Several months have passed since this incident, yet I still lose sleep over what happened. As my friend has already reviewed her side of the story previously, I regret not speaking up sooner and the event still haunts me. It's time to finally speak out about the blatant racism that occurred + bait and switch tactics.
I paid thousands of dollars to host my birthday party here. The owner, Nate, was responsive and courteous in the beginning. However, up until payment was received and 2 days before the party is when things went downhill. He gave me the same quote for the alcohol add-on 3 separate times, but in the end, I was charged more than what I was quoted. He framed it so that it seemed like he was working with me when in reality, he was completely disregarding the initial quotes in the first place. He gave me another quote he claimed was all-inclusive for additional rental time, but I didn't find out until after the invoice that he added on a bunch of additional fees and expenses. Even though he removed some of the additional fees (again, with the attitude that he was doing me a favor), I was still paying more for what I was quoted yet again when it was not what I agreed to.
When I first toured the space to decide if I wanted to rent it, Nate mentioned that I could use the storage room for coats and things. Throughout the night, my guests told me how rude the staff was, scolding them to get out of the storage room when they were leaving their coats in the storage room or when they were lost upstairs. There was a theme of people saying how snooty and uppity everyone was to them. We are understanding people about not being allowed in certain areas, but it is rude to yell at my guests that they can't be here or there, instead of politely informing people about the imaginary red tape they can't cross. I should also call out that my entire party (except 1 person), was made up of POCs.
Then at the end of the night, Nate forcefully grabbed a drink from my best friend's hand, went up to her face (his chest puffed and inches away from her), and repeatedly kept telling her to leave when she was trying to help me carry things out. 5 of us along with the other staff witnessed how rude Nate was. I honestly couldn't believe it. He messaged me the next day justifying his actions, saying it was for legal reasons that nobody could have alcohol after 1am. The one black woman in the room was targeted with bullying tactics to leave for legal reasons. This is indicative of someone who is racist at their core. Anyone in their right mind would not treat someone they respected with this kind of attitude, tone, and aggression. When there is a group of people trying to pack up and leave together, it doesn't look great when you are kicking out the one black woman. I was enraged by this. One of the staff members came out to briefly apologize, as it was evident that what happened was not right, but that didn't remedy the situation by far. Nate was not great about hiding his bad attitude throughout the night and had the audacity to tell us he didn't have to defend his actions. I cried twice that night--he single-handedly ruined my birthday party.
I was so flustered at the end of the night by Nate's actions, I rushed out without my birthday gift bag. When I went back to retrieve it, the gift inside the bag was STOLEN. When I asked Nate about this, the first thing he responded with was "Are you accusing me of stealing?" instead of offering to help.
Nate's defensive and accusatory actions coupled with a blatant disrespect for POCs needs to be called out for what it is: racism. It is ironic because this place is supposed to bring the community together in the Castro, but the reality is, it brings together entitled older white men and singles everyone else out. read more