Bendoya Restaurant

They tout being the best sushi in town — and they are! I’ve tried several places in town. Great daily specials like 2 rolls for 1 and pick two. The service is always fast and friendly. There are no better Sushi chefs in town! If you are a sushi lover, you will not be disappointed!

I’d actually give Bendoya closer to 3.5 stars.
First and foremost, let me echo what has been said in other reviews… The buy one, get one free sushi roll deal on Tuesday’s, Thursday’s, and Friday’s is awesome! Where else can you get two rolls of sushi for $ 6-​$ 12?
I used to dine at Bendoya’s about once a week to enjoy this deal. My sushi-​loving friend no longer works downtown, so now I occasionally order carryout. I will say that I like the carryout experience better. When dining in, the speed of service can be hit or miss depending on the day or time you’re there. There have been times when it’s been exceptionally slow, as well as times when there’s no problem. However, carrying out eliminates this problem altogether.
I’m not a sushi expert; I normally stick to the cooked stuff. I think the sushi is pretty good. Not mindblowing, but pretty similar to sushi I’ve had elsewhere. Sushi freshness becomes really important when you’re ordering rolls with raw fish, which I do not. When you order the rolls with spicy crab, shrimp, etc, I find they all taste close to the same.
A few things that standout to me about Bendoya. 1) The rolls are a bit smaller than other places around town. I can easily finish two rolls. Makes sense, considering their BOGO special. Still, they’re not tiny by any means, and I actually prefer the bite size. I like that I can put an entire piece in my mouth without feeling like I’m going to choke. 2) They don’t have a menu overloaded with $ 15 specialty rolls. I like this too. Their rolls are more basic, but still contain some «specialty» ingredients. The description of each roll is listed on their menu. 3) The house salad… Leave it. I did not like the taste of the ginger dressing at all. I was expecting something along the lines of the dressing at Sapporo, but Bendoya’s ginger dressing was much more strong and harsh.
Overall, Bendoya is worthy of 3.5 stars to me. The buy one, get one free deal for decent sushi is worth a visit alone. If you want to avoid the crowds and wait times, go early or carryout.

My coworkers and I stopped here for lunch last Friday during our business trip to Louisville. This restaurant is definitely one of the best spots for noodles and sushi. The weather was a bit overcast and there was light rain so a few of my coworkers and I had the phở beef soup noodles. The soup was absolutely delicious, which says a lot since I’m from Southern CA where there’s an array of authentic phở restaurants. We also shared the egg rolls and vegetable tempura. The different sauces for our appetizers were very tasty. I didn’t try the sushi but my coworker from Denver who had it said it was the best sushi she ever had! My coworkers couldn’t stop talking about the food. The customer service was top notch! We will definitely be back again when we’re back in Louisville again!

There appear to be a lot of not-​so-​great reviews for Bendoya, but I have to say I think it’s alright. It’s nothing special. I mean, the sushi is comparable to any other place in town and I think several places actually have better sushi; but, it’s close to my workplace, so I go to lunch here from time to time. They have a special three days a week that’s buy one get one free, so it’s nice to be able to get two rolls for the price of one. The menu is priced reasonably, so it makes for an easy meal that’s not very expensive.
I’ve never had trouble with having a long wait at Bendoya. I see that several other reviews say they waited much longer than they should have for their meal, but I have never personally experienced this. I know they do get busy on the days that they run the special, but I usually make it a point to go sometime outside the usual lunch rush around 12:00 p.m. I have gone several times at 11:45 a.m. and 12:30 — 1:00 p.m. and never had any trouble being greeted, seated, and served in a timely manner.
Overall I think Bendoya is a fine place to grab a quick reasonably priced lunch. If you’re in the downtown area and are looking for a sushi spot I would recommend it.

Americanized Japanese food that is not very good. Ordered gyoza, 2 rolls and 2 piece of nigiri. One piece of nigiri arrived with a bone in it! The gyoza (pan fried dumplings) was deep fried in tempura batter and both rolls were literally drowning in eel sauce. There was enough sauce on them that they fell apart sitting on the serving dish. I asked for Udon, but they do not have it. The bad part… I was one of three patrons in the restaraunt, and the other two were at the table next to me and had yet to order. This wasn’t a busy lunch time problem, etc. It was a lack of care and/​or skill. I will not be back.

The best part is the buy one get one free deal on wed Thur and Friday.
The rolls are good but it great but their best roll is caterpillar roll.
For $ 5.5 a roll after the buy one get one free deal, it’s well worthy.
Remember their deal only applies to the cheapest roll you buy as freebies… So it is ideal to buy two of the same priced roll and not anything cheaper… Or else you will end up with buy $ 12 get $ 4 free… If you order one cheap roll.
You get the idea.
Not run by Japanese but has decent food quality. Not great but for that price, what more can you ask for?

