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Excellent as always! We love that Live always has the fish we want: walu, uni from Santa Barbara as well as something new to try. 5+ stars for Mai who is cheerful, warm and kind. We always feel welcomed by her. She’s a main reason why we go back again and again.
Great neighborhood gem!
For great quality sushi highly recommend Live Sushi Bar! Service is always great and taking time to recognize and greet us.
The sushi here is always AMAZING. So so so good! The service was phenomenal as well. Just my favorite sushi place in the city.
Location makes parking a challenge. Food was good. Great lunch spot if you like sushi & sashimi.
We were there for NYE dinner. They were very busy of course, so it’s understandable that the service wasn’t the best. Unfortunately our food came out slow, and we waited a long time to get our check. Food overall was subpar. There are better places in SF to eat sushi.
Awesome service and I credit food
My friend took charge of the order, ordering way more than i would have imagined and somehow we gobbled all it down! shrimp heads, yum! urchin roe, a sweet scent of the sea in a creamy foamy deliciousness. the service was overwhelmed. We never got water, waited quite a while for our check to be taken but overall, we could hear each other talk, the food was tasty and the price was right.
I ate here back in August for a late birthday celebration. We sat at the bar and had a lovely evening. The food was yum, service was great, I was excited to come back. So I did for another friend's birthday. What a complete opposite experience. I put in the notes of the res that it was a birthday, so I thought maybe a birthday greeting when we gave our name; nothing but that's ok. What was beyond frustrating was the amount of times I had to flag someone down to get any service. If the restaurant was busy I could have understood, but it was half empty and they seemed fully staffed. We were never checked on, if I wanted anything I had to attempt to get someone's attention, we didn't get all of the food we ordered, and since we didn't have anyone check on us throughout our meal we had to bus our own area basically and put the dishes at the edge of the table we were sitting at. The whole night was so disappointing to the point I actually wrote a note on our receipt. I have worked in many restaurants over the last 10 years, I get that there will be the occasional bad night. But this bad night made me never want to come here again.
TL;DR - Every dish was delivered ~20 mins apart and portions so small that we left hungry and finished our dinner at Whole Foods. +1 star because it tasted fine, and +1 star because they comp'd some items after we expressed our upset. Won't be back, ever.
We ordered 4 rolls, 1 order of Ankimo, and 1 order of sashimi and it took 1.5 hrs to be served. Each roll averaged $12-14 and had ~6 pieces. That's $2.50 per bite! The food tasted fine but definitely not worth this much! Between 3 people at any other comparable sushi restaurant, this amount of food would be a satisfactory dinner (give or take a roll).
The most infuriating thing was the wait between each dish being delivered. LUCKILY we were sharing everything! If not, I can imagine that the 3rd person's order would've taken nearly an hour into the meal. At the portion size, we literally left hungry. We'd actually ordered an extra double-hamachi roll part-way into the meal after seeing how small the earlier portions were. It didn't arrive until another 30 minutes.
By that point we were absolutely fed up and had already vocalized to the waitress in an honest and respectful way. When it arrived, we told them to take it off the bill because we wanted to GTFO of there and not give them another penny. Funny enough, this roll she brought was almost twice the portion of the first roll we ordered of the same type. Appears they'll only deliver value if you complain?
When we refused this roll, they were kind enough to remove 2 items from the bill of items we did consume. Giving them a star for that, but not enough to make me ever want to come back here to potentially experience this again.
The server was beyond awful. Didn’t acknowledge us for 15 minutes after we sat down. Never introduced herself. Only spoke to us in short, choppy sentences, forgot multiple dishes on the counter.
Waygu beef roll was off the charts
I’m usually impressed: really like there food. I went with a party of 6 and out bill was close to $700 our server was so rude. That’s why I hate having auto gratuity. I rather tip someone extra then tip for crappy service
Aji Tataki is awesome! Great value and good fresh fish.
Live Sushi has a fun atmosphere, super friendly servers, and excellent sushi. You can't go wrong here. They have many daily unique fish selections, and their Family roll is fantastic.
Great sushi!
The food was great but the service was not great. They took forever to bring us our food, when others were getting their food that had sat down after us. The bill took long to be returned to us after paying, the service could have been a lot better and we felt that they kept trying to rush us out.
