GEN Korean BBQ House

My family and I really enjoy this place! It’s close to home, all-you-can-eat, and the food is delicious. I especially love coming for lunch since it’s around $20 per person and even cheaper for kids — such a great deal! The dinner price isn’t bad either, especially for what you get.

Just a heads-up, it can get pretty smoky inside, and depending on what time you come in the evening, there might be a wait of about 1–2 hours.

Overall, it’s a great spot for families and larger groups to enjoy a fun, tasty meal together.

Atmosphere: 3

Food: 4

Service: 4

The food here is good, but the service was extremely disappointing. We waited about 45 minutes for a table on a Saturday night, which was understandable, but the problems started once we were seated. No one came to our table for the first 10 minutes, and when we finally ordered drinks and requested banchan, it took an unusually long time to arrive.

We visit the Pearlridge location often and are usually in and out within an hour to an hour and 15 minutes. This time, we were still waiting for our food 90 minutes later. Throughout the meal, we had to repeatedly flag down staff just to ask about our drinks, the rest of our food, fresh rice, sauce, or even a grill change.

I understand weekends can be busy, but the level of service was unacceptable. We weren’t the only ones feeling this way—the frustration was obvious on the faces of other nearby guests as well. Please address these issues so customers can enjoy the food without dealing with such poor service.

Atmosphere: 2

Food: 3

Service: 1

First off I want to say that my server and bartender were fantastic. I have NO complaints about the service quality because the staff are ABSOLUTELY. ON. IT! Secondly I was not satisfied nor impressed by the food quality or quantity. All of our appetizers were cold and mushy, the portion sizes are SO INCREDIBLY SMALL (i thought Korean BBQ places were supposed to give you meat by the pound??? Maybe my expectations have been set too high from other Korean BBQ places??) Maybe im just being a karen?? Idk. But i was extremely unhappy about the food quality and quantity forsure. myself nor my friends and family are never coming back here though to be brutally honest 😬
Extremely overpriced for the quantity you get. Food quality was terrible if i javent already said that (mushy appetizers) Extremely UNSATISFACTORY. I would not recommend anyone coming here.
BUT the service is great, that is the only reason im giving 2 stars instead of 1 star

We had the worst customer experience our server name was Dylan L, first she dropped a water and spilled it all over my shorts but we let it go she must be having a though day it's ok. What really was unprofessional on Dylan was when l asked for a fork and she literally drops it on the table instead of handing it in my hand. That was really rude of her to do. Next she never once changed our grill each time she passed by asking everyone else if they needed something but ignored our table so we decided to leave even though we wanted to order more food. Also, we tried to ask for water while she was passing by and she ignored us. We ended up asking the hostess for water.
Then we had to go to the front to check out and explain to manager about the waitress and said she's acting like that because she wasn't suppose to work so basically she was backing her up instead of just saying sorry we apologize that's it. Plus she was not wearing a name tag but the receipt show her name and we ask for the name.

Atmosphere: 2

Food: 4

Service: 1

The food is great. The service was horrible. The hostess sat my waitress with 6 tables at once. I never got my drink. I had to ask 3 times about my husbands drink. That took 40 minutes to get. We never got sauces. The manager never stepped up to help the waitress. They didnt change out our grill. I will not come back because of service. We had a similar experience at the one in pearl city. Lesson learned, don't go to gen.

Atmosphere: 2

Food: 4

Service: 1

Although their food is somewhat good. The customer service to get a table was bad. One of the Hostess had an attitude and I believe her name was Trinity. As I was trying to reserve a table for me and a friend. At that point, we decided to eat at Pearls Korean BBQ.. Smh! I do not recommend eating here due to the other reviews and the customer service. Their service is terrible in my opinion.

Atmosphere: 1

Food: 4

Service: 1

This was one of my great experiences with GEN restaurant. We usually go to the Pearl City location, but this time we tried the Kapolei location. Our waitress (Jayleen) was awesome. She was attentive, quick, and personable. She is a great asset to GEN. I hope the company sees this review and acknowledge the great work she does for them. The food was awesome as usual. We mainly had Hawaiian beef steak, teriyaki pork chop, and shrimp. We love the pork chops and shrimp the most. We hope GEN restaurant is here for a long time. Keep up the good work and food. A+++++

Atmosphere: 4

Food: 4

Service: 5

We had a very poor experience at this location. We waited to be seated, but no one greeted or acknowledged us. Several staff members saw us and simply looked without offering any assistance. After standing there with no response, we decided to leave.

Unfortunately, based on this experience, I do not recommend this place.

Atmosphere: 1

Service: 1

Found a hair in their food and they don't care about it.

Atmosphere: 1

Food: 1

Service: 1

Horrible service, everything is greasy including the menu, stove knob and floor, a waitress almost burnt me with the grill when changing it, they were constantly forgetting and giving us extra food and wrong orders, charged us for a drink we didn't buy, took almost 40 minutes to get out the 2nd order, knocked my phone off of the table when cleaning, and let the dishes stack. Never going here again.

Atmosphere: 1

Food: 4

Service: 1

Service is really slow, no urgency in the restaurant. Cant be waiting 30 minutes to get a water and be told the menu. I get you are busy but really? Food is meh as well.

Atmosphere: 5

Food: 2

Service: 1

Three of us went there last night. Foods are good. Our waiter or waitress is good. A host is good to arrived us for table. Those services are good so far. Atmosphere, I wasn’t sure how to explain but those are too much smoking everywhere from grills in the whole room. It was warm and a little bit hot inside the restaurant. I can see some customers got sweat and use the hand-fan. It’s irritating me a bit and I couldn’t stand smell continue where I’m sitting for hour or so. I told them I must leave to fresh outside to avoid over smoking not want me troubling my breath, sweat, and hot inside continuing. No offensive. I can smell my hair and my clothes from grill smoking, oh dear…

Atmosphere: 1

Food: 5

Service: 5

Restaurant is 30% capacity and they won’t seat you- expect to be on the waitlist a long time.

Great food, especially for the price. We did experience pretty significant delays in between ordering and with overall serving time but I would still go back. Zero complaints on every meat choice we ordered. We skipped on apps.

Atmosphere: 4

Food: 4

Service: 3

Good deal and good food but seems like they’re constantly under staffed. There’s always a wait and the Restuarant isnt full, there’s at least half the Restuarant seating available yet 7 parties waiting and they don’t have enough servers to pick up the open tables? Not sure what’s going on. Seems like a management issue.

Atmosphere: 2

Food: 5

Service: 2