Lounge Eighteen — Restaurant in Calgary

A fun night turned into disappointment and embarrassment. I booked this for my birthday under the assumption that the scene was what they show on Instagram. My own fault for not checking it out first. It’s a grungy, cool college scene but not the elegant place I imagined.

I had to pay a deposit for every person attending, $180 total, and thought I’d get the extra back. However, the deposit is automatically a gift card, so regardless, they keep your money. I paid for my bill and another friends since I won’t be back.

Autogratuity was applied to every bill and the server not only did not tell us that at the beginning but she also allowed everyone to tip on top of that. Good for her. I really liked her until I found out that part. This part hurt the most and is the main reason I won’t be back. I don’t feel like I can trust the servers here due to this dishonesty and disrespect. I was so embarrassed when I talked to my friends and found out everyone tipped on top of the unknown autograt.

I booked for 18 people and they put us in a booth saying it could fit 20. I specifically told them we’d be eating dinner and needed table space. The booth holds11-12 comfortably and we ended up standing.

I desperately wish I could go back and celebrate my birthday literally anywhere else besides this falsely advertised, cheap, price gouging lounge 18.

Pros: food is delicious, drinks are good, vibes were fun, service is fantastic but ask if tip is already included because it was certainly not worth 40%.

Overall we had fun, but it would have been more fun had the business been as classy as advertised and if the server had informed us about the auto-gratuity. I think the gift card deposit thing needs to change because it’s feels cheap and desperate, and I wish they had been honest about the seating arrangement.

I won’t be back, but I have no doubt you will have fun if you go.

*the manager has since reached out and apologized which I...

I absolutely LOVE this place! Food is delicious and drinks are amazing! Love the music they play at night, I liked every song! Bartenders are great as well but I had one problem with one of the waitresses there. I wish I could remember her name. First, I was standing in the hallway waiting for my bf to get out of bathroom. I must have been standing in the way of the staff room because when she walked by me, she literally pushed me out of the way, didn't even say excuse me. Then, I ordered a 9 oz of Pinot grigio. She said "Um, we don't do that here, we only do 9 oz of Chardonnay". I said "oh weird cuz when we had the other waitress at our other table she got me a 9 oz of Pinot" "well we don't do that here! Only Chardonnay" ( imagine her voice being really snobby and condescending)so I repeated myself again and then said you can ask her. She got all huffy and said "fine I will!" And stormed off. She came back, dragging the other waitress over, clearly bringing her over in hoping to humiliate me. She explained to her what I wanted and the other girl said, ya, we do serve 9oz of Pinot and explained why. The waitress got pissed and stormed off again and then brought me my drink. I'm still shocked she talked to me that way!!!! Like grow up???? This isn't high school. Then anytime any of us asked for our bill (it was a big group) she argued with us and got mad saying she can't split it up and we should have said to in the beginning (which we did). We said, well if we know what we ordered why can't you just get us the bill. She still argued but did it after a few minutes. Anyways I will definitely return to this place, I will just make sure to not sit in her section. I hope the manager reads this because she is not someone you want representing...

The Good - Food, Drinks, Ambience The Bad - Sheesha, Seating & Service

We were a table of 4, went with a prior reservation, ordered food, drinks and water pipes/Sheesha.

For food, we ordered their truffle fries and avocado delight dip which tasted good and can recommend for vegetarian options. The drinks were cocktails - Hugo, Lychee Love, Beer - Stella Artois and Mocktail - Summer Senses which were decent.

The Seating - The table was set up in a corner with another table cutting across the space. To worsen it the table was super wobbly, swaying up and down even with a whisker of air. Add to that the blasting sound from the speakers beside it. We asked to change tables but instead some tissue papers were stuffed under the table to make it stable but that didn't help completely. The nail in the coffin was when we noticed multiple other nicer tables near the entrance lying vacant from the time we came in to the time of leaving. Can't get worse than this.

For the water pipes/sheeshas, we chose their exotic ones - XVIII & Chilled Citrus, which were a complete let down as they hardly had any flavours (tasted mostly like tobacco) and made us constantly cough. They tried changing the water pipe/coal but that didn't help.

The Service made us felt ignored. Not the server's fault, the table was positioned such a way.

Overall, can't recommend.

PS: Given the sad experience, didn't feel like clicking pictures and it's always painful to write a not so pleasant review. Hope the management works on the...