Gas Station Sushi — I’ve had better sushi from a gas station convenience store. Service was terrible and for at least the second time, they ran out of Coke products.
This was the first place I ever had sushi, years ago, and it was great. However, over the years I’ve seen this place go way down hill. Today was my last visit here.
There are many more sushi places in Louisville now, so you don’t have to settle for second rate sushi at or above market prices.

This place is pretty awesome. The service could use some improvement, but I don’t really care because the sushi is so good. It’s some of the best sushi I’ve ever had, if not the best. They have 2 for 1 Thursdays and usually aren’t busy at all. I would definitely recommend it! Try the jake roll.

First impressions are everything…
Based on my lunch date’s good past experiences at Bendoya, when I suggested sushi for lunch she took me here. It also happened to be 2 for 1 sushi rolls on Thursday, even better!
We walked in and immediately she commented that they were more busy than normal. No big deal, we had some time. We were seated by the busy hostess and she gave us two options, both by the door with cold drafts coming in from outside. Again, we adapted — who wouldn’t leave their coat on for some good sushi?
Then — perhaps because we refused to see the earlier warning signs — the wheels totally fell off of this experience. The server was less than pleasant when she stopped by to get our drink order. Come to find out, it’s because she was the only server with a good 30 tables to manage. We had to flag her down finally and demand she take our order. She grabbed it without apology. After an HOUR of waiting, we had to ask that when our food did arrive that it please be boxed up because we had to get back to work. We were held hostage waiting on this order, and other tables were experiencing the same thing. When our sushi rolls finally did arrive, my lunch partner’s order was incorrect and had to be redone. I had to take mine back to work and eat it between meetings later so while it was made correctly I was eating older sushi out of styrofoam. Yuck.
When I paid there was no apology, no attempt to reconcile (hell give me my iced tea for free, SOMETHING to acknowledge the awful service, and I might have been ok), and I was told that in addition to being shy a server, one of their sushi chefs had also called in. Possibly something you could have clued me into before you sat us and then ignored us into oblivion.
So many ways this could have been handled differently. It’s not the fault of the few people running that lunch service that they were short staffed. However, a positive customer experience was still within their control and they botched it miserably.
I’d say I’d be back to try these guys out again on a better day but if the front of the house is run this poorly I’m concerned about what operations look like in back. There are just too many other options downtown to fool with this one again any time soon.

We had gone for their Lunch special 2 for 1, the sushi was fresh and really good, it was slow but the service was mediocre. But will defiantly go back for the food.

Me and my daughter went here for lunch one day after purchasing the Groupon. We loved our rolls very much and I tried their miso soup. The soup had a weird sandy texture that I wasn’t used to seeing in other miso soups, but it tasted fine.
By looking at the signs, it really isn’t necessary to have a Groupon to take advantage of great 2 for 1 deals. We went after the rush lunch hour so it wasn’t packed at all. Would eat there again for sure.

I see a lot of mediocre reviews but I’ve always had great sushi here and good service. It gets busy on tues, thurs, fri because of the half price sushi. I usually go around 12:45 to avoid the crowd.
Try the volcano roll.
⁹⁄₂₆ — revising my review because their service levels and food delivery speed need to be greatly improved. It’s been slow in off hours as well just for an order of 2 rolls. There’s really no reason for it.

Usually I go to Osaka for their sushi specials, but I thought I’d give Bendoya a try since it was close by. It was packed when we got there (around noon), but the server who greeted us initially was nice. She took our order quickly, but we had to wait nearly an hour to get our lunch. I had a spicy California roll that was flavorless except for the globs of spicy mayo on top. My favorite — the spider roll — was a huge disappointment. Not only was it as bland as the California, but the soft shell crab was actually Krab with tempura flakes mixed in to make it appear fried. It was cold and mushy, and it was doused in a sauce that didn’t do it any favors. We asked for our checks before our food even came in order to get out of their quickly, and once the server disappeared with our cards it took nearly ten minutes to get them back. It was a $ 10 lunch including a coke, which is less than what I’d have paid at Osaka, but with the bland sushi and long wait it definitely wasn’t worth it.

Despite all the reviews of the crowd. I went around 2pm on a Thursday, so I was seated right away. The service was good, well considering the lunch rush ended. I had two sushi rolls, which I don’t remember, but they both had spicy tuna, one with eel the other with salmon. The sushi was ok. Nothing special. I thought the rice was a little bit too mushy for my taste.
Overall, it was okay, nothing special. But good deal, 2 for 1 on Tues, Thurs, and I think Fri’s as well.

