Yakiniq Korean Bbq - San Francisco

Service was friendly and efficient. my friends and I had to wait for about 30 minutes to sit, but a part of the delay was caused by another group of customers who refused to leave their table after the deadline (1.5 hours to order, I believe). as it is ayce, make sure that they order everything they want to eat on a quick wise. everything in the menu was so good. we chose the 29,99 pp option and it has not disappointed. great value and great vibes. I recommend it very much!

Good service, fun experience good selection of food to cook loads of sides.

Terrible customer service Don't even go if you are less than 6 people!!! They only want big parties because that how they make money. The guy at the first desk said Long story short: if you are a party that is smaller than 6, don't bother coming, because this place will sit people who come after you if they are a bigger party. According to the front desk staff, it is because that's how we make money (Yes. He literally said that Now the full story: My sister and I went to this place on Saturday, March 26th. We know there will be a long wait so we signed up via Yelp at 5:15pm, while we are on our way there. As we arrived, there are tons of people waiting as expected. The wait list said we will be seated between 6:12pm and 6:42pm. That's not a problem. We left the restaurant, walked around and went back at approximately 6:35pm. At that time, we're 4th in line. We understood they are extra busy on Saturday so we were just waiting patiently. As 7pm approached, my sister finally asked the front desk staff when are we expected to be seated. He said they're just waiting for a few tables to leave. Okay. Understandable. At this time, we noticed there are two cleaned up tables (as you can see in the pictures). Instead of having people who are the 1st, 2nd and 3rd on the wait list (BTW those are all 2 people parties who have been waited for over 2 hours), the tables were set up for 7 people and 10 people respectively. We then checked the Yelp wait list on our phone and found that the 10 people party was 8th in line. We didn't see any 7 people party on the wait list at all. As that front desk staff continued to seat bigger parties that came way behind the smaller parties, my sister finally confronted him and asked so are you not going to seat any 2 people party at all You need to understand that's how we make money He answered in a rude tone. Literally, he said that. No apology. No courtesy. Just that. I couldn't believe my ears. I mean okay. I understand that but is that really something you want to tell your customers in such an arrogant tone? Loudly? In front of all the other customers who are waiting to spend money at your business? So what's the meaning of a wait list then I aksed him. He ignored me completely and didn't respond to the question. At this point, even though we have already waited for over two hours, we decided to leave. I'll never return to this place as I could not convince myself to spend my hard earned money at a place that have zero respect to their customers. To them, any small party is not worth their attention and basic courtesy. They do not follow the wait list they set up themselves. They don't even have the basic manner to at least apologize and explain their behaviors. He literally just ignored us, and the other small party that are on the top of the wait list. I don't care how good their food is or how popular they are, this is not the kind of place I would ever visit again. There are plenty other great Korean BBQ places that serve great food and offer wonderful customer service. I used to not understand why this place only have three and a half stars on Yelp, but now I know. Actually, I would give zero star if I could. An embarrassing side story for this place happened on the same night: the front desk staff finally seated one of the 2 people party who are 2nd on the wait list. Then the 1st party in line came in literally less than a minute later and found that their seats were taken. That customer was quite upset. He said come on man, we have been here for more than two hours As a result, this front desk person had to go to the customers who were just seated and told them to get up. I mean... is that some kind of joke?! Those customers got evicted from their table then returned to the lobby and continued to wait, even though there are empty tables at that point. But of course!! Those empty tables are reserved for larger parties

Korean bbq is one of my favorite things of all time. I have been to NY (jongro bbq), charlotte (lets meat), Atlanta (762 bbq and 9292 korean bbq), and many gyu kaku (its japanese i know). My point is, yakiniq has been average. I enjoyed the food. The quality and variety are not bad, but there are some things that left me wishing for more. I hope the owners reads this because i think there is room for improvement. San Francisco is one of the major cities and all the other places i've been have done a better job at k bbq in my opinion.What you guys did well:1) good miso marinate2)lots of variety3) maybe this is a bad thing for the people trying to eat every item on the menu but you guys give large portions of meats.4) fair prices, specially because this is an all you can eat restaurant.5) most items are fairly tastyWhat needs improvement? :1) only 2 sauces. You guys have one that is a spicy with a wasabi flavor (not bad). But the second sauce is just another extra spicy version of the first one. Where is the sesame oil with salt. Where is the Gochujang, or soybean paste, or a sweet and spicy. Only 2 sauces: one spicy and one extra spicy. This makes it really hard to eat non marinated meats.2) key side dishes missing. You guys have some good and tasty side dishes like potato salad, kimchi, the glass noodles, cabbage salad and others. But you don't have pickle radish, pickled onion, or a cucumber salad. In my opinion, having some pickled radish wrapped around some meat and kimchi would have made this much better. Lettuce leaves were too big and It took a very long time to refill the side dishes bur that is a minor problem.3) no oil or lemon for the grill. In many restaurants they oil the grill to prevent food from sticking and burning. And the lemon is to scrub the burned residue. This would have helped reduce how often we needed to change grills.4) our fan was not working. We were on the older side of the restaurant so i think our fan was just a bad one. Our neighbors had a good fan. Because of that and having to wait a long time for the waiter to come change the grill, we would find ourselves inhaling all the smoke. Not a lot of fun.5) music was little bit too loud.6) the place feels and looks old. The stair to the bathroom smells. Probably a renovation is needed but i understand it is a major project.7) the bulgogi marinate was really average. It wasn't salty or sweet.8) this is minor but Nothing we ordered had any garlic or green onions. These are typical korean aromatics and I think it would have added a extra layer of flavor to everything.I would probably given you a 3.5 out of 5 because of the need of a renovation, average ambiance, average bulgogi and the slow service; however, i think 4 out 5 is okay because of the price, the variety, the waiters are hard workers and most items were fairly tasty.Ultimately, this is an all you can eat korean bbq restaurant. Most ayce will skip on quality and focus on quantity. YakiniQ does some things well but it is not an exception to the ayce rule.if i had more sauces (at least the traditional kbbq sauces), lemon or oil to prevent food burning/sticking, 1 or 2 more side dishes, and fix the bulgogi, i think yall could be a 4.5 out of 5 or even a 5 out of 5 (if you over look the old building) when it comes to ayce korean bbq.

Very close to Japantown, so makes it relatively easy to find parking (albeit not for free). The spot is very cool, located on the second floor with spaced out tables and vents. Our servers were very accommodating and kind, and the food was great. The selection for halal/vegetarian could be better but overall it was a great experience.