Kozo Sushi

They made the wrong order then wanted to charge me extra because THEY made the wrong sushi.

I seriously don’t even know where to begin with this place.
They hire these teenagers who are obviously high. They don’t even care about customer service because they all have really bad attitudes. I work in the shopping center and I love sushi so I like going there and have been since I lived in HK since 08. It’s definitely changed a lot since.
One day I just got done working out so I wanted something super quick since I was about to start work, so I ordered Avocado Maki. EASIEST thing in the world to make, its light and it fills me up enough. The girl at the register turned around and gave the kid behind her a look and then laughed and with an attitude said «oookay» like I was horrible for ordering it. I wait and for whatever reason its taking a long time. I finally get it and of course I’m always nice to these people, so I say «thank you and smile at them. As I’m walking out the door the girl at the register said «YEAH BECAUSE NO ONE ORDERS AVOCADO MAKI». I don’t know what I did to her or why she felt it was necessary to say that, but I kept walking.
I get off of work and I was really craving a spicy Ahi bowl, so I go and swing by to get one. Again, this girl was clearly high. She doesn’t try to make it unobvious, and it’s disrespectful if you ask me. They had a spicy Ahi bowl made already made that they said was only sitting there for «5 minutes». I shouldn’t have taken it and asked for a fresh one but I was really hungry and ready to have dinner. First off, you don’t offer someone RAW FISH that has been sitting out… health violation! and for whatever reason this girl thought it was funny that she was doing that to customers and this isn’t the first time I’ve seen them doing it, so watch out.
Again, today I worked out before work and had 20 min to spare so I grabbed coffee sat Starbucks, which took all of 2 min. I go a few doors down and again order, avocado maki and a spam musubi. Neither should take any longer than 5 min to make because they weren’t that busy and they have 5 people behind the counter. 1:45, I should be at work in time before 2. They are ringing up people and I notice that they are giving these people their orders who ordered AFTER me! 1:55 I have to call my job to tell them I’ll be a couple min late, my food is taking way too long. 2:00 I’m mad because this damn kid is moving in slow motion… he asks if I want shoyu and chopsticks my reply was «no, I wanted my food 15 min ago and now I’m late. I clock into work at 2:15. On top of that, the rice was clearly a day or 2 old and I didn’t know they heated up raw pieces of their spam in the microwave, GROSS!
It’s definitely changed A LOT since 08. Staff is horrible, prices are horrible and the staff is 15 year old kids who want money and don’t care about the job. Hire better people.
I don’t plan to eat their again. I’ll go to Pa’aina where they’ve got fresher sushi and better customer service. I’ll pay the extra couple bucks if it means my food is fresh and not given to me, after its sat out.

For its price and the quick service, this place is definitely okay. I stop by here for lunch every once in a while when I want something cheap, fast, and healthy! The only constant complaint I have is they always put too much rice in their nigiri so it throws off the fish/​rice ratio. Not a huge problem but I feel like it could be easily fixed.

They give too much rice and small portion of avacodo on there tobiko ura maki roll they like to give you more rice than anything else

I love this little place. The lady working there was super sweet and accommodating. Made a custom roll for me and it was delicious. Great customer service, great sushi and great price.

Mahalo for the excellent customer service this afternoon. The young man working the register told me my order would take 10 – 15 minutes to fill. And when I told him I was in a rush, he personally expedited my order with a smile. I was out in less than five minutes and my spicy ahi nigiri was fresh and delicious. Well done. I will return.

This is the first time I’ve been here in a long time. Maybe there are new owners, but I bought an Aloha platter from here and it was terrible. This Kozo has been around for over 20 years, and what I had today was unacceptable for a place with the word «Sushi» in it’s name. The rice was absolutely horrible. Every piece we ate from this platter (except for the maki sushi) fell apart before it could reach our mouths, literally, every piece. The rice tasted old and hard. The fish itself wasn’t too bad, but the craftsmanship and effort put into making this sushi was amateur at best.
If you want McDonalds level sushi at Teddy’s Bigger Burger price, this may be for you. Otherwise, go to a 7 – 11 or Wal-​Mart and grab some of the Tokyo Bento sushi which is much better in my opinion. Sushi Man also makes better sushi for around the same price. Oh, by the way, we only chose here because the prices we saw online were cheaper than SushiMan, but when we got there, the prices were higher than shown online.
After paying for my sushi, I asked how long it would take, and I was told a few minutes. It took at least 15 minutes. I asked for 4 sets of chopsticks, there were only 3 in the bag. Unfortunately, we didn’t find this out until we got to the beach and we ended up having to share chopsticks.
Totally disappointed and I’m not sure how these guys have stayed in business so long. Save your money and go elsewhere. In Hawaii Kai there’s SushiMan, Hana Sushi, or you can see if 7 – 11 has stuff from Tokyo Bento. Costco also carries Tokyo Bento stuff.