Good sushi, decent price. Nice staff. They definitely got the rice right, which can really make or break a sushi place.
Update: They done went and pissed me off. Went in for the 2 for 1 lunch special. Service was terrible. No one explained how the special worked. Wound up paying more than I thought I should have. Wait staff didn’t seem to care that I felt misled. You should never leave a restaurant feeling like you’ve been taken advantage of.
From now on, I’ll be going to Osaka around the corner for $ 1 sushi when I feel like imbibing large amounts of raw fish.

First let me qualify this review by saying that I am a sushi amateur (no raw fish). I was very happy with the number of selections available and the friendly service. I was there on a Thursday which features half of the bill on a number of certain rolls on the menu. The service was a bit slow given the apparent popularity of this special (apparently also available on Tuesdays). We sat at the bar and were offered a free appetizer during our somewhat extended wait. The food was delicious and flavorful and made for a quite satisfying lunch.

The sushi was good. The prices were good. What really made the place was the awesome service and friendly staff. I would gladly go back any time I’m in the area.

I’ve been to Bendoya twice: my first time and my last time (badum-​CHING!) In all seriousness, I went to Bendoya for their Thursday lunch special. Historically, this place offered half off all sushi on Thursdays for lunch. I went with a group of coworkers that went regularly. There were no signs posted or anything on the menu mentioning the special, but the place was packed, implying to me that there must have been some type of deal going on.
The packed nature of the restaurant really slowed things down. It probably took an hour and a half from the time we sat down to the time we paid our bills. Our server really didn’t greet us and eventually collected our sushi papers where we indicated our orders. The long wait certainly built up the anticipation, but once served the sushi was standard and definitely nothing special. I would say Sapporo, Osaka and Caviar, all also downtown, are definitely better. I had a crunch munch roll, hill roll and some yellow-​tail sushi. Prices were $ 9, $ 9 and $ 4, so I was looking to spend around $ 13 + tax and tip. The real fun began when our bills arrived.
My total bill was around $ 18. I was trying to figure out the math on the thing and thought perhaps it was full price and they neglected to charge me for the yellow-​tail. When someone came by to take away our plates, we asked if the special had changed. This individual not our server, goes on to say that «Yeah, we changed it. Your server should have told you that. Whenever I greet a table, I start out with a detailed explanation of the special. It used to be 50% everything, now it is buy 1, get 1 free of equal of lesser value». At this point, I realized they had elected the $ 4 piece of sushi as my «free» item. I explained to that server the situation with my bill and that it would be more logical and more fair to me if one of my $ 9 items were the free in the buy 1, get 1 free. She wasn’t really buying this, said she would check with the manager, who subsequently came out. She offered 10% off my bill, which I didn’t really want, as I was more concerned with the principle of the matter.
I explained my logic to the manager and how «buy 1, get 1 free of equal or lesser value» works essentially everywhere else. This, coupled with the fact that the special policy was never shared with us seemed unfair. The manager just argued with me and said, «well, that’s not how we do it here». I went on to explain to her, that with this policy, I was essentially charged an incremental $ 9 for an item on the menu that is $ 4. If I would have bought two $ 9 rolls, my bill would’ve been $ 9. By adding a $ 4 roll, my total shot up to $ 18. Not very logical. She refused to budge, so I thanked her for her time and for allowing me to experience the restaurant twice (my first and last).
To recap, the food was average, nothing special, but probably worth gorging on if you could get a great deal. I will have to try the Osaka lunch special at some time to compare. The fact that Bendoya took so long, coupled with the nonsensical special policy and the manager’s nasty attitude really turned me off to this place. I already shy away from going out to eat for lunch due to how much more cost effective it is to pack a lunch. When I end up inadvertently dropping $ 20 for a mediocre sushi lunch, it further galvanizes my viewpoint and encourages me to save the bucks and save the hassle of joining the rat race that is lunchtime in downtown Louisville.

Nothing special about this place. The same sushi and meals you get at other Japanese restaurants. Makes for an expensive lunch.

I need to give props to my friends at Bendoya. I visit them for some friendly lunch take-​out during my usual work week at least once once weekly. I call them up, give them my order (which they basically know by now anyway), and I come in 10 minutes later and it’s all ready to go!
True it is not the best sushi I’ve had in my whole life, but their service is friendly, attentive, reasonably priced and speedy for quick lunches out. They also have a new and improved expanded dining room that is a quick hop from many of the business right downtown Louisville. If you’re a sushi person, grab a couple friends, get out of your office and try out some lunch here!