DO NOT BOOK WITH THIS VENUE!!! HORRIBLE EXPERIENCE!! This has got to be the worst experience I have ever had with any rental space. If I could give them 0 stars I would. I rented this space for the repast for my mother's funeral. The funeral home gave me the recommendation. Since I had a very short window in which to plan the funeral, I decided to go with the recommendation. I went to the venue and there was no one there. I called the number and a gentleman answered, he told me to hold on and someone would be with me shortly. We had no further conversation before he put me on hold. I was on the phone for quite some time and then decided to hang up since I saw two women approach and I thought one of them may have been the owner. It turns out they were also looking for a venue. A few minutes later a woman called me back asking if I was still interested in renting the space. I said yes. Her name was Aida. She told me to wait, she would be at the venue shortly. She arrived after a few minutes, took us inside and showed us the place. It was a nice space. She informed me that inside could hold 200 people and if that was not enough, the outside could accommodate an additional 40 people. I thought it sounded great and went to their office to finalize things. Once in the office, I was told that it would cost $3500 for the rental. I agreed and offered to pay with my debit card. Aida told me that it was better for me to pay with cash. I said I did not have enough cash on me but would go to the bank to get the rest. I gave her $300 as a deposit before I left for the bank so that she could see that I was serious about renting the hall. While I am at the bank getting cash, I get a call from Aida asking me if her boss spoke with me previously (during the 30 seconds when he answered my initial call to tell me to hold on), I said no. She said well the price is $5,500. I was floored, I said I was just in your office and you told me $3,500! I told her I was not paying anymore. She tried to haggle with me and I said no. I should have gone with my gut and gone back to get my $300 and cancel the arrangement right there. Anyway, she said ok and we went back to pay the balance. She asked me how many table and I said 20. On the contract it was divided by 10 round and 10 rectangle and 2 tables for the food. This was on the Monday before my mother's funeral. Let's fast forward to the day before my mother's funeral, Friday May 9th at 8:30pm. I get a call from Ida saying that they do not have enough chairs and could I downsize the amount of people I was having. I could not believe what I was hearing. In addition to the grief I was dealing with because of the passing of my mother, and the other stress from planning a funeral, here comes this woman, with no regard to what she is asking me. How do you downsize for a funeral repast ? Should I have started calling people that night to tell them not to come? I'm just at a loss of how any business owner can see that it's ok to do that. I told her to call Henry so we could speak with him. She called me back to tell me Henry would speak with me in the morning, the morning of my mother's funeral. I said absolutely not, he has to speak with me tonight and that my mother's funeral started at 9 am the next morning and I would not be speaking with anyone at that time. After some back and forth, Henry finally called and I spoke with him. I told him that it was extremely unprofessional for them to call me at the last minute to tell me that they did not have enough chairs to accommodate the 200 guests that I would be having. He assured me that all of the chairs were there and he would make it work. Needless to say, when the woman I hired to decorate the tables came to set up the morning of the funeral, she informed me that there were only 12 tables set up. She took a video of it for me. At that point I asked a cousin of mine to make some calls and tell some of the people coming to the repast to not come since we were unable to accommodate them. How utterly embarrassing for me and my family. I went to the office to deal with the matter the Monday after the funeral. I told them that I should receive some kind of compensation or reimbursement for them not being able to fulfil their end of the contract. Henry initially denied that there were not enough tables and chairs and then told me that he would need to look at the camera footage to see what the story was. I tried to reach out to him and Aida several times and there has been no response. The next step is court. So if you value your money, PLEASE DO NOT RENT FROM THEM. They lack any semblance of integrity. You as a customer deserves better. And imagine, this is a man who is running for Queens Borough President. If you don't have integrity or ethics in your business practices, how would you expect him to have it as Borough President?! Integrity is ingrained in the fiber of our core, you Henry Ike have shown you have none of that. read more
