My husband and I were so happy with our decision to have our wedding reception at the Crystal Ballroom in El Cajon. From the beginning, we felt such a warm and genuine connection with the owner and planner, Tony B. He made us feel welcomed, supported, and truly cared for throughout the process, which meant so much to us during such an important time. We made multiple visits leading up to our wedding to make sure every detail was in place and everything would run smoothly, and Tony was always gracious, attentive, and reassuring. His involvement and care gave us so much confidence and peace of mind throughout the planning process. When some of the decor did not go according to was originally planned (due to amount of guests) Tony improvised and made everything so simple and easy. On the day of our reception, everything came together beautifully. The venue was elegant, inviting, and created the perfect atmosphere for our celebration. My husband and I were incredibly satisfied with our experience, and we are so grateful to Tony B. and the Crystal Ballroom for helping make our wedding reception so special and memorable. We would absolutely recommend Crystal Ballroom to any couple looking for a beautiful venue and a team that truly cares. read more

Terrible service and very disappointing experience. He asked for payment in advance, but after receiving the money, he did not deliver what he had promised. A significant amount of the work was missing, and the quality was very poor. He also arrived very late and, instead of taking responsibility for the issues, kept arguing and making excuses. The person we were dealing with was Tony, I believe, and he was responsible for handling our service and the problems that occurred. I would not recommend his services to anyone. Even for a small wedding, I would strongly advise against using this service. Very disappointing experience. read more

This has been my 2nd Quinceñera event at Crystal Ballroon from the moment I walked in wow! I was speechless my daughter love it .The decoration was stunning just what I expected. Tony and his team rock! Great customer service ! The food was absolutely delicious received great compliments from my invites. I highly recommend this venue you wont regret it. read more

This ballroom was spacious and the bar access, bathroom were clearly marked. The dance floor was large and the acoustic's perfect for announcements. The parking was not enough but we had to arrive early to take advantage of the use of the parking lot. Otherwise overall it was a good experience. I did not work with the staff because I was a guest. read more

Worst experience ever!! Went to a party here yesterday and didn't like the service at all. The party host got food from the venue, we were missing 2 plates and I asked the server and he gave me an attitude and I ask plates for the kids aswell and answered me with a rude response saying the kids get chicken nuggets and fries. We were told we were going to have options. And then on top of that there was no water/drink refills and we were missing cups for drinks and the few cups on the table were dirty. I think they should either hire more staff when doing catering or not offer catering at all because there were only 2 people serving and the female serving was nicer then the guy. The hall itself it's nice. But seriously the girls bathrooms needs to be fixed, the doors don't close and the locks don't work. On one of the stalls you can see thru the other one from the toilet paper dispenser. That's ridiculous for the amount of money they charge to rent the hall out. read more

Disgusting! Used this hall for my little brother's funeral reception. ONLY reason we used this place because it was right across the street from the mortuary. We had a total of 250 guests. When our family got there to set up right at our designated time, they told us that we weren't scheduled for that day. They had no tables set up or anything. Mind you, this was an hour before all 250 guests were about to show up. Once we got everything settled and showed proof of our contract that we in fact did have an event booked for that day and time OUR FAMILY HAD TO SET UP ALL THE TABLES AND CHAIRS!!!! True day of our event, it was raining. Their ghetto roof started to leak right on our guests. When we brought it up to the owner at the time of our event, he had the nerve to say he told us about the leak at the time we booked the hall....seriously?! First of all, it was sunny and warm the day we signed so why would the leaky nasty roof come up at that time? To add on to everything, they overcharged all our guests at the bar for cheap and nasty liquor. DO NOT USE THIS HALL!!!! If we had more time to plan a funeral we would have most definitely took our business to another establishment. Not some sketchy nasty place that ONLY accepts cash for everything. Horrible place! read more

I was there recently for a family event. The Crystal ballroom is a very nice hall with excellent food and service. The owners Frank and Tony made our experience great. I definitely recommend them for private events. read more

See all

Tony and his team did an amazing job for my Friend's wedding. Service, staff, decor, food, and ambiance were all 5 stars!!! food was hot and delicious and our attendees were very satisfied. The price was more than reasonable for everything they provided from inquiry to booking to the actual event day. I highly recommend them for any and all events! read more

