The owner has been crying about my review to Yelp over and over, begging for it to be deleted over…read moreand over. Because he has no real defense about my critique, he's been straw manning that my review is "mean" and "hateful" -- haha this is what softies in America do these days.
My family and I visited this place in early Sept 2025. Like many other negative reviews state, the animals are in a sad state. They have something called the Giraffe Experience there, where you gotta pay $5 per person, they give you lettuce, and you go up on a platform to feed the giraffes. There was an employee -- I requested the Giraffe Experience from her. She condescendingly explained to us that they were out of lettuce to feed the giraffe, so we couldn't do it. I asked, "Well, can we at least go up on the platform to see the giraffe from up there?" She rudely replied "You can, but you'd still have to pay the full price of $5/person." I started to say something, but she rudely said "Think about it and let me know", turned her back to me, and walked away. How rude! I walked over to her at the front desk and asked "Well, since y'all ran out of the food, and we'd just go up to the platform to see the giraffe, could we at least get a discount?"
Now here, the defensive Owner will say "It was after Labor Day weekend and we ran out of lettuce!" This is such a lame excuse. Labor Day weekend and resultant high volume demand from it is completely predictable, and the correct action by them would have been to anticipate that and stockpile lettuce accordingly. This is basic inventory mgmt that any decent business owner should know. But this guy just makes excuses. But that's fine, I get it, rinky dink business owner is an amateur and made an inventory mistake by running out of lettuce. Fine. Then take ownership of that mistake and make up for it to your customers by letting them at least go up on the platform for free. Why on earth should they still have to pay the $5 bc YOU ran out of lettuce? It is illogical.
The point wasn't the money, it's the principle... despite them screwing up by not having lettuce, this employee, instead of being apologetic and trying to make it up to us somehow, was rude and dismissive.
I then asked to speak to the Manager. As is unfortunately often the case, rather than let me speak to him, she went into his office (which was right there, adjacent to the front desk), and biased him to her version. The Manager told her no, and she came and smugly told me the same thing. I was of course right in the doorway, the Manager could've easily talked to me directly, but he did not. So I asked him directly this time "I understand y'all ran out of the lettuce, and that's ok, but if we only go up to the platform to see the giraffe, sans lettuce, shouldn't there be a discount on the fee?" He started giving me the standard bureaucrat-flexing-his-muscles excuses of why they couldn't do that. Again, condescending and dismissive. I told him "Ok, this is unfortunate bc until now we've had a good experience here. But now I'll have to leave a negative review." He said he was fine with that. I asked him for his name. He refused to give it to me, instead stating "You can look it up on our website." And he was lying about this btw -- his name is not on the website. If they guy is gonna take a stand, why not share his name? And this from a "Manager" who is in the customer service business, unbelievable.
Again, don't expect any ownership or apology from this Owner. He's gonna leave defensive comments, and then go cry to Yelp to have it taken down, again. Look at all the other negative reviews of this place -- that tells you what you need to know. There was barely anyone here when we went -- it will likely be out of business anytime. And with this kind of ownership, management, and employees, it's no surprise why.
