Private karaoke was so fun but the AC was broken so it was kind of miserable. We all blacked tf out

It's been YEARS since I've been to this Japas but I'm glad to see they still got it from a trip this past week! We reserved the silver package (the $35 per person deal with a fried food platter, and unlimited sake, wine, and beer). Our reservation was for when the place opened at 4:00pm. When a couple of us did not arrive on time, the staff did not mind letting us get started in the room right away. Post-pandemic Japas now has an iPad instead of a remote to enter songs, no song books, and no paper menus. The sound in the room was just right (not too loud, tinny, or not too much echo), and the mics worked the whole time without running out of a charge but gave a little feedback occasionally. The service in the beginning could use some improvement. They could have asked us if we wanted our hot food platter (fries, spring rolls, gyozas, and chicken) before the rest of the party arrived. Instead they just dropped it off in some type of perfunctory manner after we checked in and letting the food go cold. When we asked for beer and wine, they could have told us that they were going to give a whole pitcher and bottle (refilled bottled labeled "w. wine"). It seemed a bit strange because all of this made me feel like they didn't want to be bothered by requests or communicating with us after they got us set up in the room. However there are the pluses +++! The food was actually quite good (albeit a little cold by the time we tried it). Especially the fried chicken, spring rolls, and gyozas. The audio set up of the place is really good! The room was clean, well-sized for four people, and had a little fan when it got warm and stuffy. (There are a lot of karaoke rooms out there that smell like layers and layers of spilled beer but not here!) The service towards the end was improved a lot. The server was very friendly and she helped us seamlessly add another hour of singing. They let us finish our queue of songs instead of cutting us off abruptly mid-song. All in all, solid karaoke place and pretty straightforward in what you expect to get when you order a package. Great selection of songs to choose from and the food is actually good. Happy singing! read more

Solid karaoke spot! I've been to Japas NY many times before, usually for work happy hours (pre-pandemic, of course). While I recommend making a reservation in advance if you want a private room, we were able to get one on a Friday night as walk-ins. However, you can also do karaoke at the bar, if you're not afraid to sing in public! The song selection here was great and we had a fun time! The mojitos we ordered were also delicious, but keep in mind, the staff won't come check on you unless you hit the call button in your private room. Otherwise, loved it! read more

I read so many bad reviews on this place and I was skeptical going but I'm glad we did. So we were able to get last minute reservations for a party of 12 at 8pm on a Friday. When we arrived of course the whole party was not on time. They informed us that we can sit in the room and they will give us 30 mins before they started the 2 hour unlimited which was a relief. We had the $55 unlimited drinks and appetizers and a sushi platter. The drinks were bottles of vodka or tequila or whatever else you wanted and your juices. We basically had to mix the drink up ourselves which was great. They had a cool selection i but it was a bit outdated I wish they had nite hip hop to choose from. No city girls no updated cardi b or Nicki and they didn't even have biggie lol but overall we had a great time! I am already planning another karaoke night. read more

This place can be good depending on crowd. The crowd wasn't it yesterday. But if you like to sing karaoke without going into private room this place had TWO hour wait per song at 9pm. Bartender was also little meh in speed and attitude read more

Came here for my friends birthday and we had a blast it was $10 pp in the room and you can order drinks and food by just buzzing the button. The front of the spot is a bar and they do have outside karaoke if it's not in the room, I just wouldn't have the balls to do outside karaoke lol. She made reservations and we got there on time and got in to the room real quick. This place is pretty solid, would come back again. read more

The name has recently changed from Japas 38 to Japas NY. Hubby and I have been coming here for many years. My last review is no longer valid due to the new name, so I'm writing another one for the new name. The rating is the same 5 stars because it was great back then and the same today, great! This place has customers from different cultures/backgrounds, mostly locals but tourists come here too. This time we came back during the Halloween week. They did a great job decorating for Halloween. I read the negative reviews and I can suggest not to take the negative reviews seriously. I'm one of the regular customers here. First of all when you go to a karaoke place you have to let people sing and enjoy the music that they choose. Take the negative reviews to the artists if you don't feel their songs fit your needs. Stop analyzing and the world will be a better place to live. I've seen a group of party goers came here and had fun; they're people with colors who had fun singing and I joined in because I thought their voices were superb and they let me sing with them and some of the songs had strange lyrics to it but a song is a song. I love singing and it makes me happy. If I have to start worrying which songs I can and cannot sing because some people are just so sensitive then maybe they have to get their heads examine. I'm a colored woman and my life is too colorful to worry about silly stuff. People who write songs are mostly poetics and only they can explain best about their songs. Others just like to sing a song because they may like the artist, the band, the melody, the lyric or they happen to like singing or it could be anything that we don't know about. I have to defend the place that I think doesn't deserve to be called racist from one experience by a sensitive group who doesn't know anything much about the place and the crowd that comes here regularly. Chill out people of the earth! This is a singing place called Karaoke! The staffers are great here. We've been treated well and we've been seeing them treating others nice as well. Sometimes people have to be nice to get nice treatments. This goes both ways. Let's talk about the food. The food here is not bad. We had tried some sushi but my favorites are salmon and mackerel. The salad is quite good too. I usually get the box. Potato croquettes is awesome! Try it! read more

