Sushi 509

A friend was in from out of town and it was the perfect place for us to catch up. The relaxed, casual atmosphere and timing of the dishes was perfect for our leisurely conversation. The sushi was phenomenal and so was the service. Our server handled everything with grace and a good sense of humor.

Yo people are taking their issues OUT on this page.
I’m reading some crazy garbage on here, like the fish is «not fresh» and «overpriced for the portion size /​freshness», or that the chef gives free stuff because he knows his food is overpriced/​not fresh.
in my experience, not true at allllllll. I order from here all the time because, although it’s somewhat pricier than a few of the other nearby places, the quality of the fish is incredible. I judge a place by their scallop sushi — if a place has low standards for how long they keep their fish, scallops are gonna be the first thing to go wrong and smell fishy. their scallops are a f&$*king dream.
AND, even though the fancy rolls from the older menu are no longer on the current menu, HE WILL MAKE THEM FOR YOU ANYWAY AND NOT EVEN MAKE YOU FEEL BAD ABOUT ORDERING OFF-​MENU ! x3
And, the fact that the chef gives free stuff actually is a good thing. It would make no financial sense for him to give out free pieces of fish he’s keeping indefinitely, if his standards of freshness are low. In any restaurant, you always have some leftover stock of one of your foods, and i appreciate that rather than keep it longer than he should, or throw it in the garbage, he gives it out to his customers and it MAKES YOUR DAY. :)
Sushi is my favorite food, and my boyfriend’s favorite food, and WE BOTH WANT TO MAKE LOVE TO THIS CHEF. Plus, once i was in there during a non-​busy afternoon and he put on Award Tour by A Tribe Called Quest. Idk if he was reading my soul or if he also listens to this music, but i almost proposed.

Sushi and sashimi time!
They have good variety of sake (s) as well!
It’s a chill place for some Japanese food fix and kudos for serving out a complimentary dish on the house! Thanks!

This place is my favorite sushi bar in The Haight and Lower Haight neighborhood. Their menu is probably not the biggest sushi menu I’ve ever seen but whatever they have, it’s super fresh and delicious. I’ve been there multiple times and never got disappointed, and probably tried their whole menu. I like their dinner combos. Itamae (chef) is always super friendly and in the mood, and we always get either a bottle of sake or fried fish/​desert for free! Make sure to have a reservation as they have very limited space.

This used to be my favorite sushi place in SF. I went yesterday and was HORRIBLY disappointed. The menu used to be HUGE (see old photos), but they’ve cut it down to at least ¹⁄₅ of the size, reducing numerous options and eliminating some of their best rolls. Not only have they decreased the menu, they’ve decreased the portion sizes and increased the prices! They also used to provide complimentary tea & miso soup before the meal and orange slices and fortune cookies afterwards — all gone. So now you’re paying more for way way less.
The service was also horrible. There was one waitress for the whole restaurant. All our meals came out at different times (which is so awkward, especially when some people had hot meals. At one point she placed a pitcher of water on our table w/​o even attempting to fill any of our empty glasses. We also waited for like 20 minutes just to get the check while she hid in the back.
Worst dining experience ever!!! I am so disappointed because, as I said, I used to love this place and recommend it to all my friends. I will not be returning

The quality of the food here has gone downhill drastically in the past few times I have been here. It’s so sad, because the food (especially the noodles) were so good. We no longer have a favorite Japanese place in the neighborhood, which is massively disappointing.

Lots of variety of sushi rolls for vegetarians and wiith that said the rolls are on the smaller side.

We had miso soup, green salad, lion king roll, and hamachi and sake nigiri. All were fantastic. Prices are reasonable and everything was fresh and tasty. Will definitely be returning here!

