Big Wave Sushi

I really enjoy the sushi here and always feel really welcomed by the owner and employees. Highly recommended!

Great food today. Had the Spider roll, Aboriginal Sidewinder and Salmon bonbon. The rolls were great and the bonbon was ok… just not for us.

Went in for lunch with my SO and we have never been so happy with a place or their food ever. It wasnt busy, the décor was nice (and so were the restrooms!) The waitress was casual and great. We ordered a bowl, 3 rolls and the tea bar and it was all amazing. There is a large selection of food and tea. Its an overall great place and we are excited to come back for the live music nights!

Love this place! Better get there early, as it fills up quickly! Worth the wait though. Great service; wonderful music (not too loud) multi generational and the wife even loves it!
The owner is no stranger to the area. He was up in Oxford years ago at a place called Third Wave Seafood and Chop House.
Just wish it had more tables!

It’s a really cool atmosphere, the staff is all friendly.
There’s live music on Fridays and Saturdays, which makes it that much cooler.
If you’re in the area, you won’t be disappointed.
The food is all delicious, I’ve had about everything on the menu.
The mussels are a must try; SO GOOD.

Best Miso soup I’ve ever had!!! Sushi never disappoints either. Such a great find in Lake Orion– we come at least once a week!!! Highly recommend.

I live in the area and didn’t even realize this place was here! The space is nicely decorated, there’s plenty of seating. The staff was super friendly. It was one of the employee’s birthday, and they were nice enough to offer us a slice of the cake! The miso soup really delicious, just the right amount of salty and the sushi was really good and nicely wrapped. They also offer a more than generous pour of Johnnie Walker Black, like, really generous. There was a lot of variety on the menu, I can’t wait to try more options!

Neo beatnik interior, oozing with creative vibes but not too crowded with décor. For a Western-​Japanese café, I give this place 5 stars. Chai latte is a bonus. The food: very pleasant. We ordered the sashimi combo, the rainbow roll, spider roll, and a sandbar roll. They couldn’t have paired and played off of each other more perfectly. My mouth was as happy as the retro funk music in the background. Did I mention there’s a piano? Service was sweet and mild mannered, on point as well. Will be driving from Lapeer to come here again.. . sorry, no photos, we ate it all!

Not sure where all these good ratings came from, must be the owner’s friends. We were the only table there, it took them 30 minutes to bring out 3 rolls of sushi, we almost cancelled the order. The nori was super rubbery and chewy, never had that happen before. The spicy mayo was all mayo, little to no spicy/​flavor — disgusting! Then we waited around for our check, all the employees were just sitting around talking by the cash register, we just got up to pay and left. Definitely not an authentic sushi place, actually, it was the worst sushi I’ve ever had. Kroger have better sushi. I’m never going back again.

Their lunch specials are great. Been there for many a times and i don have any complaints or regrets. I would go back again and again.

My wife and I came here for dinner one night, and we won’t be going back. I’ll keep it short:
1.) Understaffed (1 chef, 1 waitress, 25 people dining simultaneously)
2.) Long wait (self seating, 10 minutes for water, 20 minutes to order, 20 minutes for sushi from order… see number 2)
3.) Poor quality «sushi» (more like rice rolls; there was hardly any shrimp in our rolls)
4.) Temperature. It was 58 deg outside and the chef apparently decided he was hot so he opened the door (which opens directly into the seating area). Others were also starting to look around, questioning why it was open; the waitress eventually shut it since someone asked for it to be shut.
Considering there are a lot of positive reviews on here, perhaps we got the B-​Team (or C-​Team) experience, but not worth a second trip to find out.

I’ve made several more trips to Big Wave since my last review, and feel the need to give it 5 stars. (Still not crazy about the price, but you are paying for high quality ingredients). The chefs are great, the service is friendly, and the food is just phenomenal. I love the dim sum and gyoza. I love the rolls. I’m very picky and detest mayonnaise and cream cheese, which is present in several rolls. They’re always polite about my food aversions and making sure my sushi doesn’t contain them. Good music is usually in the background.
I really, really look forward to coming here and now have gotten my kids addicted as well!

It takes forever (especially for carry-​out), and we’ve seen the waitstaff actually take the phone off the hook during busy times (!!). But the sushi is VERY good. We always get salmon sushi, crunchy shrimpy rolls, California rolls. Last week we tried the Texas Brushfire Roll. OH YEAH. This thing was crazy good. A little heat, and so many layers of flavor, it’s unreal. We are not sushi snobs (yes…I will eat Kroger sushi if I am hungry), nor are we experts, but we’ve had quite a bit and LOVE this place.

I went to the opening day and eat here about 2 – 3 times a month. Food is always fresh. Display is top notch and the establishment is small but comforting. If you make it on a Friday and Saturday they have great live music and with the new bar addition you can party all night lol. The owner is always working. Which in my opinion is the reason why I’m coming back. Someone who takes pride in their business I can show respect to. 2 – 3 tall Sapporos, and Boston roll, house salad, miso, and a shashimi sampler. LOVE BIG WAVE!

Very good sushi! The staff was amazing and the quality of the ingredients was great!

