Sushi Groove

If you go during happy hours (5 PM to 6:30) Mon– Thurs you will be a BIG fan of this place if you order off the special menu…
You cannot beat the food and bar prices especially in WC. I am going today! See you at the bar… I’ll be the one w/​my girlfriends eating the spicy tuna roll, tootsie roll and drinking sake all for under $ 20.

Too whom it may concerrn!!!
I go out every weekend, out with friends to have a good time. Sushi grove is definitely the prime location to have great food and great mixed drinks yet too come. The prices are very affordable and the environment is spectacular. This place is very comfortable and very hip. It’s is definitely a great place to go. Don’t listen to all the people with their opinions unless you try it first. People have there comments, but it’s based on their likes and dislikes. If you like a fun, calm environment then Sushi Grove is the place to be when you want to have a good time with friends or out with a date. Don’t narc it before you try it. Take care everyone and have a wonderful day.

Jason C is very smart and he educated me.
«Croquettes are called Korokke in Japan)
…)They’re pretty popular now .»
I guess everybody loves French food.
The Japanese may call them Korokke if they please, but Bush and his followers all call them «Freedom Hash Browns»!

If you want to spend your money on atmosphere instead of good quality sushi-​go here. This place is very loungey and definitely has a hip atmosphere, but the rolls are overpriced, the service is horrible and the cocktails could be better.
They blast house music in an attempt to distract you from your food (which is why you went there in the first place, correct?) which always takes too long and never tastes the same with each visit.
I’ve lived in the area for a few years now, and I’ve TRIED to give this place a second, third, fourth, fifth, etc. chance, but to no avail. Sushi Groove needs to focus more on their customers and food instead of the wall decorations.

I can’t believe I wasted my money here. Well, I can. The birthday girl loves this place, and I love the birthday girl, and the birthday girl’s boyfriend chose this location for a surprise party b/​c birthday girl loves it, so it makes sense.
Sushi Groove, you need to pay more attention to your food and service, and less attention to the atmosphere and decorations. Great, you have a waterfall… but my meal totally sucked, and that’s not ok. I paid $ 17.95 for bland crappy chicken teriyaki. It was definitely the most that I have ever paid for it, and the worst I have ever had. I can go down the street to Nama Sushi and pay $ 6.95 for chicken teriyaki that’s WAY better. The guy sitting next to me did not like his sushi either. The birthday girl did like her lee chi martini, which I was happy about. For good Japanese food and a fun atmosphere, go here:

The server clearly did not like «serving» her customers. She would come drop off food or drinks and take off before we could even ask her for something else that we needed, never mind the fact that she never said, «do you guys need anything else while I’m here/​Can I get you guys anything else?» Nope. Very frustrating.
Go here if you like a «scene» type place with a DJ and a Vegas/​LA type atmosphere, and really overpriced bad food.

I come back to Sushi Groove for the ambiance, the drinks, and the happy hour.
Ambiance — loungey. My kind of place.
Drinks — love the lychee martini
Happy hour — $ 3 cosmos with $ 3 select rolls and appetizers
So usually I show up in the middle of happy hour (5pm-6:30 pm on Mon to Thurs) and suck down as many $ 3 cosmos as I can. As soon as it hits 6:30pm, I move on to my lychee martinis. The sushi here is ok — it’s not spectacular. I’ve had better, but it’s good enough for me to come back cuz what I really want is a lychee martini. And the hot bartender. The Asian one, not the one that looks like Scott Stapp. His name is Julius… as in Caesar.
***Insert funny story…
I’m at Sushi Groove for my birthday…
My friend: What’s your name?
Julius: Julius
My friend: As in orange?
Me: Um… what the hell? Do you mean, as in Caesar?
A couple weeks later, I’m back at the bar with some other friends…
Lady next to me: what’s your name?
Julius: Julius
Lady: as in orange?
Me: ORANGE? SERIOUSLY? whatever happened to julius, as in caesar?
Lady: what’s an orange caesar?
Me: omg…
Yes, she figured it out moments later.
End funny story.***
One thing I can’t stand is the music. Not only is it house music which I don’t like to begin with, but it doesn’t really go with the theme of the restaurant.
Service has always been good here, but perhaps it’s because I’ve been there enough times that they know me now. Even so, it was good to begin with.