My 60th Birthday. Everything was great up until we were served our Wagyu A5 experience. Definitely not worth the money. The bone in Ribeye was not as good as I had hoped. So overall just a “fair” experience!!
This was a disappointing birthday dinner. They messed up the appetizers they wanted us to pre order. Brought the birthday boy his food when everyone else had finished their dinner and then asked us to leave as soon as we had finished so they could re seat. Maybe it’s better for smaller groups!
We love Live Sushi. We have two kids and Live is one of our favorite places to eat on a Friday night because of how accommodating and kid-friendly they are. The service is really great. The food is delicious, too!
Good food, a bit expensive but we sat at the counter so there was an experiential aspect to the dinner. The sake options are more expansive than other Japanese places so that's nice
My family and I go to Live Sushi often and take out on a weekly basis. We normally have a wonderful experience and the staff is beyond helpful and especially nice to our daughter. However, this time we were not greeted with the same quality of service. We asked for a high chair on the reservation, but there was not one set up and after asking a few times, I finally went to go get one myself as my toddler was getting heavy and restless. We were not given glasses for our bottle of sake, our other drinks came after the food arrived and our Live Sushi was just handed to us without any explanation of the types of fish being served. Overall, it seemed as though we were inconveniencing the staff, which was strange because it was 5:45 and the restaurant only had a few tables full. While this isn’t going to stop us from frequenting Live Sushi yet, I truly hope they are able to fix the issues with the staff. Another note, we were taking my boss who is from out of town out to dinner to one of our favorite restaurants and she was far from impressed. Very disappointing.
Delightful. So much good variety of sushi.
Fresh fish! My favorite sushi spot in the city
The food was amazing!
Fantastic spot. Great food, reasonable prices. Would highly recommend
The salmon toro, scallops and tuna handrolls, and the sushi party were all fantastic! The service was attentive and accommodating. If we are in San Francisco again we are definitely coming back!
A fantastic spot. Delicious, reasonably priced, and excellent service. Can't say enough good things about Live Sushi
Love my live sushi team! ❤️
We absolutely love Live Sushi! The food is great and the service is even better! They are sooooo kid friendly! With two young kids, that’ll keep me coming back.
Friend meeting
Love live sushi I can’t believe I had never dined here before 100000% coming back
Best sushi in city
Small, low key, unassuming neighborhood place, not gorgeous interior, but fine. Sushi was really shockingly good. We'd read the reviews but didn't really feel confident when we walked in. But everything was fantastic, and we have all eaten sushi in Japan and in some of the most high end places around US. We will be back soon!
Top notch menu and sake selection. Can’t wait to go back to try more of their exotic rolls/apps.
This place was pretty good. A lot of fried roll options which i tend to stay away from cause I dont feel like it sushi. The nigiri was average and the best thing we probably got was the Romeo and Juliet roll. I felt like the water/ water glasses smelled like fish which was unpleasant.
Finally checked this place out, probably 15 years since I first heard of it. It was hit-or-miss.
The good:
* Pretty cute space, kinda mom-n-pop, not fancy, kinda rustic
* They treated our 4-year-old and 1-year-old kids exceptionally well
* Bergschneider roll with unagi, salmon and avocado was on point
* Hamachi sashimi was delicious
* Edamame was nicely seasoned, salted through
* Short rib teriyaki appetizer was super yummy
The meh:
* The Live Sushi Combo was almost forgettable except the terrible white sashimi, I have no idea what fish it was, but it was the most flavorless watery sponge I've ever tasted. I don't know why they served it. The salmon sashimi was also just so incredibly bland. And then of the 7 nigiri, 2 were maguro and 2 were albacore. Wtf! I order the combo to get a *combination* of fishes, not 4 tunas!!
* The ikura nigiri was salty and fishy but lacked the juiciness and sweetness of a good ikura. My kids usually love ikura and they wouldn't eat this, and I could see why.
Overall I'd go back but just do the cooked items and the fancy rolls, maybe the hamachi if I wanted some unadulterated fish.
Definitely trust the chefs here. Anything in the Specials is super yummy. The standard menu is also executed to perfection. A favorite go-to in SF.
Food was solid and the sushi was fresh. Just want I like a neighborhood sushi joint.
Had an amazing experience here for a work dinner with clients. Will definitely be coming back!
