Guilt & Co — Restaurant in Vancouver

Came here for the first time on a sunday night (Oct 20) to enjoy some jazz by myself. I sat behind the bar and immediately noticed the very young bar staff was talking amongst eachother and had very little interest in doing much else.

I liked the vibe of the place and the music was great! I had planned to stay for 1 set but ended up staying for 2.

At the bar for the first set i had 3 beers and joined some new friends at a table across from the bar. After moving and sitting with a dry glass for some time i came back to the bar for beer #4 and 2 beers for my friends. That's when the bartender who was serving me told me i needed to settle up because i moved. OK. This is when my awful experience started.

I received my bill and it didn't take me long to notice i had been over charged for 3 music sets and 8 beers. I quickly disputed it with the bartender and she apologized for the music charge and took one off, but firmly said i had 5 beers at the bar, if you can slam 5 IPAs in a 45 minute set, good on you, i cant! So I disputed it with her again politely and she threw her hands up and told me shes getting a manager.

Manager comes and i tell her whats happening. No ounce of any customer service, no apology, no nothing, no understanding. Even though i was over charged for music sets it was impossible for me to be over charged for drinks in their minds.

Once i realized i was getting nowhere with the manager, i explained to her that i was going to pay it, but i wanted to give her some honest and polite feedback about my experience there. She didn't want to hear it again and kept cutting me off.

After that debacle the waitress came over to our table and apologized to me as i explained my experience to her. Besides the music she was the only bright spot in this whole ordeal. After i finished my story i ordered a drink and she came back to my table apologizing profusely but said that the manager had asked everyone to stop serving me! Unbelievable! I Paid my over billed tab ($10 beers) explained my situation politely and this is how I get treated. Ive never been cut off ot had any issues at any bar in my life but i was treated so poorly at a bar by the staff and manager. ive never seen such an inexperienced, incompetent, and unfriendly bar staff.

Incredibly disappointing because i actually like the venue. But to be treated be treated like some drunken buffoon (at a jazz show LOL) and met without a shred of sympathy or accountability. Shame on you Guilt & Co. Stop over charging your customers for your over priced beers and get a manager who understands how to deal with a...

Nice (but tiny) venue with good music but the service and rudeness of the staff here is like nothing I’ve ever experienced (in Vancouver or elsewhere). Last time I went the bartender shouted that he “couldn’t understand my accent” when I tried to make a simple order of a glass of wine and then wouldn’t let me take the iPad when paying to alter the tip. We had paid for standing entrance and no matter where we were for the whole evening he repeatedly told us we couldn’t stand there and kept pushing past us all evening, it was extraordinary. You can pay in but you can’t stand anywhere? Last night we decided to give it another go as some friends wanted to try it out and we had an even worse experience. We paid for standing again and wanted to order some food. The bartender told us that we couldn’t stand in any area of the bar (again) and said we had to sit at the bar to eat. This was fine but we weren’t told that we were going to be charged per set for this, as if we were sat at a table. Considering we got two bar seats for our group of 4 this is ridiculous (he attempted to charge us all) and even more ridiculous he was trying to add the set we had paid for at the door to our bill. When we brought this to his attention he told us our bar seats were the same as a table, having never informed us of that when we were told to sit there and we never requested a seat. He eventually removed the extra charges but not before saying that we “had been there for 5 hours anyway and had hardly any drinks”. We had been there for less than 2 hours and spend over $80. Earlier in the evening we all asked for a glass of water while we were still drinking our alcoholic drinks and he said “are you not ordering another drink?!”when we were leaving he then started laughing and complaining about us to his colleague. I completely agree with other reviews that this venue is full of rules of what you can and can’t do and extra payments for everything imaginable. These two trips have left such a sour taste in my mouth especially since it’s not a cheap place at all. I absolutely won’t be back here to be treated terribly for the third fourth time. I will say our visit here we had a table and a server and were treated well (as we were charged more for this privilege). The music is good but nothing extraordinary, save the hardship and money and go to a venue where the staff want you there and want you to enjoy yourselves. They seem to be catering to tourists who they can treat awfully and they won’t be back, not the smartest...

I visited guilt&co on 21 Mar 2025, Friday night, and received rude treatment from one of the establishment's staff. As our group was too near the stage, we decided to move to a table further away. As we were moving, a waitress stopped me and asked very curtly (and word for word), "Did you ask if you could move?" I was taken aback - and asked what she meant in a surprised, non-abrasive tone. She explained in that same terse tone that we had to ask the front door staff if we could move. She did not wait for me to respond before briskly walking away. I could not catch up with her in that tiny space, so you can imagine how fast she turned away to leave.

At one point she came back and asked me where my group had wanted to move - this I appreciated. I pointed to the back of the hall, to which she responded in a somewhat confused or frustrated manner that there was a customer occupying that table and we could not move there. We had further conversation where she explained to me that the table I'd hoped to sit at would not receive any service. So that was that.

Lastly, she also, without asking, moved my backpack which was on the floor while stating she had to move it out of the way. I understand the intention, but in combination with the rudeness I experienced prior, I could not help but wonder if she had any respect for me, as a customer, at all. Why couldn't she just have asked me nicely to shift it, or at least told me before moving my belongings? I would be more than obliging to not obstruct any passageway.

Other info -- most of the other wait staff were courteous, and some more friendly than others, which made me feel comfortable. The food was tasty. I had a prosciutto pizza that was done very well. Music was far too loud for my tastes - you had to yell over the music to hear each other - but the band playing was great. The bar charges $7 per pax per hour for music, (on top of everything else) and did explain this upon our entry. For a table of 5 we spent about $200+ for food, including tips.

I understand it was full house that night, and perhaps this staff was overwhelmed. That said, I can think of so many other ways to phrase her utterances, or different tones I could use. You don't have to be bordering on aggressive to make a point. Although I wish it were not the case, perhaps my appearance led to this staff deducing that she could treat me a certain way without consequence. I will choose to believe it was a once-off behaviour, but I was not...