Ok, I'll start by saying that the Fort, as it's known to most of us here in the valley, is a main stay. It's the only place on the river to congregate and get food, drinks and a beach by boat, or driving. Despite my review, I know it's not going anywhere and its business won't be affected...even though it should be.
Today I went there with family visiting from the Caribbean. The hours said "open 12-8pm" which I thought was great because my brother had asked me to get a sweater for him that reps the business. I drive out there, it's about 25 minutes from where I live, gate is open but all the doors are closed. So myself, my wife, and visiting family say "okay, we'll grab a couple of chairs from the deck, have a drink and wait till someone comes" We had a cooler with us from earlier adventures but we love the Fort's signature drink, the sunset and we had told our guests about them. We were all pretty jacked to have one on a rare sunny September weekday.
The owner, who I think is named Trevor Miller, shows up, marches up to us and immediately starts telling us that we can't use chairs from the deck and can't drink alcohol there. He didn't ask us anything, didn't care about our intentions, just straight up told us to beat it. If he had have said "hey guys, we normally don't let people use our chairs and we don't usually let people use our chairs, but are you intending to stay till we open?" Or anything aimed at understanding our intentions, he would have sold a sweater and a round of drinks. Instead, he got four people who said "well that was not something that made me want to support this place"
1. Make sure your business hours are reflective of the reality (especially in seasonal business)
2. You get more bees with honey (I got my brother a whitewater sweater instead and bought a 24 of tall boys..cause they seem to appreciate my money)
3. the fort can suck it cause I will not be back and neither will my family read more