BellaVista Rooftop & Events — Attraction in Stockton

If I could give negative 10 stars I would have! Terrible management and staff!! Brings shame to the location itself! Booked this venue for an event on Saturday July 1st. (purely for the location alone) Keep in mind this restaurant has been under at least 5 different owners in less than 6 years so that alone should have been a red flag, but they were the only place in town with a rooftop space with a view of the waterfront downtown. About a month or two before the event we booked the venue with the owner and started planning details. We told her we wanted a cocktail style private party for 80 guests and she assured us we would be getting the entire rooftop to ourselves. We went over appetizers and finalized the head count and other details. Then after collecting our non refundable deposit the owner tells us that we will be charged extra per person if we want to bring a birthday cake for our guests (which we ordered from a separate bakery and paid for ourselves) not to mention she is absolutely IMPOSSIBLE to get a hold of and TERRIBLE at responding to ANY messages. We even made sure to make another trip there in person just to go over all set up and plans 2 weeks before just to make sure everything would be correct. Come the day of the event; two hours before the party we show up to decorate and the entire venue was COMPLETELY set up WRONG! They split the rooftop in half and told us we would only be getting half and they had seating set up for 100 people at small 4 top tables not the 4 large tables that would seat 10 as we had discussed. The owner had also told us that she would be supplying all the linens in black for our party so we went with black and gold for the colors for all of our decorations but when we arrived we were told they don't have black only white which completely threw off our color scheme, not to mention such an amateur oversight by the staff and owner. We literally had to move tables and furniture ourselves to set everything up correctly. The arguing back and forth of what we wanted an hour before the event started was an added stress that none of us deserved especially for the $2000 we spent to have our party there. When we noticed they were setting up tables for food we told them we were told it should be cocktail style and guest are supposed to be served, then they tell us if we want to have the food served cocktail style (AS WE HAD ORIGINALLY DISCUSSED!) they would have to add another fee on top of what they originally told us. The fee went from the original $15 per person, (which the owner had told us that would ensure each guest would get 5 pieces of appetizers per hour) to $17 per person just to charge to serve OUR cake (mind you that we paid over $200 for from a separate bakery!) to $30 per person to be served cocktail style!! So we ended up being forced to have ugly buffet tables with crusty old food on them all night long rather than fresh appetizers continuously though the night (Which is disgusting for a FOUR HOUR PARTY!) Needless to say the food was hardly touched due to the visual disappointment. We also brought in a full gallon of French vanilla ice cream to be served with the cake, WHICH WE NEVER EVEN GOT! The owner had also promised the entire rooftop would be pressure washed and cleaned before our event but when we arrived it looked as if they hadn't cleaned up there since the year before! Gross rust water stains and filth covered the entire area. I'm sure I am leaving several other problems out but I hope you get the idea. DO NOT GIVE THESE SHADY SCAMMERS YOUR BUSINESS!!! There are plenty of other...

DO NOT BOOK YOUR RECEPTION HERE! Rima is unprofessional and lacks any respectable communication skills. If it wasn’t for me reaching out to her about updates on my reception which was scheduled for last October she would have never reached out to me. As a business owner you should be updating your Clients regularly on the status of their events. She made it seem like everything was FINE and I was still going to be able to move forward with my reception - until she decided to drop the ball ONE and a half months before my scheduled wedding after I had already sent my guest invites, booked vendors etc. ONLY because I followed up with her once again. Leaving me to scramble and find another location last minute. Anyone who has ever planned a wedding knows how much of a nightmare this is. Last year was a hard year for everybody however owning/running a venue is about keeping your PAYING clients informed and aware of any potential change. With all the unprofessionalism that has happened she refuses to return my deposit which was intended for the use of my reception. I have emails as proof and a Demand Letter that was sent to her that was stamped received and I have yet to hear back from her since the last email I sent her on 8/30/2020. She pretty much just left my scheduled reception up in the air. Pretty sad and unprofessional. Point is DO NOT GIVE YOUR BUSINESS TO...

This was my first time going to Bellavista and I was very disappointed. Service was horrible the minute I stepped in! I walked in by myself and not one single person greeted me. Later, two people walked in and a hostess greeted "us," but looked right passed me and asked "table for 3?" I answered, "yes table for 3 please" and continue to say "but we are not together." After the young hostess sat me a table, not one single person approached my table to offer drinks. I thought to myself, maybe they are waiting for the rest of my party to get here. After a long 10 minutes of silence, my 2 friends joined me. Within seconds after they sat down, a lady, who was dressed differently among other servers, brought the bread and oil to our table along with ONLY 2 glasses of water. I made a comment about service being rude and asked "why didn't she bring me a glass of water?" Another server offered the glass of water. I have never felt so dismayed. I didn't complain in person during my dining experience out of respect for my 2 friends, which was something employees at Bellavista could not offer me. I hope that me being Asian and my 2 friends being Caucasian had nothing to do with the way Bellavista treated me and they way they welcomed my 2 friends. I would hate to use the word "Discrimination" to describe this unwelcoming experience...