Hey Chica! — Restaurant in Brisbane City

About the New Year's Eve and the very poor communication..... I've reached out couple of times to the management before writing this review. I even went in to talk personally with the manager and wrote a message (advised by the manager to do so) I haven't received any response. I found it quite rude and disrespectful!!

THE MESSAGE: "Hi Team, We are a group of 8 (30+) Looking forward to celebrating the NYE at Hey Chica 🕺💃🥂🍾 I was there last year too and this is why i wanted to contact you. Before i bought my ticket last year i went in and spoke to the manager what to expect especially regarding the music. It was a very young guy back then. He said it will be a Havana theme with nice catchy music.

Well....yes it was.... We know Andres who was the DJ that night..and we also know he unfortunately has been playing the same old playlist all the time, everywhere! Anyway.

The shocking part was...he did not bother entertaining the crowd which if you remember it was a very good crowd!

Only we found out it's midnight that a computer counted back from 5 ! People were all over the place, i remember they were rushing from the toilet, from the bar, from outside to their group to welcome the NY.

From that moment the DJ started to play horrible old commercial music so 80% of people left! Even the staff and the security people were shocked! True story.

The venue let the toxicated young teenagers in for...i guess $20 bux? !!!!

I was just wondering if this could change for better this year?

Would be great to have a different night/music and crowd for once in this venue.

Ps: i went in another day and spoke to the manager ( a lovely guy with an accent 😊)

He completely understood what I'm saying, he advised me to write a message.

Thank you for reading and so looking forward to party on the 31st

Kind regards Leila"

Ticket selling for this NYE party didn't go very well (we realised it when we got there! It was empty) but you advertised as "final release tickets" for weeks!!!! We 8 of us bought a ticket for $189.55 each for this Caribbean party!!!! It had absolutely nothing to do with your advertising or you have no idea what CARIBBEAN PARTY MEANS!!! It was shocking and disappointing! Everything has repeated and it was much worse this year! We all wanted to get our money back and leave!!! The music was disaster again just like last year and every time when Andres is playing somewhere! You not only did false advertising! You absolutely ripped us off and ignored people's complaints that night. One of my friend joined us later and she paid $60 at the door. And of course you let people in after midnight again as so many people left from this "Caribbean party"!!! I can not understand how you're still in our neighbourhood with this operating...

I just had the most absurd, ridiculous and racist incident at Hey Chica in fortitude valley. My girlfriend and I went out for a few drinks and ended up at this bar in fortitude valley. We were barely tipsy and having a great night out. We entered this bar with no issues. The security guard noticed it was my birthday month and wished me a happy birthday. The energy seemed great, the atmosphere looked fun and the bar was busy. This made us excited to enter your venue for the first time.

Upon entry, we headed to the bar, split a couple of drinks each, sat down, drank them and decided it was a great time to head to the dance floor. We were in the venue for approximately 45 minutes total, spending about 10-15 on your dancefloor. Out of nowhere a security comes up to my girlfriend (we are both black, light dark skin, with dark features). Your security guard marched to my girlfriend and insinuated that she threw a drink at the bartender. We were both caught off guard, confused and upset by this accusation. Upon pleading our case we were directed by the security that we had to leave the venue immediately - escorted out. I had asked to speak to a superior to gain clarity and understanding on these accusations to which I was refused. Eventually he appeared and I had asked multiple times for his name - to which he refused to give. He was working at the time between 1-1:30am, Friday the 5th of February. He was wearing a striped button up, was of a Caucasian stature, slim and mid height. My girlfriend and I were then escorted out of the venue unfairly, without detail, without regard and without explanation.

This resulted in a minor altercation out the front of your nightclub with the manager, my girlfriend and myself. In which we had then departed.

I am upset, mad, confused and baffled that this incident had occurred. I feel as thought my girlfriend and myself’s presence in this business was unwelcome due to the colour and look of us.

In 2022 I did not expect to experience racism and unfair dismissal from a venue in fortitude valley. I am extremely disappointed with the administration and hope this event does not occur to any more people of colour or minority groups in future.

You have lost my business for good and I hope that your unethical and outrageous practices that target, undermine and disregard specific groups of patrons whom enter your venue are noticed and flagged by the wider community.

Do better.

#racism #heychica...

I had heard beautiful things about this venue and finally had the opportunity to go with a group of girls this past weekend. The place is beautiful, looks clean and had a good atmosphere for dinner. Our food was average but I was not expecting too much since we were going to dance not just to eat. Unfortunately, everything went down hill after we just received our meals and the loud music started.

First, we just had received the food and drinks but decided to go to dance leaving our table of 10 people empty, in the middle of the first song I went to check our table and realised that the manager had instructed staff to empty our table, yes we were able to save only 30% of all food and drinks, so disrespectful of our reservation and our items. After this, one of the staff felt bad and gave us a Vaucher drink, yes one drink when we spent more than $200 that could not enjoy.

Second, since we could not leave our table alone we decided to dance next to it and then a friend decided to jump and dance on one of our tables but that was a big mistake. A security person came and don't give her the chance to apologise and kicked her out. While all this was happening I wanted to talk to the manager to see if we could just get a warning since we weren't drunk, genuinely didn't want to cause a problem and had started since 8pm with dinner. The guy, I think his name is Josh or George was so rude to me, I cannot express how disappointing the whole thing was, a 25 year old believing he was God, OMG, so arrogant, he could say easily "I am sorry there is nothing to do as the venue has these rules", but not, he made me feel we were stupid and he was above everyone. The way he handled customers is not the way a manager should act, if you find this behaviour from him, what could you expect from the rest.

The whole thing was awful from the beginning. I would never recommend a place like this to anyone, awful manager...