Octo Sushi & Happy Octo Bar

Great lunch specials. Very quiet on weekday lunches. If you’re in a hurry, sit at the sushi counter and you’ll get your order very fast.

This was such a disappointing experience. My girlfriend and I had dinner here last Friday 1÷22÷16 around 8pm. An hour or two later, I started not to feel great (slight headache and incessant belching) but brushed it off and watched a movie at home and had nothing else to eat or drink after dinner. Six hours later, I was up in the middle of the night with food poisoning (I’ll spare the details) for the following 24 hour period. I called the restaurant later the next day and a manager wasn’t available but I was told someone would call me back asap. I did not hear from anyone that night or the next day. I called Saturday, Sunday, and Monday evenings, and was never able to speak to a manager (nor did they call me)…until I called a fourth time on Wednesday. On my prior calls I fielded employees questions about what I ate, and was I «sure» I was sick from their restaurant, but I wasn’t able to speak with a manager. When we finally spoke on Wednesday (five days later), the manager said he was going to refund the item that I ate, the Three Musketeer bowl, which was $ 18.00 of our $ 58.00 total tab. Frankly, I wasn’t trying to get in touch for a refund (although I think it’s an appropriate thing to do), I wanted to notify them of my illness asap so they could be aware and possibly prevent it for other customers. Once he told me he was refunding only that dish, I was really disappointed. Perhaps I’m being unreasonable, but if you’re going to offer a refund for food poisoning, I’d like to think refunding the entire bill is most appropriate… maybe I’m wrong? When I told the manager I was disappointed in their response, he said, «ok, fine.» and then hung up. I should also mention the service wasn’t terrible, but definitely not great. Surprisingly, on a slow Friday night with only four or five other tables with diners, they initially delivered the wrong meal to my girlfriend, and never checked in on how our meals were. After waiting five plus minutes for someone to come by, we had to grab another waiter to let them know they gave us the wrong dish. They were polite, and handled it fine, it just would’ve been nice if our own waiter would’ve been aware.
Having lived on the Hill for 10 years, I was always intrigued by this place since it opened a few years ago. I’m amazed it still exists with so many better sushi options available.
SAVE YOURSELF THE DISAPPOINTMENT! Go spend your money elsewhere and keep your health.

All Night Happy Hour is great! their sushi and sashimi combos are my favorite. I like that they serve shredded radish instead of onion as garnish, so I actually eat it. Fish is usually very fresh. Happy hour til late night is the way to go here I think. I have never sat anywhere but in the cute bar area, which is cozy and usually has good music.

Service is critical in my opinion, and can sway the experience entirely at any bar or restaurant. The service here was god awful! It honestly would’ve been better if it was «serve yourself» style. Bartender was rude, and I thought the food was pretty gross for HH.
We ordered a few sushi combos, seaweed salad, and edamame. The appetizers showed up last, bartender spilled it drinks all over the table and didn’t come back to clean it up, and the fish was mediocre. Also, the bathrooms are kinda disgusting.
Will not return.

We love this place! We are regulars at Octo Sushi. It has a great HH. The service is great and special. We love the waiters and the whole personnel. We especially love our waitress Babe who has become very dear to us over time. Everyone is so accommodating if you have special dietary needs. We usually order Edamame, Alaska roll, Salmon lover (sooo tasty!, it’s one of the restaurant’s signature dish/​bestseller), Tuna and Salmon Nigiri. The food is fresh, the rice is served warm and the place has a very cosy atmosphere. Please order some of their drinks. Proper sour is one of my favorites!
You cannot go wrong with this place! Enjoy and come here more often! You will fall in love with it as we did.
Greetings from Ginger and the other Babe!

[ THE GOOD ]
— They delivery!
[ THE BAD ]
— Spicy Basil Chicken portion was very small for something that is $ 13 and hardly any chicken pieces!
— Flavors were lacking a lot, not to say it was bad, but it definite wasn’t anything to get excited about either.
[ PRO TIP ]
— You can get more bang for your buck elsewhere.