The restaurant is pretty big, but it was nice to be greeted by the chefs. The place can be a big quiet empty space, but I love those kind of places. The service was great! The lady who served me was really nice and friendly. The food was amazing! I don’t remember what I had because I went there a little over a year ago, but I remember that one bite had a butt load of flavors and it was definitely something I never had before. The flavors the chefs managed to put into that one little piece of sushi were awesome!
If I didn’t live too far way, I’d come here again and again.

Pretty terrible sushi joint. I’ve been to this place a couple times before and it’s always been the same. I came here one more time recently to give it another chance and boy was that a mistake.
Started with the tuna karaage appetizer-​it was completely dry and overcooked with absolutely no flavor… Unless you consider disgusting a flavor. They served it with a side salad and a seriously old lemon that I thought was an orange because of its dark color. There was no sauce served with it so guess we were supposed to use the old lemon to cover up the awful taste to it.
We then got the seared scallops– I don’t even know where to start with this other than it was barely edible. It tasted like they took frozen boxed scallops and stuck it in the microwave for a minute to «sear» it, and then left it sitting around for god knows how long.
The sushi chef must have noticed our barely eaten apps and sent a seared tuna app to us on the house. Very nice gesture and this app was at least edible, however, it did not taste very fresh.
We then moved on to sushi.
We got the Kamikaze which consisted of spicy tuna with asparagus tempura roll topped with hamachi.
Next was the Hakuna Matata– crab salad and avocado roll baked with salmon and house sauce (sesame miso ginger? Tasted a little like their salad dressing, but was good).
Overall, I liked the combo of ingredients in the rolls, but I just didn’t think the fish tasted very fresh. The fish in the kamikaze (oh and the few nigiri orders we also got) tasted like it may have been out for awhile. It was hard to tell with the hakuna since that was baked.
What really irritated me about their sushi was that the rolls were so expensive!!! $ 13 – 15 for the two rolls we ordered. The rolls themselves were tiny and the fish slices small, barely any crab salad in the hakuna. For the size of the rolls, amount of fish and most importantly the quality and taste it was completely unjustifiable and we felt so ripped off. They should charge $ 10 for those, TOPS! Our bill came to $ 60, and for what we ordered we felt it should have been $ 40.
I don’t mind spending that kind of money on sushi, but only if that sushi is good and fresh though, which this was far from.
Sadly the only good part of this meal was the miso soup I ordered, the side salad that came with the disgusting tuna karaage and green tea. I’m taking my business to the sushi joint Raijin that just opened up next door.

We live nearby and have eaten here probably fifty times.
The food and service are great. The atmosphere is lovely and simple. It’s a great place to get sushi in the neighborhood.
The tofu salad is amazing, also.

The sushi and tea here are really good, as is the service!

NOT RECOMMENDED! go somewhere else!
Price: Poor value, not worth it
Food: Not fresh, lacks flavor
Ambience: Bland, unexciting
Service: Downright awful
On a Wednesday night at prime dinner time, only 2 other people there: bad sign. Also smelled a bit funny.
Green salads were surprisingly good. Tofu sushi was decent.
Ordered the Kim roll. The spicy tuna on top looked questionable (a lightish brown color?). I eat sushi about twice a week and am a big fan spicy tuna. However, this spicy tuna tasted excessively fishy and just not right. We called over our waitress and explained. After consulting the chef she said we would not be charged for it and gave us a menu. Good customer service and the right thing to do… until…
Apparently they changed their minds because 5 minutes later come back with our check, abruptly took the menus out of our hands. We told her we were going to order something else and she shook her head, said no, and pushed the check into the middle of the table.
Confusing.we were kicked out? Rude, poor service, especially when they didn’t have many more customers to begin with. Never again. If you have too big of an ego for a customer to speak up when something doesn’t seem/​taste like it would be healthy to eat then you don’t deserve customers.

