Greenvale Vineyards — Attraction in Portsmouth

HORRIBLE! I recently had a baby shower at the new building where brunches will be held. Tammy did not follow our contract and had nothing prepared. The event space was not cleaned, was a complete construction zone with dead and live BUGS everywhere. I asked for a shop vac and started to suck up earwigs and spiders and saw dust at eight months pregnant. A place where we would be serving food and at an event space we were paying for. It was a very fake it till you make it, but you never made it. If the space was not ready for people to occupy then it should not have been used or charged for. We were told many things that were not true. The bathrooms were as if someone was living there and had not cleaned up after themselves. Used dirty towels hanging out and a dirty bath mat in front of the toilet with a water pic on the back of the toilet. We were baffled. When I called after the event and spoke to John on the phone, he said that it was better than using the one 100s of guest in the garden was using. He was demeaning, inappropriate and inexcusable. Also, stated he did me a favor by having a bar tender available when actually by law it need to be provided. We were also told that the live jazz music being performed in the garden would be “pumped in through the sound system”. That was also a small speaker in the corner and was not true. There was no music and we provided our own playlist. Tammy did not communicate the wine that previously selected and declined my “membership” discount. The wine selections that were chosen were not provided the day of. Tammy was also not on campus on the day of our event and it’s unclear who the lead was. To add to the mess, there were tours being given to young men by the older gentleman THOUGH our private event. It was very inappropriate and my guest kept asking me about it. The absolute final straw that broke me was towards the end, as I was opening baby shower gifts a woman walked right into the event with an umbrella, asking me how the event was going as I was in the middle of opening gifts in front of people letting us know that we had five minutes remaining. According to Tammy, prior to the event, we could stay a little past the event time as there was no one booked after us. My guest were absolutely flabbergasted by this woman who just walked in a disrupted the party. Again, no one seemed to have any clue what was happening.Asked speak to someone after phone calls and 4 email attempts the vineyard did not respond. Told me they would circle back. Do not go here. Go to Newport vineyards! Wayyyyyy better experience and had my bridal...

I had a terribly bad experience with this vineyard today. To the owners: even if it's a small blip in your experience running a business or in your personal life, I hope that it's enough to consider a change in habit, a change in perspective and careful consideration about how you treat others, especially your customers.

Regardless of race, It's NOT okay to walk into a room and condescendingly approach your customers about what they should or should not be doing. It IS okay to ask them nicely.

Regardless of race, It's NOT okay to walk away from your customers with a "you're taking up the whole place" comment and then claim it was not meant to be said negatively

Regardless of race, it's NOT okay to tilt your head to the side, shrug your shoulders and throw your hands as if nothing was wrong when your customers are expressing how offended they feel about being treated

Regardless of race, you shouldn't ever say out loud to your customers "We're happy to have you here BUT...." when you're embarrassed to finish that sentence

Most importantly because of race and the fact that the color of our skin is different than yours, none of it was acceptable. And that "but" should never have been about how you judged my family when we first walked in or when you saw us from afar with our babies as you said, based on our race or the color of our skin.

Saying "I'm sorry" and only after the fact isn't enough, even if you do truly mean it. Do better. We were happy to have visited your place at first BUT there won't be a next time. If you were truly happy to have us there today, I hope you DO BETTER next time for the next family.

Background: We reserved a 2p time slot with a very accommodating junior team member of the vineyard. We mentioned we had a large party with lots of kids. It was mentioned the restaurant was not open but we were welcome to bring our own food. All agreed.

We started with four orders of wine flights (4 wine types, $24 for the flight). The place was empty and it didn't look like many more were coming in so we took up three booths in the back area with food we brought in. Despite what was agreed upon, when the owner walked in, apparently we were still doing something wrong. Or not. And we no longer felt welcome. Hence all of the above.

Wine: not the best, but not the worst. There was one I did enjoy. Either way, I would have bought a bottle of each of the four to support local business had we not had this experience

Atmosphere: rustic on the inside. Patio / outdoor seating was available but it was too cold so we opted to...

If you want a good experience at this vineyard, please read this LONG REVIEW. It might just apply to you. I rarely write negative reviews because I truly believe kindness goes a long way but today the OWNER of GREENVALE VINEYARD (Portsmouth, RI) triggered us to lose any love I have for this venue, and for their wine.

Long story short, my family were in Newport, RI area. I called ahead to make sure that this vineyard was open, and if they would have room for my big family which includes kids of different ages. The male staff said it’s fine so I made reservation for 2 pm and he even said, we can bring in outside food so we did.

45 minutes into our enjoyment, a female staff (whom we learned was actually the OWNER) walks down the area (secluded back room, away from the bar) where we’re in and muttered in her breath, "you're taking up the whole place" and "we normally don't do this!"

Normally don't do what? (We wouldn't have entered their doors if I did not get an ok from her staff.) Didn't I ask ahead of time if okay to bring in my big group? Didn't I tell your staff that we had kids of all ages? (Which at that time were super behaved and not rowdy.) Did she purposely mean for us to hear that comment? Or she plainly just had a bad day? And took it out on us? Did she make us feel unwelcome because of the shape of our eyes? Or the sound of our voices? Were we too Asian for her business?

I would never know the full answer to these questions but all I know is that from her gestures, her tone of voice, her use of words, we were not welcome there! Never mind, that we were going to buy glasses of wine after the wine flights. Never mind, that together, we would have made her more than $1000 (one sister was planning to buy a case of the red wine) that day. Something about us bothered her and we were not welcome there! She wasn't going to keep her comments to herself because that was more important than accommodating her customers, who are the backbone of her business.

So...we packed up our food after some moments of bickering with the owner, left the remaining wine flights untouched, paid for the bill and left! I HOPE that you don't have to encounter the same experience we've had or the same treatment she gave us. Or if you did, know that it's not you that has a problem, it's the owner and her poor...