What you can see of this place from the street is just the Octo Bar, so it seems really small. The actual restaurant in the back is actually very spacious.
We had a group of 7 and it seemed like they were bringing the food out right after they were done being prepared. I normally don’t mind this at all (better eat it while it’s fresh) but we had to wait a super long time before each order coming out, even if they were the same dish. The second problem with this is that their dishes are extremely small. So with this staggered rate they were bringing out our food, people were finishing their meals before others had even gotten theirs. No one was full and no one wanted to wait another 20 mins to get another dish.
The food was actually pretty decent but did not walk out of here content.

The food is OK, and reasonable for the price. The happy hour is totally awesome, and the saving grace for this place. There’s one more thing that I need to communicate.
The good people working at Octo work very hard, and you can tell. However, there are not enough of them. The service at Octo is terrible, and it’s not because of the staff. Whoever is running Octo seriously needs to hire some more people to help out.

The food is good for the price and the employees are kind. I have never had an issue other than sometimes the orders took a while to come out.

Good for Happy Hour in a HURRY! When we walked in, it seemed strange to me that with the nice pricing and pretty settings that this restaurant didn’t have a better happy hour crowd — but by the end of my meal, I understood.
Fried foods were good: agadashi tofu and crispy calamari were nicely portioned for the price and fresh out the fryer served piping hot.
Fish was reasonably fresh: white tuna and «super white tuna» aka escolar were ok but the salmon was a little smelly for my taste and unfortunately in many of the rolls.
Rice was just ok, right temperature, but a little overcooked for my taste, as well as just too much of it in the rolls.
$ 3 beer! Ice cold!
But nothing here was anything to recommend (especially with Momiji’s happy hour just down the street) UNLESS you are interested in getting in and out of the happy hour in 30 minutes! The sushi chef and kitchen were amazing quick to get food out. Zippy!

I went here for Happy Hour (5 – 7) on a Friday evening with my girlfriend. We sat in the bar which is right along side, but a few steps above, the sidewalk. There was just us and another group of about 8 people in the bar with has a «maximum capacity» of 15, so it’s a pretty small area.
We ordered a spicy tuna roll, shrimp tempura roll, and an unagi roll. They were each 4 – 5 dollars which was pretty sweet. I got a beer ($ 3) and she got a basil martini ($ 8). The martini tasted just like basil with a little bit of citrus, it was good. Overall good sushi and very good prices during happy hour.
The thing that bugged me was the service. Some things I noticed the bar tender do that I realize happens in every restaurant but it might not be a best practice to let customers see you do it. He made two mixed drinks for his cooks who we could see drinking them through the kitchen door. They returned the favor by making him a couple different rolls, which he ate on the bar just a few feet from us. Now luckily he was a clean and quiet eater so it wasn’t terribly distracting, but he could have taken just a few steps and eaten it in the back.
Bottom line: awesome food, crummy, unprofessional service.

My co-​worker had been coming to Octo Sushi for awhile now and recommended their HH to me. A different friend of mine wanted to come down and visit me so I figured it would be perfect for both of us to try this place. To start with, the HH menu was like others I’ve seen and was pretty excited about the two appetizers for $ 7 dollars deal. We were both confused on what some of their speciality HH rolls were since there were no descriptions (I even went on Unilocal to check out other reviewers descriptions, to no luck).
After ordering, all of our appetizers came out of order and after some of the rolls we ordered. That was slightly confusing and threw me off. The calamari was yummy and I would definitely recommend that. The gyoza was green (wow!) and had a strange bean filling when I was expecting a meat filling. I don’t remember specifically which rolls we got anymore since none of them stood out that much. I just remember the best rolls were probably the salmon lovers roll and the spicy tuna. The spicy tuna was different than most places and it included jalapeños, giving it that kick! Spicy tuna roll was alright, just like what you’d expect. I believe we also ordered a dragon roll, some really deep fried thing… I just can’t remember since it was all just meh. Also got salmon sashimi, now that I think about it. it was average but on the cheaper side!
Overall, I would probably come back a few more times. The price was very much worth the amount of food we got. I would probably try to branch out a little more into their other rolls and maybe try their udon and dinner dishes. Customer service was okay, my greet at the door was very kind. Our server was a little snappy towards us. I wish I could give more stars but not sure I can until I try this place a few more times!

this is one of my favorites in seattle sushi. mostly for their happy hour bar!
i will admit that service can be a little inattentive but you’re paying happy hour prices so i won’t complain. they have improved vastly since they opened years ago. the wait staff is very informed and helpful when you do have their attention.
my fav suggestion would be a saki muscle shooter. what an amazing mix of flavors and textures. it sounds gross but trust me it’s not that much more liquid filled than just an ouster shooter, it just has so much more! just get one! i suggest cold.
go octo! i hope you’re around for years to come.