Hawaii Kai’s Kozo Sushi needs to step their EVERYTHING up! I used to love this place… before I knew better. The older lady, is very sweet. She does give a huge effort to greet every customer and help them the best way she can and get the orders completed as fast as she can. If only her team worked the same way. All very young, very slow, very… dense and lack of common sense. Customer walks in, a greeting would be a good start. Beside that though, if the sushi were good, the lack of customer service from her team wouldn’t even be a issue for me. But lately their sushi has been sloppy, and even their poke bowls seems like they’ve cut back on fish, and its more rice now. I tried Kahala’s Kozo Sushi, and Windward City’s Kozo Sushi and it seems like those places have much more selection, customer service is there, the sushi is stuffed and really good, and its been CONSISTENT! With Hawaii Kai’s Kozo Sushi, its like you really don’t know what you’re gonna get. I wish they would step it up so I won’t have to go all the way to Kahala when I want Kozo Sushi.

Good service, but the quality of today’s sushi was so bad! We always place take out orders here for rolls and platters… but it seems they’ve gone downhill!!! I’m so disappointed. The prices have gone up, while the amount of fish in the sushi has gone… well, somewhere else. It’s definitely not going into the sushi… I almost couldn’t see the salmon in the philly maki– if I wanted rice and cream cheese, I probably wouldn’t need to go to a sushi shop to get that. (See photo)
Yes, I get that it’s take out sushi– but I still think a place that sells sushi for 6 – 7 $ a roll should provide sushi that’s more than just rice and cheese! Boo!!!

I gotta give ‘em 5 stars because I literally go here at LEAST 3x/​week and I’m always satisfied. I wish they had brown rice tho’ :)

It was disappointing. The Philly Maki came out not looking like the picture. It barely had any salmon and no cucumber (pictured) when I asked them about this they said «I scratched cucumber out», whatever. The California roll tasted good but it was loose and sloppy.

Just got my spicy ahi bowl from Kozo Hawaii Kai, let me start off by saying I always go here. Great service every time I go. Today was different.
The young local girl working in the front was so rude. She did not greet any of her customers OR thank them. She made no eye contact whatsoever.
After receiving my order I was the one to say thank you, & her response was «okay».
Well I hope you’re «okay» with the one star I’m giving you.

Wow, what a tiny store in Hawaii Kai Shopping Plaza, though it does serve its purpose. Took a little while for my order to be made, but Kozo Sushi is a good place to get sushi at a cheap price. Quality is okay.

Quick and easy stop for sushi. Cheap prices — $ 7.99 for one spicy ahi bowl, although don’t be fooled, it’s not too spicy. The ahi bowl was made in about 3 minutes which was good because I was hungry. One less star because I wish there had been more fish in the bowl (it was mostly rice). Overall, the flavor was great. I would definitely eat here again.

This was actually really gross. Two stars for not getting me sick, but that’s the best thing I can say.
And whoever said «at least it’s Japanese owned», (1) whoever owns it makes no difference when the employees put no effort whatsoever into their work, and (2) that’s super racist. Japanese/​Korean/​whatever makes no difference.
Sushi is made from the heart, and this crap is made by apathetic teenagers, and is worse than the day old stuff at the grocery store.

Rice to main ingredient ratio is really bad. I haven’t had a sushi with so much rice compared to the main ingredients. Ever.

Seriously, not the best sushi spot ever. But Hawaii Kai residents get desperate and HATE. To leave Hawaii Kai on a week night (or at least that’s how I feel) so this will always be my go to spot. Of course it’s not gonna be the «freshest» fish because it’s not a high scale sushi spot, but it fills my stomach and gets the job done! Their rice is really flavorful! (I love sushi rice) and the service is always great! Cheap, fast and easy dinner for a lazy/​tiring week night dinner!
Always my go to:
–spicy ahi bowl
–dragon maki
–tobiko ura maki
Also a nice thing is it’s ACTUALLY JAPANESE OWNED. So that’s a nice thought in the back of my head~

Meh.
Yes, it is inexpensive, but the food took quite a while (15 minutes for one roll once I was able to order, which took 15 minutes to happen in the first place), and I was successfully, aggressively line-​jumped by two groups of sunburned, angry Russian tourists without the woman behind the counter batting an eyelash or asking them to wait in line. Thanks, dude. Whatever, by that point I already had time invested.
The food itself was okay– not good and not bad– but it was not really worth the wait given that I’d been hoping for a quick, hassle-​free take-​out situation for my lunch break.
This was not a *terrible* experience, but I’d be more willing to pay a couple more bucks for better-​tasting food and an easier/​faster experience.

Decent food. I like my inari to be cone sushi style though, not small and football shaped. The cone sushi at Sekiya’s used to be the best in the whole wide world but I haven’t been to Sekiya’s in forevuz so I don’t know what’s up with that anymore. Where can you get that fat-​kine cone sushi, ya’all? That’s what I’m looking for.
Didn’t find it at Kozo, though the inari was tasty enough and the other rolls were made on the spot by a cute, hard working kupuna who was making sure the food was fresh and good. Gotta like seeing that.

My my my how I’ve missed my ume! And my cheap, delicious sushi to go.
Why can I not find ume maki in any sushi places on the mainland?
First stop on the way home from the airport for 2 6-​piece ume maki, 1 crab roll, 1 ume roll, and 6 piece inari. I think this cost something like $ 6 total.
So nice to be home :).