I've been to 2 other BYOB painting events, and I will be honest, Merlot2Masterpiece is definitely at the bottom of the list.
Merlot has had a groupon posted for quite a while, so my friends wanted to go for a date night. I didn't mind because the other times I've been to painting classes with my girlfriends I've always had a great time.
Let's begin with RSVPing for a day. If anyone has seen the calendar, it fills up pretty fast. Kudos for them because the paintings they offer are very beautiful and it seems like a lot of fun. I was going in a party of 6, which I actually go in a big group often and each time I clicked a calendar date to register, a woman would call me within the day or the next day to tell me the place was booked. Let me tell you, this happened about 2-3 times, so I had to keep finding a new date which all 6 of us would be free. I was patient but .. c'mon it's going to get annoying.
After finding a date, and getting to the class, I was about 5 minutes late, and I was aware that at the other painting classes, they start on the dot, so this was my bad. Let me mention though that the sign is not obvious. It's in a plaza with a gas station and a pizza place, etc but the sign wasn't obvious "MERLOT 2 MASTERPIECE" instead it said in small lettering "gallery.." But once I walked in, they haven't started yet because most of the class wasn't there. This is quite odd, never seen such an empty class (which btw, said it was full on the calendar right now) -- which made me think "if it's always this empty why do they keep telling me each time I book it that it's already full", there was at least 14 seats left. Since they haven't started, I thought "well, I guess I can take some time to put my things away and open my wine" but once I tried to open it, the woman directing the class was rushing me to sit down. Again, I'm comparing this to other painting classes I've attended, and they would just start and let the others catch up -- although some customers would say aloud "wait, what did you say," this is already expected in general.
In the end, I felt like this painting experience wasn't the best. The woman teaching the class was alright, but not the most fuzzy feeling for customers. I would give this location 3 stars, but I'm honestly never going to come back. read more