I am writing this review to let everyone know of the experience I had at Craft Beer Market. They were very unprofessional and this resulted in 19 people leaving and going to Sin Bin.
My sister wanted to celebrate her birthday at Craft Beer Market on Sat. March 29th with a group of her friends. She called 2 weeks before hand to make reservations for about 15 people. The first person she spoke to told her that the only time she can book for a group that large would have to be for 5pm and she would have to get an accurate number of guest. On the same day, my sister called back and asked to make a reservation for 16 people at 5pm on March 29th. She speaks to a different person and is told that unfortunately there are only 7 reservation spots available and they cannot accommodate her request. She is told that if she comes in at about 4:30 pm, she can put her name down for 16 people and they would be able to get a table at 5 pm. With that info, my sister decided that's what she would do.
On that day, I go in at 4:30pm and tell the hostess that I would like to put my name down for about 19 people. She tells me that they do not accept groups over 13! Are you kidding me?! I explain to her about the phone calls my sister made and the information we have been given. I tell her that we were told BY THEM to come in and put our name down for however many people we had in our group. Apparently, this hostess didn't know what else to say so she just kept repeating that they could not accept any groups over 13 people. After having this argument back and forth a couple times, she finally asks if I would like to speak to a manager and of course my answer is YES!
I explain to the manager about our situation and how we have been given different information each time we talked to someone at their restaurant. He agrees that it was not fair and he would see what he could do. After a couple minutes, he comes back and tells us that he actually has 2 large tables next to each other that we could be seated at right now. PERFECT! Then he tells us that he will try to hold the tables as long as he can, but if the rest of our party is not there in 20 minutes, he would have to give the table away. Okay....I understand that there may be other parties there that have their name on the list, but from the fact that this place is the one that screwed us over by giving inaccurate information, this was very unfair. We had a group of 19 people that were arriving for a birthday party and now being told we do not have guaranteed seating. We did what we could, made numerous phone calls to the rest of the guests to try to get them there as fast as possible.
20 minutes pass and we have 1 table full and 2 guests sitting at the second table. By now, we're thinking that the second table is ours since we are starting to seat people there. A second manager informs us that he is going to bring 2 chairs to add to our 1st table for our 2 guests at the 2nd table and that if the rest of our party does not arrive in 5 minutes, the 2nd table will be given away. By this point, I'm thinking that this is ridiculous. Again, I explain the situation to the manager and he says he sympathizes but it's not fair to the other customers that have their party here. NOT FAIR???? What about our party? The rest of our party were on their way and the restaurant is basically telling us they cannot accommodate us even though they put us in this situation. If we had known this was going to happen, we should've reserved the 7 spots available and come in at 4:30 for the remaining guests. Our group is in this predicament because their staff was not familiar with their policies. I was tired of explaining myself so I asked him for a solution and when the rest of our party shows up, what happens to them? He says that they would have to go on the list like everybody else which was pretty much a 45 minute OR MORE wait. After all of that, our entire table left and went to a nearby restaurant called Sin Bin. They sat us immediately and treated us wonderfully.
Craft Beer Market was a new place with a huge variety of different beers and was in a superb location, but after the incredibly unsatisfying experience I had there, I will never be going back. The management had MANY opportunities to rectify the situation. They only cared about how much money they would be making that night instead of creating returning customers.
I work in the restaurant industry and know from experience that there were many ways to rectify the problem. The part that was most upsetting was this was a special occasion and the restaurant did not care enough to ensure it was a special night. It did not matter to them that we had all left the restaurant. I would not recommend going to Craft Beer Market and hope that they get their act together. read more