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Place had a cool vibe to it. But the food wasn't really all that. I had tHe shoyu ramen and the broth tasted a bit like soy sauce and water and the egg was super overcooked, but I guess I can't really complain much because it's not a real ramen spot, but I was still expecting something a little better than what I got. We also ordered the takoyaki, this one wasn't as bad.. The interior feeL of the place was chill and as you walk towards the restroom in the back, there you will see all the private karaoke rooms... Food 3 STARS Vibe 3 STARS Ambience 3 STARS read more

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Terrible service. We made a reservation a day in advance but once we arrived, we were never seated. We were the only African American party. I am almost 100% that's why we received this treatment. I even sat at the bar while waiting to be seated. Bartender NEVER asked me if I wanted a beverage. Mind you, I had been seated at the bar well over 19 mins and they were not busy. NEVER AGAIN. read more

I was at Japas back in December of 2018. My friend and I stopped in for some food. Neither of us drink, so we were sober when this occurred. There was a white woman sitting nearby who started singing a karaoke song which had a lot of the N-word in it, and she used it freely. My friend - who is Black - got very uncomfortable, as did I. After the white woman was done, I walked up to her and asked her why she felt so comfortable using the N-word. She was clearly drunk and began yelling at me and wanted to start a physical altercation, so my friend and I paid our bill and were about to leave. When we came outside, the woman was there with a white man and also with the owner of the establishment (an Asian man). It was very clear that this racist woman was a friend of the owner. In her drunken stupor, she began calling me names and trying to fight me again. The owner watched all of this happen and did not apologize to my friend even once for creating a dangerous environment. In fact, he sided with the racist white woman and told us to leave. Black folks should stay far away from this establishment and not give Japas your hard-earned money because I guarantee that they will only treat you badly. read more

Welp... This place let me down. The service succckkkkkkssssss... Not to mention, racist as fuuukkkkk... I wanted to karaoke with my friends (we are a diverse crew). We came and some random guy started singing, which is what you do at karaoke, but he started singing some racist and offensive shit. It's like... Dude, you have POC in this room. Please stop. So, another group actually asked the staff to shut the song off and the staff was like nope. My friends stood up to the staff member to stand up for the other group when the staff member went nuts. Then she went nuts on my friends threatening to call the cops. It's like... You are threatening black women because they are trying to tell you why we're offended. Anyways, this place is racist as fuuukkkkk... And the food and karaoke sucks anyways. read more

Have been coming here for many years and it gets worse each time. The sound quality on the equipment is spotty at best. If there is any ambient noise in the joint you can't hear yourself singing and they will be nasty and impatient about it if you point it out to them. It's a karaoke bar. Turn up the volume on the mics where people don't have to scream. If you want a regular bar with no singing then do that instead. I don't like rude/nasty and I certainly don't like paying for rude and nasty, read more

Really great karaoke joint. Very professionally run. Great location. Need I say more?

Pricy: You pay per person rather than by the room per hours, and there's an additional fee for not ordering drinks (which you'd need to have and finish at the bar, outside of your private room), but the service was good. Picked this karaoke lounge specifically for Korean and Japanese song selections + its earlier opening hours than nearby venues, but unfortunately our system was not setup for Korean (even though Kpop music was playing at the bar), so my group was more limited in the songs we could sing. read more

