Critic's Review
Review 1/5 2016
Sushi 4 Fun opened in an inexplicably quiet way; usually I avoid places don't divulge either their prices or their concept. But once I found out it was a "pay by the pound" buffet I figured I could give it a try without experiencing yet another $20 debacle.
So I park to the side of the strip center, and as I'm about to open the door a girl hands me a welcome coupon for 10% off. A nice gesture but the point of coupons is to provide incentive to try a place; not for people who have already decided to try it and are walking in the door.
The problem with this business is that they don't tell you what it is. Sushi, I get that part, but their website just has some delusional marketing garb without any actual details. "We don't charge you more than you want to pay". Really, I don't really want to pay anything.
So I get inside to a completely empty restaurant at 2:20pm. Still no prices displayed. "So what's the concept here", I quipped, fully knowing that it was $14.99 / pound. "You pay by weight", he told me, still not divulging the price. Sushi doesn't weigh much, so I figured I could get out for well under a pound.
They had some gyoza and fried shrimp, in addition to a variety of sushi rolls. Nothing different than you could get at one of the all you can eat Japanese buffets.
Nothing too exciting here. It's hard not to question the "freshness" of a buffet with no customers. Did they have a rush at noon? Has this stuff been sitting out for 2 hours? Are you even ALLOWED to put out sushi at room temperature? Hopefully the counters are chilled.
The cashier asked if I wanted a drink "Do you have Iced Tea", I asked. But they only have Snapple and overprice Water, so I went without a beverage.
I took a seat in the back. Nice decor, however all of the QSR places look like they came out of the same magazine.
Your food goes right on a cardboard tray. Chopsticks are provided. One thing that I didn't like is that you have to pay for everything you put on the tray; so if I took sauces would I have to pay for them by weight?
The shrimp was disappointing; a hard breading with no cocktail sauce available. The sushi was mediocre at best.
After you pay they provide you with a plastic container for the soy on the tables. Cafeteria Style. No dishes at Sushi 4 Fun.
They also cut the ginger way too thick; maybe trying to make it weigh more? I don't like chewing on a big sheet of ginger.
So I'm sure you're guessing how much this cost.
With my 10% discount, this was a pretty cheap lunch.
Conclusion
These wholly impersonal QSR experiences are becoming the norm now, but personally I have to question the model for this restaurant. The thing with buffets is that waste is a significant component of profit, and in this location, they're only going to have customers from 12 to 2pm. Of course they don't have their hours (or phone number) on their Facebook page or website, so I have to question the basic business skills of the ownership.
With a standard buffet, you "assume" that most people will eat about a pound of food (and many will eat less), but sushi and rice doesn't weigh much, and $14.99 per pound is hard to compute. The big Japanese buffets charge about $12 for all you can eat, so it's not really a good deal; I can eat 2 lbs of sushi for $11.99 at one of those buffets and get a much wider variety of food choices.
What's going to happen here is that they're going to have to throw out an entire buffet of food at 3pm, and they may find that there isn't enough dinner business (if they're open) to even justify doing a full buffet.
If you work in the area this is an option to mix things up, but it's not a place anyone is going to go out of their way for.
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