Airing of Grievances: Yushi’s New Conveyor Belt is For Display Only!?!
Conveyor belt sushi… but not really.
Well this isn’t a good way to kick off your first week with a new conveyor belt:
“I went to Yushi (on 47th btw. Park+Lex) for lunch today and had to walk right out. Why? Because the food on the conveyor is now for display only. That’s right. You look at the food on the conveyor, call your waitress over, and ask for it. You’ll then get your plate delivered. What a novel idea! It’s almost like ordering a la carte, except not remotely as convenient. Here I was getting ready to blow my lunch budget bigtime on some much missed conveyor sushi. Please update the entry so as not to mislead any other midtownlunchers expecting real conveyor treats. -Francois”
If people wanted to order food off a menu they’d go to a regular sushi place! I contacted Yushi for a comment, and their response is after the jump.
“It comes down to freshness. We’d had a lot of comments from the previews that people wanted dishes to be as fresh as possible so we tweaked the format to keep it very fast but very fresh as well. Basically it keeps the best of both worlds and the feedback has been very positive. Having said this, watch this space because we have a further evolution just weeks away…”
What good is having a conveyor belt if you’re not going to let it do its job as a fun, sushi distributing conveyor belt? It’s like having a moving version of those lame glass cases that bad restaurants put in their front doorway. I guess this is what Yushi gets from listening to their regular customers (who probably didn’t need a conveyor belt to get them in the door in the first place!) Lord knows the Midtown Lunch winners didn’t suggest this don’t-mistake-this-for-real-conveyor-belt-sushi idea. Urgh… all that goodwill Yushi earned has now been wasted. This “further evolution” better be good!
Related:
First Look at Yushi’s Conveyor Belt, Which Opens on Monday
I Am Big Enough to Admit I Wasn’t Entirely Correct About How Much Yushi Sucks
Yushi Bento Bar Brings Style Over Substance to Midtown
Posted: 3:45 pm, March 24th, 2009 under Airing of Grievances, Yushi.
24 Comments | RSS comments feed for this post
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24 Comments
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That is so pathetically LAME!!!!!!!! Goddamit!!!!!! F’ING WEEEEAAAAKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!
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Zach, I believe I pointed out exactly that there would be logistical problems with the belt in my review….
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This is an outrage pure and simple. You dear sir should be ashamed and appalled. There is no room to sucker a group of strangers into one setup and then pull this sort of tom-foolery once open to the general populi. Shame, Shame.
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Lame. Not going.
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Looks like Yushi has pulled a classic bait and switch….
… with bait
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After reading this I’m all more appreciative of the experience I had last week. I was in Thailand on vacation and stumbled upon a restaurant called Shabushi. It’s combination conveyor belt Shabu Shabu AND Sushi. You have an induction hot pot in front of you and a conveyor belt in front of that. The belt brings both sushi (rolls and nigiri) and shabu shabu items… everything from cabbage to mushrooms to thinly sliced beef and fish to pork liver. Admittedly, the sushi offering was marginal, with some OK salmon, shrimp and white fish. The place was more geared towards Shabu which had a great variety. But, it gets better…. it was ALL YOU CAN EAT!
The waitress brings you a slip and from that point on you have 75 minutes to chow down to your heart’s content (and that includes drinks, some gyoza and tempura, noodle dishes and desert). And as if that wasn’t enough, because it was in Thailand, it was insanely cheap. For my wife and I the bill was less than $14… still a midtown lunch, but way out of bounds.
It was one of the funnest eating experiences I’ve ever had. No THIS is a restaurant midtown needs. Here’s the website, completely in Thai, but you get the idea http://www.oishigroup.com/brand_shabu_brand.html
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White Castle needs to install a conveyor belt. Buffalo wings would work too.
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“Basically it keeps the best of both worlds and the feedback has been very positive. Having said this, watch this space because we have a further evolution just weeks away…”
Huh? These folks don’t get it… The conveyor belts “world” or in this case… PURPOSE is to have sushi rolling along with a variety for people to just pick up and eat… In essence, the “best” of the conveyor belt world is people not having to order and wait for sushi… instead picking up whatever rolls by that seems enjoyable… Turning the conveyor belt off and using it as a display OBVIOUSLY eliminates the one good thing the conveyor belt is for. It’s also irresponsible spending on their part… why invest in something that you aren’t going to use to the fullest of its ability?
“Having said this, watch this space because we have a further evolution just weeks away…”
Really? I call bullshit. That last statement just seems like a way to hang onto whatever ML customers they might have expected… If by further evolution, he means really offering lunch at the below $10 ML lunch range… then yea… that’s evolution… anything else is just some cheap gimmick that will probably add to the cost of lunch…
Tsk, tsk… what a shame that a place seemed to finally embraced an idea that would’ve been welcomed by many just on the premise that it would be such a new and somewhat fun way to eat… and they ditch it on the first day? Sad… sad indeed…
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that thai website is in english too:
http://www.oishigroup.com/brand_shabu_brand_eng.html“The brand offers buffet on food conveyor at economy price. The focus is on middle income group. Shabushi by OISHI offers 2 Asian’s popular menus, which are Shabu-Shabu and Sushi. Currently, there are 14 branches (October 31, 2007 Update) in Bangkok with 219++ baht each. The restaurants open daily with 1.15 hrs limited to each session. Extra 20 baht is charged for additional 10 minutes for each person. This is to increase turnover rate due to seating limitation.”
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Anyone notice that the empty store front next to yushi and wichcraft and the don juan coffee place has been painted white? WHAT’S GOING IN THERE MIDTOWN LUNCH?!?!?!!!
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Bring out a god damn wrapped Walgreen’s sandwich on the god damn moving belt god damn it.
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FAIL.
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today’s word of the day: ‘tarded
definition: see the conveyor belt at Yushianyone for Brawndo?
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GO TO EAST 3rd av ( 26th ) lotta fun
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Seriously, the owners must be total fuckwads! Hey owners, get your heads out of your goddamn asses! You put in a conveyor belt for a reason you shmucks—and it wasn’t to replace a glass display case! All those seats around that conveyor belt were for customers to sit there and take what they wanted, when they wanted! SELF SERVICE! Do it right! You can’t be this stupid can you? You were 99% there, and then you quit? WTF IS THAT??>??
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allcarvedup: Some ML reader is gonna show up soon and go all medieval on your ass for that comment, like she’s done before. I forget who it is, but she’s definitely retarded.
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They realized how much Wayne and Mama ate and are trying to cut costs. :)
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i dont buy their explanation at all. its gotta be something more like the conveyor belt broke or there is some health code violation that they didn’t realize. or perhaps they didn’t order enough different colored plates?
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Forget it. I’m going to continue to make my own California rolls (not at my desk, but at home). I’m not even going to bother going there.
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conveyor belts don’t bring in tips.
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I heard the belt was back up and running today, per my coworker
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At the free AYCE meal I had pointed out to Mamacita that the logistics of the operation were questionable… the waitstaff was already harried, had to keep running back & forth manually filling the conveyor and they still couldn’t keep it even half-filled … and that was with the belt seating area only half-full. Not good. Their marketing-speak comment is actually the opposite of the truth – their solution is the WORST of both worlds – the no-touch food on the belt will get brown curled edges and you’ll have to wait forever for your order from the kitchen. Mamacita & I ordered four dishes off the menu – two never came, one was unavailable and one came after asking for it twice.
If they go through with this bone-headed plan they might actually make Sakae look good
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If you want a decent bento, in spitting distance is both Dainubo and Cafe Zest…keep walking johnny!
How is a purely decorative conveyor belt the “best of both worlds”?