So, after much hype I finally made it into Sushi Groove. LOVED the atmosphere in general-​very cool, relaxing place. A great date-​night spot-​but only if you go early. The later it gets, the more crowded and noisy. My friend and I were there on a Friday night at about 6 and had a really mixed experience.
I completely agree with most posters re: service-​it blows. =)
The sushi was very hit and miss. Some was excellent, some was downright bad.
Overall a decent experience. I’d go back if I NEEDED sushi and it was convenient, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to go back.

Went here for dinner, the sushi was fine, but a little overpriced. The appetizers were small. I had reservations, but we still had to wait a while. The restaurant seems out of place in Walnut Creek, b/​c it has kind of a club atmoshpere on the inside (dark lighting with random bright red lights, loud music, and we had to sit next to annoying curtains that separated us from the party next to us). The DJ in the corner was unnecessary, especially since I didnt hear him mixing any songs and the music was way too loud.

I’ve been here twice, the second visit was a mistake. Perhaps thinking that the next time would be better…
One star for the cool décor, and a negative four stars for the horrible service, the lousy over priced cocktails, and the tiny over priced servings of sushi.
Seriously go somewhere else, don’t waste your money here! You’ll end up regretting it, perhaps the next morning when you realize you’ve eaten bad sushi. Skip it!

The minute I stepped into this place I said, «Oh God. It’s like Blowfish.» For those of you who haven’t been to Santana Row in the San Jose area, Blowfish is a trendy sushi fusion kind of a place. Sushi Groove has that same cool, darkly lit dining room. It didn’t have the flat screen TV’s though, which I consider a plus. The music is ridiculously loud that makes it basically impossible to have a conversation. It was awful music, too, which just amplified the annoyance. And there some kid banging chopsticks on the table for literally ¾ of our meal. Literally. It made me more irritated with the dining experience than necessary. However, to balance it out, there were two extremely well behaved children to my right. The girl was chowing down on raw fish and she must have been about 7 — I was very impressed!
Anyway, children aside. The rolls are expensive and relatively good. A wide variety of interesting specialty rolls. The salmon nigiri was not good. They did listen to my «no wasabi» request, which is half the battle for me. I really liked our waitress, who was pretty attentive and very nice. I don’t know why we only got one menu for three of us, though. That remains a mystery. We went around 6 pm on a Thursday and the place was far from packed, which was good beause the place was loud enough without being filled to capacity.
My mom’s beef teriyaki was very… untraditional. I guess this is a fusion restaurant? Mashed potatoes on the side? Thanks, I know I’m boring, but I’ll stick to rice.
I guess I’m just wondering what this super trendy place is doing in Walnut Creek, it’s definitely not San Francisco or San Jose. Maybe because I’ve grown up in the area I’m finding it hard to absorb that this town is getting trendier. The restaurant is okay, but I do not feel the need to go back unless someone really wanted to try it or go there for her birthday or something like that.

I’ve been to Sushi Groove several times and think the food is pretty good. I would give it five stars, but the prices are a little high as some other reviewers have mentioned. If you go past 7:00, expect to wait even if you have a reservation. I like to go early, a little after it opens at 5:00, there is never a wait and it is not as loud or crowded.
I like the sashimi and all of the rolls I tasted including the Spider Roll, Miss Kim, Eating Bubba Gump (I think that’s what they were called). The tempura is also really, really good– served with a sweet chili sauce instead of the regular tempura sauce — but I liked it that way. The house salad is also good, different from your typical Japanese salad though. It has avocado, mixed greens and I think pine nuts too.
Another good thing about going early if it’s a weekday is the happy hour menu– about 10 items all for about $ 3. Plus $ 3 house wine, sake, etc.
I really like eating here — but if you are looking for a more «traditional» sushi restaurant– this is not for you.

