TL;DR: If you’re searching for info about the Krispy Rice restaurant you found on Uber Eats or Door Dash — the one that’s located on Long Island at 829 Merrick Ave, Westbury, NY 11590 — there’s a reason you can’t find much.
Krispy Rice is actually a section of the menu at TGI Fridays. That’s right, you’re ordering from TGIF. I was confused too, but the phone number (516-832-8320) is for TGI Fridays. Same with the address if you look that up separately.
And as you might guess, sushi from TGI Fridays is not good.
Actually, it’s a bit more complicated than that. Read on…
I was browsing on Uber Eats a couple of weeks ago looking for new places, and I found Krispy Rice. At the time it only had two ratings, and both were poor. I think it was about 2.5 stars, average. Still, I considered trying it.
Then it disappeared from the app.
Then it appeared on Door Dash shortly after.
Then it disappeared from there, too.
Now it’s back on both apps, and on Uber it has 2.8 stars with no reviews on Door Dash (as of the time I’m writing this: December 13, 2022).
“But hey”, I figured, “I love sushi in general, I like sushi with crispy rice quite a lot, so why not give it a shot?” Yes, I usually rhyme my thoughts.
I ordered the Krispy Heaven, which while not cheap ($45) had a little bit of everything.
And that “everything” was terrible:
Actually, the fried shrimp at the bottom wasn’t half bad. But how hard is fried shrimp?
The “sushi” was anywhere between bland and sour. Not sour in the sense of ponzu, but in the way of it being off somehow. Heck, the menu doesn’t even say it’s made with ponzu, I was just trying to think of an excuse for it to be sour.
I tried a little bit of most of the items, but it was so unpalatable that most went in the garbage. With some cajoling I did get a refund from Uber Eats.
(If you’re worried that maybe I’m a picky eater: I’m not. I’ll eat most anything, and enjoy it.)
Regardless of my little review, there’s still the matter of “what’s up with this place?”
That’s what I was wondering, too.
According to this article Krispy Rice isn’t a restaurant per se. It operates out of a ghost kitchen. In other words, there’s no dining room and no service staff.
The brand Krispy Rice is owned by Creating Culinary Communities (C3), which is a partnership between SBE Entertainment Group, Simon Property Group, and Accor. C3 partnered with TGI Fridays (owned by TriArtisan Capital Advisors) in August 2021 to offer C3 menu items in TGIF locations (and it appears TGIF menu items from C3-related locations).
There are a lot of other partnerships and interconnections between brands and investors. Their relationships and offerings are getting pretty complex, and are still evolving. It appears they’re attempting to consolidate and streamline food delivery by utilizing numerous kitchens to all service numerous brands.
That’s not exactly a byword for quality; nor consistency unless the company is run to McDonald’s-level strictness for sameness between locations.
You can see their public-facing brands by visiting the official C3 website, which has a bizarrely obfuscational name: https://gobycitizens.com/
What’s worse is that there’s no clear indication on the “Go by Citizens” website of what company or companies you’re actually dealing with, or why. Only their terms of service mention their actual owners.
The branding is a little smarmy, in my opinion. “Go by Citizens” and “Creating Culinary Communities” are names that make it seem like a grassroots partnership between small restaurants or chefs, when in reality it’s owned by and partnered with multinational mega corporations.
If you want good sushi on Long Island, go to Taka Sushi or order from Miss Sakura. Shop local. (Except for the “local” restaurants that are owned by billion-dollar companies.)