We had a family event at Crystal Ballroom. Upon walking in, the atmosphere felt beautiful and the set up was 10/10. You can tell management does everything on point and all the servers and staff go above and beyond expectations. They had many appetizers to choose from and the drink service was fast. Dinner was around 10. Food came out on time and warm. There was two options for dinner to choose from; steak or fish. I decided to go with fish and it was delicious. I will always recommend this hall to anyone. read more

See all

Amazing place very good Customer service the food is really good I had my birthday party over there and everyone had a really good time, very professional highly recommend. read more

Crystal Ballroom - Venues & Event Spaces Near Me - El Cajon, California

Worst service out there! We asked the service about this rotten lemon and they said they were busy at the moment! read more

Crystal Ballroom - Rotten lemon - Venues & Event Spaces Near Me - El Cajon, California

This beautiful hall is one of the best place's I have ever been too, their food was very delicious and the way the serve their customers is very good!! We celebrated my brother's wedding and my family enjoyed every moment of it, highly recommended for all your events!! read more

Crystal Ballroom - Venues & Event Spaces Near Me - El Cajon, California

I love this place Crystal Ballroom was amazing for my party and I. Their team was incredibly responsive to us and catered to our needs in a very professional manner. We were completely taken care of in regards to food and the venue and I am more than willing to host an event here in the future! The staff really helped us feel comfortable and everything was well planned out. read more

Crystall Ballroom is one of the best places in San Diego I really love their service and their food and I highly recommend it

I have been coming to this place for a number of events over the years and I am finally getting to writing a review! Crystal Ballroom has done a great job with a number of different types of events. I have been to weddings, engagements, private events, professional events, all of which have been accommodated in a very professional manner. I have had a great experience with customer service as I have had my own event here and it was a pretty big one. They are very nice people, easy to work with and made everything easy for me as well. The food and the music was also amazing, a lot of my guests mentioned this as well. I recommend the ballroom to all. read more

This place was awesome when we came here for our event! We all loved how nice the staff was and how they made us feel so welcome. Everything with the planning as well as the food were up to our standards! read more

I came here for an event and it was perfect for me and my family! The ambiance and the food/music was awesome and the staff was super nice to us and made sure we were stress-free! read more

This hall This me the worst. I just celebrated my daughter's 15th birthday 12/17/22 and they did not do any decorations that we wanted and the hall was so dirty. The bathroom where so bad that water all over the floor. The servers this a bad job serving my guess alot of people dint get to eat I was so mad I almost when to the back to serve my guess food. I will never in my life rent this hall I spent so much money here fo half job service and to top it off Tony the owner don't answer my calls or txt. They will be hearing from my lawyer. They close the hall before we where able to get everything out and I when Sunday the next day of the party and the things that where left behind where stolen and Noone from the hall no anything it was a surprise gift that was worth about 1000$ that was stolen and Noone knows where it when. It's bullshit. I will give it no stars if I could. read more

Only if I can give them 0 stars. I went to an Easter party that was hosted by my church this year and let me tell you something about this place. The layout was decent but the food, bar and the customer service was completely shit! I don't know what these shitty unprofessional business owners can treat customers like this! The bathroom was disgusting, piss on the floor. Stop hiring these shitty workers to make shitty customer service. I would not go here again! Avoid! read more

Stay away from this place unless you only rent the hall and bring your own catering company for service... and outsource EVERY bit of service that you'll need for your event. We made the mistake of utilizing what they had to offer and they definitely fell short. They're completely unprofessional and don't know how to run a business - they will rob you for all your worth and then turn around and try to make you look like the crook. They're so dishonest, they say one thing and and do another... in more than one aspect of our event. They were keeping the contract so vague that we relied on verbal agreements which in the end were not fulfilled, they had the audacity to accuse us of lying about conversations that were had with more than one person present, so we've got witnesses. Big lesson learned is to have EVERY LITTLE DETAIL in writing to prevent this kind of fiasco in the future. Not to mention the bathrooms were not clean and the carpeting throughout looked like it had not been vacuumed since the previous event. Silverware was dirty, some cups still had lipstick on them, and they didn't have enough napkins and plates for the event. Service during the event was horrendous - clearly customer service is not a priority. They're only out there to reel you in and make a dollar, no regard whatsoever to customer satisfaction. Look somewhere else... The only star they get is for the beautiful ceiling with chandeliers and awesome lights. Everything else: STAY AWAY. read more

