My friend's birthday is comin' up and her wife booked the party room at Napa Cafe for 21 people. They asked for a $500 deposit to book the space. Cool! They got the $500 deposit.
We all get there and have a great time. Service was cool, food was good... a bit overpriced for what they brought out, but still good. Servers are servin'. Cool!
No fuss, no problems.
AND THEN.
One of our friends finds a piece of COPPER WIRE in her Salmon.
Bruh.
C O P P E R.
Initially, she doesn't tell us cause she realizes we're all havin' a good time and doesn't want to make a scene. So what does she do? Discreetly tells management. And GUESS what management tells her?
"In our 21 years of business, we've never had this experience. There's absolutely nothing that represents copper in our restaurant." (Basically insinuating my friend planted the copper wire to avoid paying for food)
BRUH.
When you add the cost of the $500 deposit, price of food (plates range from $28 - $45 and we had 21 guests - you do the math), plus drinks... our party spent WELL OVER $1300. So imagine the AUDACITY of this woman insinuating she was trying to get out of paying for her $40 meal and offering a $10 discount to compensate for the METAL being her food.
Slap in the face, much?
So, our friend counters that she'd like to have both of her drinks taken off instead. The amount of both drinks totaled $24.
Management tells her IT'S AGAINST THE LAW to discount liquor a
and that she'd try to accommodate her food. Walks off, just to come back and say she could only take one drink off. (Thought it was against the law? No accommodation to the food ticket either)
Management comes back with an offer of a $25 gift certificate and keeps interrupting my friend while she's talking, asking if she could use it for this visit - the birthday girl tells the manager (who is now posing as the Owner) to stop interrupting our friend so the "owner" ends up walking off - not answering my friend's question. Finally, coming back and saying there will be no compensation whatsoever.
And that's when stuff really escalates.
It takes them forever to close out people's tabs - kinda felt like they were holding us hostage.
We pay the bill, minus the service charge, and walk out to leave.
Now, guess who is at the bar waiting on us as we walk out of the room?
The "owner" (who is really the manager) and 2 MPD officers who are friends with the good ol' folks at Napa Café.
As we go to walk out, the manager accuses us of not paying for our tab. Na, boo, we paid the tab. We just didn't pay the service charge. Ya know that thing called a tip when you have a large party? Raise your hands if you know that fee is disputable based on the actual service received. Aw ok...
The manager says the service charge was the fee to book the room! Wait.. what?!
It's only coincidence that the service charge was the standard 18% large party gratuity, right? Na. Even her employees told us the added fee was a gratuity.
When my partner asked for the manager to provide proof that we owed a balance that was not food or drink related, she walked to the back.
And when she couldn't come up with anything, she was HOT. Like FIRE HOT. Came back and told us to leave... and used 2 MPD officers as her security to make us.
So, I get most of the party out of the restaurant to prevent anymore escalation. Someone flips the manager off, and while standing behind her security, jumps at them and says "Do it again and see what happens". Do the police tell her to calm down? Of course not. They're homies.
So it's just me and my partner in there. Police are telling us to get out. My partner is trying to get information of the manager and the policeman says "Leave or I'll arrest you"...
Obviously she doesn't leave. She gets arrested. And now we're here.
My partner had to spend 8 hours in jail last night because a white woman wanted to call the police on a situation she escalated and had every opportunity to resolve.
This, my friends, is the epitome of white privilege.
And oh, while the cops put my partner in the cop car... the owner comes running out wanting to fix things.
A little too late don't ya think Napa Café?
Y'all had the chance to make things right but you chose to treat us like second class citizens instead.
I highly discourage anyone from visiting this racist, classist establishment.
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