I had my birthday here and manager was a bitch. First, we had to convince her to let us sit at our table instead of all standing around the bar, and when we were seated we discovered that they had given away the last table that should have been included in the reservation because I was told «18 people RARELY ever show up.» WTF? Well, all 18 people showed up and there weren’t enough seats for everyone.
Our waitress was friendly but pretty slow. I understand that it’s tough to wait on such a big group, but I also shouldn’t have to remind you twice that my friend never got her tempura that she ordered over an hour ago. I had way too many sake bombs to be able to accurately review the food, but what I do remember of the 2 rolls I tried was that they were just whatever. One in particular tasted like rice. Yes, just rice. Isn’t everything supposed to taste really good when you’re drunk?
2 stars because I liked the atmosphere and it’s a fun place to sake bomb, but the service sucks and I need to come back and really eat next time.

I’m just going to go on the record and say that this restaurant left an extremely sour taste in my mouth.
The décor itself it’s nice, it adds a little more modern flavor to some of the blandness of Walnut Creek. The DJ is a nice touch and the lighting scheme is perfect for a sushi bar. I almost felt like I was in a Sex and the City episode (they even have Cosmo Happy Hours). The host was this cool looking Asian girl who made me feel like I was in Japan. Nice touch, so far.
But wait.
You know why? Because that’s what I found myself doing… a lot.
First of all, let me just say that if you are going to go and add tip to my bill… like because we are a party of 8 or more (we were 15), please do so — but my tip for you in that case is: don’t be a lazy douchebag. It took us awhile to get anything, to even be recognized (power doesn’t come in numbers in this case) and the server I don’t think managed to say hi, I didn’t know her name — no personality whatsoever.
It’s clear they don’t have the customer in mind. Our party expanded to 15 from 12 and rather than seeing the spot that she gave us was not suitable to expand anymore (we were adjacent to an emergency exit with booth and chairs, she merely added a table and closed off our booth. Not really hospitable. I had to crawl under the table to pee because I was in the closed off section.
This all coming from a lady who unfortunately was the manager with too much peroxide wasted in her hair and managed to not be able to work a tray in 6 inch peep-​toe stilettos. How did I know that? Because she dropped a bottle of Sapporo off her tray straight on the floor when she tried to squat down to serve a table. Who in their right mind wears 6 inch stilettos to manage a restaurant? Isn’t there some safety hazard in that? Now that I think of it, maybe she was the Mama-​San and I was in a Japanese whorehouse.
Drinks came after our sushi was delivered and our waitress kind of had no mind and staggered our order. It ended up being a cocktail party rather than a festive dinner. The food was excellent in that it offered a new take on classic sushi. Execution was great, but ingredients were horribly lacking. The fish tasted old. One star for execution and one star for décor.
I probably wouldn’t return.
If you want good sushi and good service, Kaiwa Sushi down the street is probably better. Service is an improvement and the price doesn’t suck. If I was the manager of this place, I’d probably take heed to their operations or they probably will not survive in the culinary competition of Walnut Creek.

Agree with Spencer’s review: are they hangin’ meat in here overnight? Global Cooling. «Cool» décor but it’s dark. Bartender at Bing’s once told me to go here for a better and hipper crowd on Thursday/​Friday evenings. I think 1515 is now the in place though.
Night we went was star studded: Kirk Hammett, of Metallica, was in the corner of the bar. At least, that’s what they told me. Did the proverbial rolls with sake. All good but expensive. Service is a tad slow plus the noise level gets high later at night. Honestly. this is a place to be seen more than enjoying quality sushi.

Quasi Sushi 1 star
Service 2 stars
Price 2 stars
Pretty people 5 stars
Hip Set Up 5 stars
First, lets get the weak food out of the way… This is as authentic Japanese sushi as Pizza Hut is Italian cuisine.
That being said this place is super hip and crammed with pretty people WC. It looks vaguely similar to a Bebe fashion show. Some of the other Unilocalers had issue with service and I had the same experience. Think of it this way, servers that hot cannot be expected to actually be good at waiting tables right?
Linda M. is right on point saying go there for drinks and skip the food, then you’re looking at a 4 – 5 star evening in suburbia. Chase that down with a short walk to 1515 and you’ll have a pretty good night out in WC.