On 10/03/21 This mother fucker gets no likes and no stars of the worst service I had in my life. I was embarrassed, humiliated in front of my guests and it was just disgusting. He put together a corner that was 200 sqft. for 70 people and supposedly put together a small dance floor. Carpet was not vacuumed and nasty black, and the curtains were dirty and filthy and stained! The food we had ordered was not put out only one order of it which was the kabob n rice and the fish was asked for a good 10 wasn't even served. There was only one waiter there for 75 people to serve. They served my guests with a nasty attitude and served my cake put in a big plate of big 4 pieces of cake thrown to each table it was soo bad! I don't blame the one waiter he didn't know what to do with all these people. But I do blame the person in charge who said something he was going to do and gave us a whole instead. It was so shitty I was so embarrassed. I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS PLACE TO NO ONE! read more

I called Tony for a quote & information on his packages. He kept pushing me for a budget. I told him multiple times that my fiance & I have no idea what the budget would be for only lighting & dance floor vinyl packages and would want his advice / quote. He kept pushing me so I finally told him I would guess it would be under $2,000 total but again was not sure. He started saying we couldn't do business because that budget is nowhere near his high end offerings. When I explained to him we would be open to getting a higher quote and that's why we weren't sure of the budget, he pretended that our wedding date was now magically too far out and asked me to reach back out in 5 months. I would not recommend his services for any event. read more

Wish we read the reviews. Absolutely garbage service from the owner down. Guaranteed to embarrass you. Stay away at all cost.

Stay away from this place .. Ballroom is nice, beautiful chandeliers but that's it. The Carpet was dirty it smell like cigarette, restroom were dirty. I had an event for about 300 guest they only had 3 waitress super unprofessional, rude. 1 bartender so slow and didn't know how to make drinks, 1 security that was the entire time near the bar not checking receptions or doing his job.. Food was short and 1 hour late they forgot to serve salad, soft drinks weren't on time on table, no champagne flutes there was a time we're all the waitress, bartender and security where inside the kitchen hanging out/eating instead of doing their job. I had to tell them to turn on the AC 5 times told them several of times to clean the tables . it was horrible and so embarrassing!!!! Make sure you guys doble check everything before signing the contract... if I could give 0 stars to this place I would ... NEVER AGAIN!!!! read more

Don't stop or look here! You will regret it! This place is a joke and nightmare! We just had our wedding here this past Saturday and this place is disgusting! The restrooms first of all was dirty and smells like urine. The carpet is old and ugly. I asked to borrow a knife and a ladle, one of the staff that handed me a dirty ladle hanging on top of the work area not to mention I was going through their utensils they had dirty and clean equipment mixed together in the drawer. Steer clear from this place. The owners are con artist. They wheel you in and tell you lies. Like other reviewers had mentioned the verbal agreement means nothing. Once they have your money they don't care about their customers or your special day. The staff, the owners and whoever involved with these ppl are totally unprofessional, they will steal your alcohol and sell it back to you. I will report them to BBB and the food inspection. Don't get fooled by their beautiful ceiling bcz that's what happened to us. We were cut short with utensils as well. How do you only give ppl forks and knives but no spoons? Plates was also dirty. This place is disgusting period. If I can give them negative stars I would!!! read more

HORRIBLE. If I could give this place 0 stars I would. The staff here is overwhelmingly disorganized. It smells consistently of nicotine. Uncomfortable seats in the lobby, not to mention the owner and his hideous first impression. He and his assistant, whoever tf she is, immediately began complaining about how we were late to our appointment; completely ignoring the fact that the week before we had showed up with no one to assist us. Instead of getting right down to business with the time we had they bickered between themselves about our reservations. Completely unprofessional and frankly a waste of my time. read more

