The Atrium: "A Special Events Venue" — Attraction in Rich Township

$3 dollar water pitcher - a tale of poor customer service. I recently recommended my sister-in-law to this venue after seeing their promotion from 1 to 5 $800 special. I was her decorator for her event. The hours were misleading. You only get one hour set up time and have to purchase additional time in order to set the room at $75 per hour. Also, (and this was not told to us until 2 weeks before the event) you must be packed and leave the premises by 5 pm. You are actually not paying for event time for the 1 to 5 special but the time in total. This place is not meant to be upscale or used for elegance. It’s a glorified park district but I’ve been to better park districts. The kitchen is small and cannot accommodate a full catering staff. Make sure you plan for no food to be served; it just cannot accommodated that type of full-scale service. They do not provide their clients with any materials do work with within their venue which is where my review title references. I brought my own rented water pitchers to fill chafer dishes and vases. In the horrible rush (we were told to be out in 15 minutes or be charged another fee), we were trying to collect our water dishes and the bartender mistakenly took one of ours believing it was theirs. After I came home to sort all items, I realized this item was missing. I returned all items to the rental company and got a receipt that shows I had to pay 7 dollars for this missing item. 7 dollars the company would return if I could bring the item back. Sheniquia (presuming she is the owner) has the worst customer service I’ve ever experienced. Not only did she get combative with me, she ultimately called me ridiculous for trying to retrieve one of my items that I told her her staff collected by human error. She refuses to give my item back noting that it took me 2 to 3 days to even call about the item. I didn’t know the office was opened on Sunday; I simply waited until Monday to call. All-in-all from being mislead about pricing, timing and event space we could occupy the owners, bartenders and managers made us feel uncomfortable. Chasing people down for money for the bar when that is supposed to be collected at the end of the night, no water provided for guests and poor attitudes when asked about providing cups at the table for the $10 soft drinks. The only person I had a pleasure with working with that day was the maintenance gentleman. He assured my needs were met. I’m sorry to say, I’ve worked many of venues in my line of business and this is by far the most poorly managed and lacks the customer care that should be required. I would ask all my fellow black people to expect better when it comes to services from black business owners. This review may have never been met but the interaction yesterday sent me over the edge. I have had bigger issues at white owned establishments and have my needs met over and abundantly. The way she reacted over my $3 dollar water pitcher was ridiculous. She basically told me “oh, well” and so Here we are. Please, if you are looking for a venue to treat you with respect and appreciates the fact that you have spent one of your hard earned dollars at their establishment, I would suggest you stay far, far away...

This is my honest and unbiased opinion of the customer service/ treatment this place gave me during my visit. on July 20, 2019 some friends and I decided to pay this place a visit after leaving a birthday party. I establishment was nice but it hide a very nasty and rude person there that identified herself as the owner. I approached the bar and asked for a bottle of wine and she pointed me to various mini bottles of wine that was unsuitable for the party of people I had with me. I politely asked if she had anything bigger and she said in a very rude tone no but then said she can get me some. Now, this is the same lady/owner who informed me that I could not bring in liquor yet I watched her leave out to go get a bottle of wine from the same liquor store I had previously brought wine from and was denied to enter with. I wine she purchased there was 14.99 and when I asked her how much she said 30.00. At this point I was highly frustrated and quickly came to the conclusion that she was on the take. I so wanted to respect to establishments rules and I wanted my friends to to drink wine so I bought it for 30.00. So, not only did I have to deal with a stank attitude but I paid way over the cost for the wine I wanted. Well, I thought that maybe I could get a little customer service for such an expensive bottle of wine by asking her to bring it to our table when possible, in the most nastiest and rude tone she said she had other customers to see to. There was another bar tender there working with her so now I began to feel like it was something personal she had against me. I got my wine and proceeded to try to enjoy my time there at The Atrium but could shake the question of why do We not understand the concept of excellent customer service. Needless to say I will not be going back there. The reply of the Atrium representative is false and the actions by this person doesn't reflect what actually happened that day. I have no reason to lie about the disrespectful , nasty and rude treatment I experienced that. As a matter of fact, I encourage people to read all the reviews this establishment has gotten and discover the multiple bad reports of rude and disrespectful customer service the Atrium gives its patrons. I specifically remember asking this lady to please bring me the $30.00 bottle of wine to my table and she replied she has three other customers and won't be able to do it. This was told to me in a nasty way and I found it to be a very unacceptable reply. For those that are reading this understand that good customer service is a expectation and should not be compromised on. When your spending your hard earned money at places like this it can be a disappointment when that expectation is beyound understanding. Being informed is the best way to avoid high expectations from places like this and so I have wrote my review for that reason. Go there and judge for yourself. Maybe they'll have their customer service on point after this review, I hope so or maybe they won't. It's a coin toss and a chance I'm not taking because I wont...

The owner was very condescending and rude!!! (Shenneka is her name I believe). I was here for my sister’s baby shower 10/23/22 and the room was VERY hot despite all the ceilings fans being on. If you look back at the weather for that day in country club hills it was pretty warm outside for October, with it being in the mid 70s. I asked the owner could we turn on the air conditioner. Immediately I was met w/ an attitude & a condescending tone “well did you try with the fans on?!” I replied “yes the fans are on but the room was still very warm” (Side note: It was to the point people were sweating and this wasn’t a dance party, again this is a baby shower with people sitting down) The owner, Shanneka, still doesn’t answer my question about the air conditioning, instead gets up visibly irritated that I’m bothering her & walks into our venue room. She looks around at the ceiling fans that were clearly already on, and walks away. Again, saying nothing to me about the AC. At this point, I’m just standing there waiting for her to respond, acknowledge, or give an answer to the question. Instead, she walks away and I’m left standing in the doorway.

She comes back 10-15 minutes later, doesn’t approach me but someone else who didn’t ask her about the air, so I walk up to her while she talking. I hear her say “oh the heat was on, I turned it off”. Again, it is in the mid 70s outside, and the room had over 60 people inside. The room was HOT, so the AC should have been turned on AT LEAST for a little while to cool the room down. But no, that was not an option for Ms. Shanneka.

I thought for her to had been making GOOD money off of the event, at the very least we could have the air turned on and not met with an unnecessary attitude but clearly that was not the case. If you do book here, like many of the other reviews (even on Yelp) say you may or may not be met with an attitude or rude tone about simple requests.

Thankfully, we did not let her unpleasant energy ruin the event but, I’m not accustomed to a “professional” business having an issue with turning central air conditioning on, especially when being paid...