nd. When I asked if it was coming, they all looked shocked as in "uh oh, it happened again." I told them to cancel the order because we didn't have another hour to wait for food. The server then brought out the miso soup ordered at the beginning of the night.
But wait, there's more. The bill finally comes and what do we see, an automatic 18% gratuity has been applied. I get it, the menu says parties of 6 or more. But in a fubar case like this, I think it's fair to leave that up to the party. The fill in chef adjusted the bill to remove the automatic gratuity to leave it up to us after I asked for such. He again apologized profusely despite it not being his fault.
After the server brought our checks back and said sorry, he asked if there was anything else that was missed that we needed. I couldn't tell if that was rhetorical or if he was asking something he wanted to ask two hours prior. Either way, we said no, paid, and got up to leave.
Now for the cherry on top. There are two doors. One in the middle of the restaurant with a sign on the OUTSIDE saying to use the other door but nothing on the inside saying it's an emergency exit or broken, etc and a door by the host stand. We watched two people exit out of the door in the middle of the restaurant and since it was closest, we exited out that door. As one of the children in our party was exiting, the metal blinds crashed down on her, cutting her collar bone skin. As we checked on her, the chef said not to worry about the blinds but no one checked on the child. He then promptly closed the door. W....t....f.
As we stood outside wondering what just happened, we were approached by a gentleman from the other dining party. He then said, "Was that not the most horrendous experience you've ever had?" We then commiserated for a few minutes, him telling us about the wrong orders at their table and listening to our experience while we told him they ate our bento boxes and we had to cancel one of our orders. Truly a night to forget but a truly good bad story. It's experiences like this that make you wonder if you're on Punk'd.
Long story short, food is good, service is horrible. Find somewhere else to go.