Grand Rapids Downtown Market — Local services in Grand Rapids

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I would give them zero stars if I could. Absolutely atrocious customer service. I've been trying to contact them for over a year to get assistance and they have failed to return any of my phone calls. When I tried to get assistance via Facebook Messenger they actually blocked me instead of responding to my inquiry. Initially I had sent a message to the Christkindl Markt GR with a question about the market when they first opened in 2023, and instead of answering my question they blocked me. Later I attempted to get this resolved by contacting the Downtown market via Facebook Messenger, and when I explained to them that I had gotten blocked by the Christkindl Markt GR, I was hoping that the Downtown Market would handle the situation in an appropriate way by apologizing for the poor customer service; instead, not only did they not respond to my message, they blocked me as well. I was absolutely shocked. I would completely understand a business choosing to block a customer if the customer had sent them harassing or threatening messages, however my messages to them were nothing of the sort. All I had done was ask them genuine questions about the products at the market. None of my communication to them via messenger was hostile, aggressive, threatening, or inappropriate in any way. Whenever I reach out to a business for customer service I communicate with the employees in a pleasant and respectful way.

UPDATE:

I was really hoping that I would be able to find some resolution with this business and be able to post an update to this review to reflect that they had actually shown that they care about their customers by actively providing some kind of acceptable customer service. Unfortunately that did not happen. I was eventually able to get through to a person on the phone at the market. I explained to her the situation, with getting blocked on the two pages and with not being able to get through to anyone for customer service on the phone. She told me that she would look into it and get back to me. A couple of weeks later, she called me back (on January 17th, 2025), to tell me that she was unable to find any reason why I had been blocked (she also gave me no reason why nobody would call me back over the course of over a year whenever I tried to call and leave my name and phone number on their voicemail), and to top it all off, she informed me that they would not be unblocking me because the employees said they felt unsafe with me because they said I was going on message boards online trying to find the personal home address of the president of the company!!! 😳😳😳 I was absolutely shocked when she said this. At no point in my life have I ever made any attempt to find the personal home address of any employee of any business. For them to use the word unsafe and to say that I was actively seeking the home address of the president of the company, it seemed as though this company was implying that I had some kind of malicious agenda, when that was the furthest thing from the truth. All I was trying to do was reach somebody in customer service for assistance. I had even explained to the woman on the phone during our first conversation that my intention with my initial inquiry about the products at the market was so that I could promote the market amongst a local group of which I am an admin (a group with over 2400 members, so I potentially could have brought in a lot of business for the market). For the employees of this business to spread false things about me could be considered slander and defamation of character. I never imagined that me asking an innocent question about products at the market and trying to get customer service would result in the employees (who I've never even met before) lying about me and saying that I was trying to find the home address of the president of the company. Such an unfathomable turn of events. Instead of doing their jobs and responding to a customer's genuine inquiry, they chose to ignore me and then...

I used this Downtown Market Kitchen for the first time this weekend for 9 hours and it cost me just shy of $700. $315 of this was basically for resting my items on a table so they wouldn't be on the floor. I participated in a local festival and did not want myself and my staff to have to travel the almost three hours to and from our restaurant daily so we sought out a local kitchen to use. My orientation was rushed which I accept full responsibility for as I came in an hour before Ryan had to leave. Trusting in what he says (foolishly on my part) we reviewed what he thought would apply to me and I signed. During our walk through he pointed to the area he suggested I use and mentioned the plenty of table space. I agreed to use that space. No mention was made that i could not touch the table beside me. I received a notice of my being charged and additional $315. I asked Ryan about the charges and he stated that it is their policy to charge and that there was a clear diagram included in the packet. There is in fact a color coded map within the new member packet, because it wasn't discussed I had no idea what the color coding actually meant as it pertains to charges. Honestly, there is no clear statement.of costs on this page. There is no mention of charge on the page at all. Just a layout that is color coordinated and the purpose of the section. The new member packet was emailed to me while in the midst of getting ready for the weekend so I did not get to read through the entire package until today. I am NOT refusing to pay them. They have access to the account to get paid. However, I find their business practices immoral, dishonest and truly inconsiderate to a small business owner. While using my rented space I placed items on the table beside the table I was actually prepping on. I was under the impression i had rented the entire space, but apparently the table beside the table i was using is considered a seperare space. No one was using the area and no one was hindered from using the space. Being new to the kitchen, I am not familiar with the ins and outs of the kitchen. By reviewing the camera they can clearly see we placed items on the table just so they wouldn't be on the floor and not for any major production. On the first day we plugged Into the plug there and used it. My staff informed me that they chopped onions on the table for a few minutes so even if they said I have to charge for the first day, I would understand. But, to charge me for 9 full hours is absolutely ridiculous. So yep I used the kitchen for 9 hours over a period of three days and is being charged almost $700. It might have been an error on my part to not read. But, errors were made on both parts. Im glad i was able to catch him in the parking lot as he did not give me the keys to the storage i paid for and with him avoiding my calls all weekend i would have probably been stuck there too. Me personally, I would have contacted the person and just given a verbal or even written warning as there was no loss to anyone. I even showed some grace while there by allowing another Tenant to use my rented space for their business and Ryan who represents this kitchen could not do the same for me. My presence did not hinder anyone from using the space. One thing is for certain, the only thing we take with us when we leave this plain is the kind of person we've been. I am completely shocked by this complete lack.of care shown. Just under $700 for 9 hours of kitchen use, wow! My heart goes out to.any small business trying to make it in this food.climate and find themselves having to use this kitchen. I truly pray Gods blessings upon the small food based businesses in the grand rapids area. I pray the other Incubator Kitchens in the area are more considerate, more understanding and more empathetic. I pray they place people over profit for your success. If even for the selfish reasoning that your success will also...

We got married on 9/21/24 at the Downtown Market.

The space itself is stunning. The greenhouse and garden room look like they're out of a fairytale and the banquet hall is great for a large reception, especially with the access to the outdoor terrace. I found the consumption-based bar package to be very reasonable and was a great option for a large reception when we had a lot of variation in how much our guests drank.

However, I think it's misleading to categorize it as an affordable venue. There was a lot of nickle-and-diming: a mic for the officiant, a room to put bags in, security for the event, etc, is all extra money. They also have it set up where they can host two weddings on the same evening (maybe a good practice to squeeze the most money of the space as possible, but horrible for the client). If you using the Greenhouse, you either get the space from 12-4pm or from 5pm-1am. Neither make for amazing timelines, because you're either pressed for time on a reasonable end time (we had a 3-3:45 ceremony and were rushed out at the end), or you have a ceremony that starts at 6 with only an hour for your vendors to set up. It just felt very obvious they want to make the most money possible, not what's best/makes the most sense for a couple. In order to have a timeline that made sense to us, we had to rent the greenhouse AND banquet hall, which was close to 8k. Not what I would call "affordable."

We were planning the wedding from out-of-state and when we visited GR to tour the space (after we already booked it), the venue coordinator we had been interacting with didn't show for our meeting with no explanation or apology. A secondary coordinator gave us a tour, but we had to have so many of the same conversations about details we had already settled on. Then a few months later, the woman who gave us a tour was assigned as our lead venue coordinator and set up a virtual meeting. She forgot she had already met us and asked all the same questions again. It was such a waste of time and felt like they had no personal connection or investment in our wedding.

Overall, my experience with Downtown Market was mediocre, mostly due to feeling like everything came down to a business transaction. Perhaps that's just the norm in the industry these days, but I had several other vendors who I felt were invested in making the wedding/planning a special experience, whereas the market felt like they just wanted my money. The customer service is not remotely close to the level you...