Owned by a friend of a friend. We came here yesterday after a night of shopping in SF. I honestly didn’t expect much because I thought it would be like a Japanese version of PF Changs. Ambiance was fairly «chill» and caters to a younger crowd (dimly lit, DJ booth, sake bombs).
The food was actually pretty good, to my surprise. One friend had the rolls (don’t remember which one) and she absolutely loved them. I had udon, and it was one of the better tasting udons I’ve had (most seem to taste the same to me). This udon had a slight tang to the broth.
Service was excellent (Bree), and the owner was a cool dude.

I went here with a group of friends for a ladies night out and while the hipster décor and loud music went right along with the evening… the sushi was nothing special and the service was downright poor.
We were left at the table for ages before anyone came around to take our order, the food came slowly, drink orders were fumbled and the server initially brought the check prematurely and made some comment about us leaving (instead of the traditional «when you’re ready»)…which we quickly informed her we were not ready to do… although we would happily move to the bar if she needed our table (despite the mostly empty restaurant).
And a side note to that big table playing some drinking game that involved repeatedly pounding on the table en masse and yelling at the top of their lungs. Go back to the dorms.

wow.
Once I entered this place I felt like I was on the set of the OC or was going to be followed around with a camera a la «The Hills».
FYI– this isn’t a good thing.
So yea, it was UBER hip… like DJ booth, twinkle lights, and blonde boobie-​girls taking my order. I’m down for super pretty decorations and this is the reason why this place gets some stars… the set up is clean. BUT as with any place that is hip looking in a non hip city (come on… walnut creek is no LA… as much as its residents try…) you get people that think they’re hip… because they get inspiration from My Super Sweet Sixteen.
I went to the bathroom and found three vapid individuals… one girl decked out in a super gold glittery number… her gay best friend teasing her hair, and their obligatory ugly friend. Glitter kept saying, «Bigger… I want it Bigger…» While BFF, muttered, «don’t worry, you’re gonna look gooooood, «meanwhile, Boring smacked her gum while saying, «yea…yea…totally…»
I simply can’t make this shit up… I wanted to run screaming from this place after that!

Ick! I cannot believe that I paid Money to eat here.
I felt like I was in Vegas, but with bad food.
Sure the ambiance is great, with the loud club music and the waterfalls and dim lighting, but in any instance does caesar salad dressing go on ahi tuna? Well, the answer should be no, but whomever works at sushi groove did not get the memo on that. In addition to the failed attempt at fusing flavors of east and west, the rolls were very very small, and poorly rolled (literally falling apart). I would recommend this place only for drinks, if you are say taking out a 19 year old girl who gets wide eyed for that sort of thing. Uuuugh !!

This is a drink, ambience, and service review. We came here around 11 one Friday night and we did not have the sushi.
That bartender rocks! This beautiful woman made us drink after drink, and strong damn drinks, too… And she even brought them to us out front, where we sat and conversed. The crowd was almost nonextistent… IN fact it was pretty dead for 11 PM on a Friday, and sadly, they kicked us out at around midnight, as they were closing. I remember thinking that a place like that, with that décor, in the city would be hopping until 2 am, at least…
Anyway, we’ll definitely be back. Their drinks are generous and totally rock. Plus, I still have to try their sushi.
UPDATE 04/​08/​2007: Great sushi. Here’s what I ordered:
Spider Roll — ⁴⁄₅
Unagi — ⁴⁄₅
Philly Roll — ³⁄₅
Saba — ³⁄₅
Spicy Hotate — ⁵⁄₅
It was good sushi… not the best I ever had, but I certainly would have no qualms coming back and ordering a bunch more. Very lovely, and seriously try their Spicy Hotate (scallops): Totally rocks!