Pharaoh Karaoke Lounge — Attraction in Los Angeles

TLDR: good deals but staff messed up twice, wouldn't accept fault, tried to shift blame, and charged 20% gratuity for a small group anyways. Would recommend elsewhere, like Gaam karaoke, or be very explicit in reservation and when you arrived

I hate writing this because I've enjoyed coming here previously, but last night was such an annoying experience because of the staff. I called several times to reserve a medium room ahead of time, put my name and card down. We arrived in two groups, one on time and one later, but they somehow gave our room reservation to a different group that apparently had the same first name, and didn't consider checking with the card I put down. Then they wouldn't seat the first group because of the mixup until I arrived to clarify things. So we originally were going to start at 9pm, but didn't until 9:20-9:25pm. They tried smoothing it over by sending extra snacks, but then at 10:46 they notified us our 2 hours were somehow over? Because they somehow recorded that we arrived at 8:46pm, despite the first group having a parking ticket, validated by them, that was at 8:54pm, so it wasn't even possible we arrived or started that early. I had to discuss things with staff, and they decided to give a "complimentary" 15 minutes. Pssh. Then at the end the 20% auto gratuity was a real kicker given our size of 5 (smaller than what most restaurants would consider charging automatic gratuity). The entire time the staff and manager kept acting like it wasn't their fault or that they couldn't fix things - just accept that you made some mistakes and these interactions would've been much smoother.

My group was very excited to come to celebrate my friends birthday, and we still had a good time, but these sort of issues make no sense. I would've kept coming for larger groups and events, but not after this. If you do come with a large group, make sure to be every explicit in your reservation, keep notes of arrival time, etc. I've been to Gaam karaoke also in Ktown - no major food deals, but if you just wanna karaoke then it was no issue at all. Smh. If the owner or staff see this, there are other ways to provide smooth service besides...

Karaoke spot with private rooms. You should make a reservation in advance by calling them (online reservation isn’t available). We got a small room for 7 girls, and it was a good size (there was still space for a couple more people). You have to put your credit card down at the beginning and then they’ll charge you at the end. The room reservation came with a choice of (mandatory) two drinks packages - we got the option with 3 bottle soju (they have peach, grape, strawberry, and apple) and 7 bottles of beer (we got Heineken). You also get a main dish (we got the fried appetizer plate as the employee suggested), and it came with various bites like spring rolls, fries, chicken nuggets, etc. It was $190 for the first hour then $30 each hour thereafter. We ended up staying for 4 hours.

There’s a varied selection of songs (both English and non-English). There’s a thick book where you can choose to key in the songs. My main gripe is that they didn’t have Sugar, We’re Going Down by Fall Out Boy or any MCR/Paramore songs, but my inner emo kid still survived. They even had tambourines in the room. Water bottles are extra (no tap water). Overall, it’s a fun spot where you can really belt your heart out in the privacy...

Pretty dishonest. Pro tip: if you call to ask about rooms and prices, make sure to ask what's available, do not give them a number of ppl til you hear the rates FIRST.

My friend called to ask if they had any rooms available that night, she was quoted 330$ with tax/ tip by the woman on the phone for a room of 8ppl and that that was the only option available. I thought that was high and that maybe she assumed we wanted a premium option so i called not 5 mins later asking if they any rooms available for tonight, the same way my friend did. The woman on the phone said she needs to know how many ppl, I told her idk maybe 10. She told me the only room available was for 15 ppl for 440$ not including tax/tip. I asked if she was SURE that was the absolute ONLY room available regardless of amount of ppl and she said yes, not knowing we called a few minutes prior asking the same exact thing and she gave a different answer. Obviously the more ppl, the higher the price, but again i called asking for availability and options, and i was lied to about what rooms were even available. Idk yall, it's...