Nice small place for sushi, great selection of food and drinks they also have a live band love this place for being out in the middle of now where. Wish they had more selection on sushi but still with it. Def on the pricy end

Room for improvement. Lot’s of room.
Makimoto wasn’t open yet, Noble Fish was too far south, so my wife, son, and I decided to give Big Wave Sushi a try. After all, it met my Unilocal standard of ‘no less than 3 stars, no less than 20 reviews’.
We walked in, and were the only customers. The lone server looked at us, the guy playing the guitar in the corner looked at us (we later found out he was the chef), but nobody said ‘Sit where you like”, or «Where would you like to sit?» They just looked at us. So, after a pause, we picked a table and sat down.
Drink orders were taken, and we began looking over the menu.
Meanwhile, another family came in, and sat at a table nearby.
Our server was friendly, but she wasn’t too attentive. Empty drinks, long waits before she came back to the table, and all she was doing was leaning on the counter by the cash register.
For appetizers we ordered the miso soup, ginger salad, and some edamame. The edamame was delicious — perfectly steamed and salted. The ginger salad was uninspired.
The miso soup… hmmm. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t miso soup. Loads of noodles (What?), too many onions, and it seems the chef was trying to get rid of an excess of hot chili oil, because he drizzled it all over the soup. I like hot, but this was distracting. And nothing I’ve ever seen in miso soup across the country, so I wouldn’t have expected this, and would have appreciated knowing it was going to be in there. A mouthful of hot chili oil had me nearly coughing, and my wife, who doesn’t like much spice if any, couldn’t eat it. Every bite made her cough. We looked at a menu to see if we’d missed a mention of chili oil — nope. When the server returned with our edamame my wife asked if she could have another bowl of the soup, without the oil. When my wife mentioned that she did not like anything spicy, and suggested the menu should mention the chili oil in the soup, our server mumbled a weak agreement and went off to get more miso soup.
Our sushi arrived 30 seconds after the miso soup sans chili oil. My wife took a bite of her Carnival roll and discovered that, while not mentioned on the menu, the roll had a generous helping of wasabi mayo.
Call the server back over, ask to see if it was mentioned on the menu (it wasn’t), and when we again suggested they should list what they put on the sushi, she again gave a weak agreement.
(It’s not like the ingredient list in a sushi roll is too extensive to list this — lot’s of sushi places mention it right on the menu)
The sushi was decent, but the service and lack of attention to the menu took what could have been a decent experience down to irritating.
The chef (who we also surmised was the owner) was loud, brash, and sounded more like he was used to working highway construction than in an enclosed space.
The women’s bathroom, while clean, had no toilet paper on either roll. This happens, but when we walked in nobody was doing anything. How about a quick «let’s make sure we ready for customers» check? Or better yet, just sit around playing guitar.
While the sushi was decent, there is much room for improvement on execution and attention to detail.
Stop trying to cultivate a hip vibe, make sure the menu reflects what you are serving, and pay attention to basics like greeting customers, making sure you facilities are stocked, and keeping kitchen chatter to a reasonable volume.

We were the first customers on a Saturday afternoon. When we walked in, the place was empty, we waited for a bit for someone to seat us or say, «sit anywhere», but when nothing happened we just went ahead and seated ourselves. There was a man (later we found out he was the owner/​chief) casually messing around on a guitar over by the piano, and the waitress came over right away to take our drink order.
When our Miso Soup arrived, it was spicy. I’ve never had spicy Miso Soup in the hundreds of times I’ve eaten it. Every spoonful made me cough. I asked the waitress why it was spicy and she said they sprinkled hot chili oil in each bowl. I asked for some without the chili oil, which took so long I thought she had forgotten. When it finally came, it wasn’t very good, and I typically love Miso Soup.
After reading the menu carefully, I ordered the Carnival Roll. It came with a pale green sauce on top, which I feared was some sort of wasabi sauce. I tried a bit on my chopstick, and yep, it was mouth searing hot. I got up and grabbed a menu because I wanted to make sure I hadn’t made a mistake by not seeing this ingredient listed, but no, there was no mistake, the menu didn’t mention anything about a wasabi sauce on that roll. I’m not sure if I’ve ever sent food back in my life, and I didn’t want to send two dishes back in one meal, so we tried to scrape the wasabi sauce, and the rice it had soaked into, off the top and eat the remainder of the roll. The waitress did ask if I wanted a new roll, but I felt the staff was already irritated with me for sending back their Miso.
To end a very disappointing experience, at the end of the meal I got up to use the bathroom and there was not one square of toilet paper anywhere in the women’s room. There were two completely empty rolls in the holder, so I looked to see if there was any spare on the back of the tank… nope. Perhaps there would be some in a cabinet somewhere? Nope, no cabinet, so I had to go with paper towel. I think instead of goofing around on the guitar before customers arrive, it would be a better use of the owner’s time to make sure his establishment is ready for his customers. It’s not as if we came at the end of a busy day, we were the first customers on a Saturday afternoon.

Easy 5 stars. Great staff owner is super friendly and makes great rolls and super fresh sashimi. This place is now in my top 20 (out of over 100) that ive been too.

From the outside, I was a little dubious, but I’m happy I took a chance.
I had a lot of pretty standard items, to test the waters. Miso, Kappa Maki, and Philadelphia roll. There was also a special, wasabi dumpling (Dim Sum style), and that was intriguing enough that I had to get some.
It was a quiet Saturday afternoon, my server was attentive and cute, the miso was … I’m not entirely certain, outside of the noodle, what was different, but it was intriguing. The fish quality was okay, not mushy or tough, and the dumplings and the sauce were both pretty much exactly what I wanted but hadn’t known it until they got to the table.
My one hesitation is that the prices seem a little steep, but I admit that I expect sushi to be on the expensive side.