We were in the city visiting a grand opening of a hair salon. We needed somewhere to eat and were craving sushi. We walk into the restaurant and there were literally 2 patrons. This should have been on first clue to what we were going to experience.
We were sat down and given our menus. After about 15 long minutes if reviewing the menu I had to ask our waitress to come over to take out order. When we received our sushi the rice was mushy! It was gross. My girlfriend had the Snow White roll and it looked as if the fish was beaten with a mallet! My boyfriend had the spicy tuna roll and he said it tastes like cat food! He asked me to try it and I said «no, thank you!»
Not a recommendation that I would give anyone.

Sushi was OK, not the great. Some of the fish was very soggy and tasteless. Other fish was very good (Unagi). The sushi rice seemed overcooked on every roll, which made it very chewy.
The service was terrible. After we completed our meal, we waited 40 minutes and asked several times for our bill before it arrived. When they brought the bill, they also comped us a bottle of saki, as I’m sure they saw we were frustrated.

Cosy place and friendly staff. I had salmon nigiri, spicy tuna roll, California roll, miso soup and Junmai Ginjo Sake. Tuna was not tasting fresh, salmon nigiri was good, California roll was way too creamy, miso was good, sake was great.
Overall, a decent place to go for a relaxed environment and friendly staff but not the best sushi I’ve ever had. 3.0 stars

Ok but I’m not sure there is a return factor. We were looking for a quick bite near the Lower Haight area and Sushi 509 looked so warm and appealing. A nice break from the windy weather.
We walked in and sat near the the sushi bar. The interior is relatively small and clean. Menu consists of appetizers, specialty rolls, rice rolls, noodles, bento boxes and dessert. We weren’t that hungry so we ordered a rice roll (6 pieces — $ 7) and tofu udon ($ 9).
Rice roll was bbq eel with cucumber. Simple. But it wasn’t great. The rice was very soft and soggy and was served warm. Everything about the texture felt wrong. I didn’t really like it.
The tofu udon was also simple. Just small pieces of diced tofu with udon noodles in clear broth. There weren’t any onion garnishes or any other flavors to jazz it up. The broth was very clear but had a simple chicken broth flavor. Noodle soup came out piping hot.
Not the most exciting meal, but worth a try at least once. The service was pretty nice and efficient. Pretty busy on a Saturday night!

Thick expectations.
It really was huge. Too big really. Could have been smaller.
Not talking about the Tropical roll as listed under the «Thick Roll» section of the menu. But the paper bag it came in. Ten times the size of the small takeout container. Suppose one could always use another recycling bag.
If only the salmon, avocado and mango wrapped with rice in soy paper delivered as well. Good. But also just four averaged sized pieces. Expected more for $ 8.
Staff was trying. Lady helping me didn’t know all the ingredients and quickly tracked them down. Helped inform my choice.
Too bad the choice disappointed.

I was in Haight and craving sushi for dinner, saw this place and decided to try it out. I usually eat sushi at least once a week so I’d like to think I know my sushi!
The place is clean, its convenient and the ambiance is OK for a sushi place. Interesting music… I felt like i was in Brazil.
The service — just OK. Nothing extra ordinary. The servers aren’t SUPER attentive. We had to wait a while before getting someone’s attention, and the place only had 3 other tables.
Food: If everything else was sub-​par, and the food was good I would still give this place more stars but the food was just too bland. The sushi did not taste super fresh and it really had no taste! Even though I ate enough to fill me, i was left feeling unsatisfied because the taste simply wasn’t there.
I doubt I would be back here.

Walked in here around 9PM and there was only one person here besides us.
They let us sit anywhere we’d like and then, handed us our menus.
The lady was nice and friendly.
To me, it seemed just like any other sushi places.
Ordered the Lion King roll and a seaweed salad.
This Lion King Roll isn’t as big as San Jose’s Cha cha, Kenzo, or even Oakland’s Kansai.
Hot Sake was good though, went down pretty smooth.
Presentation wise, it didn’t look «too good too eat» but almost at that rate.
Price wise, pretty pricey, but then it is San Francisco.
Parking, gotta park on the street. (Good luck with that)