I had my wedding here 2 months ago. At first I was really unsure about this place with all these horrible reviews, but we had a great experience. Saad the owner was great and very helpful followed up with us multiple times before the wedding. Linda decorated the place and everything was exactly how I wanted it,the place looked amazing and clean. Our guest were super impressed with the food they loved it. We had to go back to the kitchen a couple times to get the wine bottles they kept for us in the frige and let me tell you there kitchen is supper clean. The staff was amazing very nice and very helpful. Overall we had amazing coments from our guest and we are honestly happy we picked this place. Thank you to Saad, Linda, and the rest of the staff for an amazing experience! read more

People need to relax with the bad reviews on this place. I just had my wedding here on October 30 and things went really well. The owner Saad is very pleasant to work with. The staff is friendly and kind. The other vendors that work with the ballroom are great too. It has nice features to the place with the change in lighting and a nice bar layout. Would definitely recommend to use this place for all types of occasions. read more

The place is beautiful, that's why i gave it 2 stars. THE PLACE! The rest is just unbelievably crazy! I recently had my wedding there and never again will I have an event in that place. One of my guest found a dead roach on his plate. APPARENTLY there are people who pay monthly to the owner, im guessing the gamblers(which i thought was illegal?) they think they have all the rights to use up the parking lot even when there is an event going on. They were rude and the only asnwer we got from Saad was "what do you want me to do?". We had left it clear that we needed the place to be ready at 4pm yet, i had to drive around longer because the decoration wasn't done! And to top it, he made us believe the dj was included until 3 days before my event Seriously, i would have never waited that long to get a dj if he wouldn't have told me he was going to include it! Saad is completely unorganized and DOES NOT care about his customers all he wants is to make easy money. read more

The last thing anyone needs when planning a wedding is added stress from the venue and decorator. We booked the crystal ballroom for a wedding and paid a good amount for terrible service. We got a "package" that included the decorator Linda-- HUGE mistake. We met up one time where she told us she was easiest to get a hold of through Facebook. From then on, no matter how many Facebook messages, text messages, or phone calls we made, we received no response. I popped up at the ballroom on a random day a week before the wedding hoping she would be there and she was when I told her exactly what we wanted done for the wedding. We got another florist to do the tables and centerpieces because 1) hers looked like crap 2) but more importantly, we couldn't get a hold of her! I would have had better luck trying to get a hold of the president. The owner Saad was almost just as bad. He promised he would "try" to clean his ridiculously smelly carpets but then did not respond to any text messages or phone calls when we asked for an update. I had to inspect all 320 glasses on the day of the wedding because there were lipstick and coffee stains on a lot of them. The place is incredibly run down, stinks, but worst of all the customer service is awful. I would not recommend this headache to my worst enemy. If you're absolutely desperate and need a decent deal on a big place, be ready to stress out from lack of communication and most importantly, PLEASE find an alternative decorator and don't go with theirs. read more

omg horrible horrible horrible. we attended a wedding reception which began at 4pm. tables were not completely set-up & the chair covers were so wrinkled. the bathroom was dirty - it needs a good cleaning with lots of bleach. the carpet is dirty. service is terrible. 3 people to serve 150. food was the pits - the steak was indebible & the mashed potatoes tasted like cardboard. one of my table mates saw the waiter drop a food cover on the dirty carpet & he put it right back on the hot plate! i saw a cook making something with his gloved hands which he proceeded to wipe on his apron & go back to patting whatever it was he was working on. appetizers were a joke - pretzels, some cheese, sliced turkey from packages, tons of carrots, celery & 2 big bottles of hidden ranch dressing! salad consisted of one large soup bowl of greens placed on the table for 9 people. ice cold rolls served in red plastic bowls; no butter, salt or pepper. we had to laugh about our doling out pieces of greenery. tiny drinks for $8 and one bartender. many champagne glasses were dirty. table cloths were inadequate to cover the tables so they used several small ones to cover one long table & didn't even bother to make certain the edges were even so the entire look was haphazard. we hope to never attend any function there again. read more