I cannot write enough negative reviews for this awful, insensitive, & disorganized business owner. I am a business owner myself & would never go out of my way to write a negative review, but genuinely I've never had a more awful experience with a business. Do not spend your money here or have an event here unless you're ready for an extremely unprofessional and stressful event.
I had a welcome party here last week for my wedding. The most stressful party of the entire wedding planning process for me because of poor ownership, lack of communication, and the way they treated me & my husband.
1. I booked the venue in April for $2500.00 food & beverage minimum for 2 hours on a Friday Night. I asked for drink prices & the manager told me it was being worked on & they were going to try to get my drinks as "close to their cost" as possible given the amount of guests I had & to add the welcome party to the RSVP for my 250 guests so they can get a number/ drink cost.
2. I got a call from a new manager less than 4 weeks before my event (2 days before my RSVPs- that was requested by the old manager were due). She said they didn't have my reservation on file & asked what I was quoted for my event.
3. My husband and I later went to the space to meet with the new manager who said the drink menu was still (4 months later) being worked on. We placed nearly over the original minimum in food & knew we were going to exceed our minimum spend with drinks.
4. We got the quote with a message saying that for 2 hours they typically rent the restaurant for $16,000.00. I fought to honor the original quote which they did- but given that they were "giving us such a discount" they had to charge $6.00 per Seltzer & $4.50 per Beer (we ordered 600 cans total & 10 bottles of wine + a full cash bar for liquor).
5. Fast forward, a week before my event- 24 hours post receiving my quote, I called the owner to discuss the discrepancies from my emails with the previous manager & my budget- I was lectured that they were losing money on our event, that the owner knew she quoted the wrong amount & waited until 7 days before my event to tell me this, and that she would give me only a 10% discount after being yelled at on the phone & forwarding all email communication. We would have canceled if we didn't have such a large amount of people to coordinate.
6. My husband & I were getting back from our wedding rehearsal with our families & we're running about 10 minutes behind the start of the party. We get a call that they can't serve until there is a card on file so our guests arrived and couldn't eat or drink - we had to rush over when they could have easily told us to bring a card earlier in the day/ week or send a CC authorization form.
7. They told me this entire time that they had a musician - I asked for weeks who that musician was. Calling, texting, emailing- the manager was great but the owner wouldn't give her an answer. Finally on the day of the event I called and said since we don't know who the musician is (that can really set the tone of the event)- can we just cancel the music & we will bring our own boom box & microphone as I hired my videographer & photographer to record planned toasts & speeches from our guests.
They told me they could not cancel the musician but we could have them leave if they didn't fit the vibe & that we could use their microphone & boom box for speeches.
We ended up liking the music & they were accommodating when we wanted to give toasts until about 8pm. (The party was from 7:30 - 9:30).
At 8:30 my best friend & husbands friend wanted to give toasts & the musician said they were leaving & taking their microphones because "no one could hear them". When I approached the owner Hilda, she told me they were stopping playing at 9pm (30 min before my party ended) & they could pack up.
8. Lastly, we paid for a private event (as in we rented the restaurant) & they made all our guests put on wristbands which held up the line to get in (it was nearly 100 degrees in Lexington that night). It turns out they did that because they didn't actually close it to just our guests- there were plenty of hotel guests also at the bar & eating our food.
Not worth the original $2,500.00 more or less $16,000.00 for TWO hours. My wedding was less expensive than that for 12 hours. read more