10/10 Awesome time. They had a delicious platter. Drinks were flowing. Music was banging read more

i am the person who played the allegedly racist song referred to in some other reviews. the song was "Me and My Monkey" by Robbie Williams. "monkey" was interpreted by the person involved as referring to her ethnic group. which is not the case. monkey refers to addiction and is based on the Robbie Williams real life experience with cocaine. you can read more about it here http://www.bbc.co.uk/stoke/robbie/discography/monkey.shtml. the negative reviewer was returning from the bathroom when my friend and i were singing the song. she took it out of context, and immediately interrupted me and asked if i was racist. i spent a good amount of quality singing time trying to explain the real meaning before telling her we could discuss further after the song was done. by that time, with Stalinesque efficiency, she and her friends had already condemned us, and when my next song came up she stole the mike and said the ENTIRE establishment (a very diverse crowd) was racist. then they stormed out and have graced us all with their injurious reviews. racism is real in America and the world. but when you profile people as racist for something which is not in fact racist, and when you make snap judgements without trying to discover the facts, you are not helping the fight against racism. and when you seek to damage someone's reputation based on false accusations, that's even worse. as for Japas itself, i started going there regularly after they upgraded their song and sound system a few years ago. you can sing most anything here and they are one of the few karaoke places in nyc you can sing foreign songs in the open bar. on a given night at japas you'll find a core group of regulars and a bunch of people just dropping in from all over the country and the world. makes for a nice mix and usually everyone gets along and revels in the serendipity b/c its much more than just bohemian rhapsody and bon jovi all night. the staff will treat you well if you treat them well. don't give them attitude or bs because they will put you in your place - i speak from experience :-). but if you're reasonable and just want to enjoy yourself and the singing, they will help you along, and if you come back enough you'll find that they are good, down-to-earth people and very likely end up friends. i could also mention great food and drink at reasonable prices. no $15 for a cocktail here. and if you prefer rooms, they've got plenty of those too. all in all a great place to sing. read more

So as yu know I only review the male employees at the according location But this place a real hottie working here really really cute and bubbly. And the ambiance here is great too. Can be quite loud but hey its a karaoke bar Have fun ~ read more

Unfortunately have to bump this down. The bartenders wouldn't put our song selections in, some of them up to 2 hours after we requested them. Then, when I went to ask why some songs for our group weren't input, a female bartender nastily said to me "why the conflict?" I told her the conflict is that they didn't put our songs in for over 2 hours, I sang one song at about 8:30 and the next one wasn't until close to 10:30. I'm sure a couple of groups paid to have their songs moved up, because they all sang several songs, drank their drinks and left while we're sitting there like idiots waiting. I have been here several times and this really is the worst experience I had there. Doubtful we'll be back. The guy bartender was cool, apparently he gave the group free shots after I left. I would have preferred singing my 2 other songs (that cost $2 each) but they never put into the system. read more

The food was good and the service was good I would recommend this place if you go to karaoke read more

Had a group of 29 people here for karaoke and wow was it a great time! The staff is incredibly helpful and understanding and even with such a big, crazy crowd they were very accommodating and cool. Great value at its price too and both the food and drinks were top notch. Highly recommend karaoke with a big group here. read more

My boy freind and I love this Karaoke dive in bar! Every time when we go we get treated very well. I also see other usual customers and they seems happy as well. Especially Yumi and Ping are the best server. Thanks for always caring and making environment fun! I highly recommend this place for any purpose if you wanna do karaoke. I usually go give in bar but use party room for bigger group. This is the best karaoke bar in NYC. :) read more

My friends and I had a great time here. I was wary of this place due to the bad reviews but the place was extremely accommodating and friendly. They're running some good deals here and I can't wait to come back and have some fun again. read more

I love Japas NY, great song book selection they have Healsonic, formerly Karaoke Champ, full bar, delicious food menu, very cool staff. Just celebrated my birthday party here, there is no other place in NYC I would rather go to sing than Japas NY!! read more

I had a birthday party with my friends here. There are many themes, sang a lot, and had a great time. I will come again.

I had such a great time there! I was there on a whim. I wanted to go to Mad Dog next door which was closed, so just starting walking to Grand Central hoping to find food somewhere. I heard singing and fun only next door and saw they served food so scooted in there. The bar area was filled with a group of (semi-professional) karaoke singers. They were excellent!...on a Wednesday. One girl told me they all know each other but I couldn't tell. Everyone was scattered and it was a variety of different people. The drinks are extremely strong to the point where they give everyone a huge glass of water on the side. I didn't know why at first and then tasted my drink. I drank some water and poured my entire drink with the water. So it's as if I got two for one and the edamame was mmm delicious! I left at like 10 PM to catch my train and the singing was going strong. It was just a fun New York experience. I definitely recommend! read more

This place is completely horrible. The waitstaff are completely rude. They ignored their customers and when asked a question they responded like they were doing you a favor. The food is disgusting. I came in on a Thursday the waitstaff was 2 guys and a girl and when I tried asking a question they verbally attacked me. I will never enter this place. read more