I love this place. I’ve been here maybe 4 or 5 times, and it’s always a winner. The sushi is always fresh, and the ambiance is modern and very cool. Honestly, I would probably come here even if the sushi wasn’t that great, just for the ambiance. Fortunately the sushi is also worth coming here for. The new bar portion outside of the restaurant is a great touch, too. It’s hard to know which part of the restaurant I like better.
One suggestion: They could introduce a larger sake menu. The last time I came I really wanted to dig into some interesting sake, but they simply offered one house sake. It was a good choice, so I can’t complain. But nonetheless, it would have been nice to explore a fuller sake selection paired with their fantastic sushi.

I had my birthday here with about 20 people and Octo was very friendly and accommodating. Every thing was delicious and it was fun to get to explore the variety of the menu with such a large group.
We’ve since been back and have been less impressed with the drinks and sushi. It’s still a fun place when you want some casual but diverse sushi options.

I had sushi delivery from Octo Sushi for lunch today. The fish did not seem as fresh as I’ve gotten elsewhere in Seattle (Shiku, Umi Sake House, Kisaku, I Love Sushi, Musashi’s, etc.) It was not «bad» though, so I don’t really have any complaints. Average prices for Seattle.
I would order sushi delivery from them again.

food: chicken bento box. nothing inspiring. i think the sauce was a bit too sweet and the food was luke warm. ***3/​5
service: service for 3 took over 40 minutes before food is even served. there were only 3 other tables and one was already eating. not sure what took so long to get the food out. the other people had a rice bowl and salmon bento. nothing too complicated. make sure to put enough time if you really want to try it. ***2/​5
ambiance: its a neat little place. very spacious. theres a bar area which was confusing when we went in. we didnt know which way to head inside the restaurant. ***3/​5
value: for the quality of the food and the wait. not worth your time. maybe it was just a bad day. but even if the service was great, the food doesnt bring it home. ***2/​5

This is the maggot which came with the edamame I ordered. when I called to request a portion of my order refunded being that it was the portion which I co
uldn’t eat after my discovery, manager declined and offered a 20 (initially 10) percent to my next meal. i expressed that i had no intention to reorder from this restaurant and he said he could not do anything. day ruiner.

There are so many sushi options here!
I couldn’t even name all the rolls we had, but we ordered a ton of sushi that was both cheap and delicious.
The sake was some of the best I’d ever had.
I expected the sushi in Seattle to be more legit than the sushi in North Carolina and I was right.
This place is awesome!

This place was just OK in my book. Nothing to get overly excited about although I was excited to try a new sushi spot on the hill.
For a Friday night the place was pretty much dead. Only 2 other tables were occupied and service was slooooooow. The staff was friendly and polite however it took quite some time for us to get a drink order in (yes, you can order alcohol here… although the actual bar area was under repair?). Once drink orders were in, it was another 10+ minutes before the gal came back with a drink… she then left… came back several minutes later and FINALLY we could order some food. Some 25 minutes after being seated we were able to get a food order in. Not sure what the deal was here. Whomever was making drinks as well was clearly not a bartender of sorts. It took forever for drinks to come out (ordered 2 each the time we were there) and tasted slightly off.
My friend ordered sushi rolls and I ordered the deep sea passion meal which was prawns, scallops, and some veggies in a hot garlic sauce. First, it was not hot in the least it. I was a bit disappointed. Secondly, the scallops were pretty much raw as were some of the shrimp. As I didn’t want to wait forever again to receive food I kind of just ate what I could. It wasn’t a terrible dish, but it wasn’t great either. Rice was a bit dry.
Not sure if I would come back here unless it was happy hour and I was in the area.