Gen Korean BBQ House

Reviews 3

L.

L.M. Smith

OMG we love this place more than I can even begin to express. My husband and I have been eating here at least once a week every week since we first discovered it shortly after it opened last year. We have been on a variety of days and times but our favorite is Sunday at 11 just after they open. You get all of the great dinner menu items because its Sunday but you dont spend an hour waiting for a table like you will at dinner time. BTW that hour wait, thats for dinner on a weeknight. Dinner on a weekend can be even longer but that should tell you just how good this place is because people DO wait (myself included) over an hour for a table here. ANYWHERE else in town if the wait is more than 20 minutes Im out the door looking for somewhere else to eat but here ... Im gonna wait as long as I need to. You cant make reservations here but they will text you when your table is almost ready so what I would recommend for dinner service is come in, give them your name and phone #, and then go browse the mall until they text you. Please note that the bar is not open seating and its not a cocktail lounge where you wait for a table. You can go up to the bar to order drinks for while youre waiting but if you sit down at the bar youre basically jumping the line of people that are ahead of you waiting for a table. I still highly recommend going early for lunch though. Same food, little to no wait. So onto the food. Yes, its awesome. People dont wait an hour or more to get a table at a place with bad food, right? That goes without saying so I honestly am not going to spend much time on the food. Everything is all you can eat, you order your sides/appetizers/drinks which come prepared and ready to eat and then you order your meats which come raw. The table has a grill in the center and everyone gets a set of tongs so you can cook your own meats. If you want it theyll bring oil for the grill but we prefer to order the pork belly (#17) and use the pork fat to grease up the grill before cooking everything else. YUM. Everything is good. Seriously, everything. So whats the real reason we come here every single Sunday like clockwork? ITS THE STAFF! Every single server we have ever had, every bartender, every busser, every head server, and Enoc the general manager are some of the coolest, warmest, friendliest people youll find! After just our first visit we had developed a friendship with three separate staff members including Richard (our favorite and someone that we now consider a good friend). On our second visit people recognized us and welcomed us back. Kaylin doesnt even need to ask our order anymore, she has it memorized. Blake will make you watermelon soju (not on the menu) if you ask him to. Eugene has an awesome sense of humor and his roommate Kevin is hilarious, Ozzy is Mr. Friendly, JJ runs the bar like a goddess, Mingju has the best hair, Tori is super sweet, Jessica is very attentive and will check on you the most often during a meal, and literally everyone weve encountered here is really something special. This place has the very best service in town. (sorry if I spelled anyones name wrong or forgot to mention anyone by name, we <3 you all!) It might sound like were friends with the owner or something and thats why were writing this five star review but the reality is - we never knew anyone associated with this place until we started eating here but its like the Korean version of Cheers. Everyone is friendly and if you strike up a conversation with them while youre there they will remember you the next time!

ME

Melissa Edwards

If you want some good AYCE Korean BBQ, GEN is the place to come. I have to say that the wait for place is awesome. They were able to seat 7 of us in 10 - 20 mins @630pm on a Friday night. Pretty impressive. Their sides, appetizers, and meats are delicious. Im very pleased with their food and all the different varieties meats they have to offer. TIP: When ordering especially with a large group order in small increments. We did the mistake of ordering a lot and them bringing everything all at one time. Dont get me wrong. I love fast service but we were literally running out of space on our table. So that was little irritating. But after cooking a few meats as fast as we could we eventually made space. >>GEN has a time limit when dining. 2 hours. To most this is more than enough time to dine. But I find when we dine especially in a large group 2 hours fly by. So when we reached our 2 hour limit they had no problem letting us know. I was a bit upset because we were still ordering. However we were ordering alcohol. We ordered 3 pitchers of Sapporo and 3 bottles of sake and 2 other bottles of beer. So it wasnt like we were just sitting there doing nothing. So we had to rush with our last pitcher. >>One more thing that was a bit bothersome was that we had 3 different servers. Which was fine because it felt like if we asked anyone for anything they would gladly get it. But I just felt like if we were going to be served by someone else other than our server than maybe an introduction was of been nice instead of Eddie saying oh Im taking over Kevin now but Im leaving so Ill come back and introduce your next server ... and he never did. So the night wasnt perfect but we had a great time and ate great food. Oh! and dont forget Macaron Ice cream sandwiches!!! Wed definitely comeback again.

CA

Carly Matthews

I dont know if management was recently changed and they swapped out a few waiters or something, but I have NO idea what people are talking about when they say the service here was poor. This place is absolutely WONDERFUL. My boyfriend and I came in last night without a reservation, and made it in within 20 minutes (they let us go and walk throughout the mall during our wait, and texted us once our table was ready). Once we were seated, we saw that we had an array or complimentary samples at our table. The hostess explained the "rules" (you had 2 hours to eat all that you could, all drinks except water are an extra charge, etc). After that was out of the way, our order was taken by a gentlemen whom I remember to be Todd. He was friendly, attentive, and even patient with explaining how the grill worked. We had never been to a restaurant where you cooked your own food, so it was very new! Spoilers: All of the food is seasoned before you grill it, and its all DELICIOUS. I never had to ask for a refill or service form a waiter. In fact, there was a gentlemen who offered to change out our grill for a fresh one. I didnt even know that was a thing! Seeing as how my boyfriend and I collectively ordered 9 dishes, I think $20 per person is a STEAL. Between the delicious food, friendly staff, and fast service, you can definitely expect to see me here again. My ONLY word of caution is that there IS an extra charge for any meats that you order and dont cook. The portions range from small to medium depending on the dish, so avoiding this shouldnt be too difficult, so long as you pace yourself.