I absolutely love seeing a restaurant get better over the years, so you can imagine my disappointment in seeing one of my old faves gradually decline in quality.
Teharu may have been my very first sushi experience in the Greater Phoenix Area and the revolving bar novelty had me hooked immediately. The solid sushi quality and constant mission to make a plate stack reach the high heavens kept me coming back all through high school as a cheaper alternative to places like Mido. I'm talking near weekly visits -- would not be surprised if you could catch my ugly mug multiple times in the pictures of satisfied customers plastered on the walls.
During my recent visit to Teharu, I was surprised to find it busy as ever especially after hearing about it kind of drop the ball over the last four years. The revolving resto hype and novelty is definitely still reeling people in. After a solidly long wait to be seated, we grabbed a few passing plates to find that the sushi was indeed on the decline, a few rungs shy of mediocre. Definitely lacking in freshness, which is concerning considering we saw the plates hit the belts not 30 seconds before we nabbed them. We each had maybe 3 plates max before calling it quits and opting for a drive thru burger elsewhere to hold us over.
Holding out hope for some inspired culinary comeback story, but til then will probably aim to hit up the spread of other sushi joints in the Valley.