Liquid Art Winery And Estate — Attraction in Kansas

This is a painful review for me to leave. I don't love leaving less than stellar reviews for any place that we love but 4 weeks in a row we've had a mediocre experience. The wine and food are great, they really are. That's why we keep coming back again and again. And we will probably continue to patronize the winery all the same because it's a quality product. But boy is the service always problematic. I'll start by saying, the staff are amazing people! Like we love them so much. But the setup, organization and execution are abysmal any time the winery gets even a little busy. There's just not enough staff to handle the sheer number of people that patronize the winery. Parts of orders get missed, wait lines are 30-45 min or more, seating is always a challenge on busy days (sometimes big groups will come an hour or more early for their gatherings and move several tables before their entire party arrives) because there's no decorum. They don't take reservations but in the case of big parties, I'd rather see them charge something like $5/pp to reserve specific seats and that money be credited towards the bill of people who do show up, and lose if they don't, but then big parties are only holding the number of seats they anticipate needing and only at the time they need, not hours before.

We love that they are making changes and growing though. We were excited to do an event in their new event space but were disappointed to experience just how dark and dreary it was even though outside was beautiful and sunny. You can rent the space, but I'm not sure I would unless they dramatically fix the lighting and overall feel.

We are looking forward to getting to experience the amphitheater on a nice day. It looks like it will be a truly lovely addition.

Overall, the way ordering and closing checks is handled though is the biggest downside. On a busy day you might possibly wait 45 min to order, an hour to receive food you ordered and potentially another 45 min to close out your check. We've experienced this first hand more than once so I know we're not just making it up. But I am appreciative that the staff, stretched to the max as they may be, are still always in a good mood.

If they can figure out a better process for ordering and closing tabs then my rating will change. But in the mean time, we will continue to visit, though hopefully we'll find far less busy days to come (for the record, Thurs have seemingly always been horrible every time we've come.... We won't do...

My husband and I , ( yes we are gay), went to Liquid Art last fall on a warm day and enjoyed wine, crackers, and cheese on their back patio enjoying the view and were looking forward to a warm weekend so we could return. My husband had an encounter thru business today with who he understood to be the owner and he complimented the owner about the winery, but then mentioned how one of the wines we sampled was sour tasting and was curious why. During the conversation he also mentionted going there with his husband. The owner promptly let it be known that he was not to come back. Now I do not know if the owner is anti gay or thin skinned, either is his choice to be, we all have our own choices to make. On that note we will choose to no longer visit the winery, we will tell our friends we are not going back and why, which will most likely mean they will not go back there either. Being a business owner is not easy, been there done that, but running off customers just does not seem like a good business practice. There are other fantastic wineries is this area who are very friendly to do business with and we love to spend money with them, we choose to go to friendly places to spend money, much more enjoyable that way.

Just a small update because more has come out. My husband was talking to an employee, not the owner as he first thought. Somewhere between the employee and the owner and my husbands boss some of the facts got turned to fiction. As a group, when we go out we generally spend between $200-$500. Our group will never spend money at this place nor our friends. You do NOT lie about a persons work and expect customers to return, ain't a gonna happen.

And a quick reply to the response of the owners, see the last...

I have been to Liquid Art now about 5 times! It's always a great atmosphere, very relaxing, the wine is wonderful, and the food is great -- also great prices! My friends and I went out last night to have some drinks and some pizzas! We walked in and the line was EXTREMELY long to order. I understand, it's a Saturday at 6:30P. We ordered and could not find a table that had been cleaned off from prior groups. We ended up choosing a bigger table, and there were about 6 wine tasting flight set ups, a few empty bottles, an empty Charcuterie box, and pizza plates left on our table. The ENTIRE time we were there, these dirty dishes stayed at the table and were never taken! It didn't bother us too much, but just the fact the other people's dirty dishes sat with us for several hours was odd. Despite the waiting time to order, our food came out fairly quickly and was delicious! The venue says its open until 10P on Saturday, but the staff turned the patio lights off right about 9:30P. Everyone kind of looked around in confusion, as we still had another 30 minutes before closing. It was almost as if they were trying to rush people out. It was a beautiful night, but would have been MUCH more comfortable if the venue had a few fans moving some air around! It was pretty still and muggy making it a bit warmer than what it was! All in all it was an acceptable experience, just wish a few things would've been different to have a more...