Hard Rock Cafe — Restaurant in Atlanta

First time taking the family to the hard Rock Cafe,and most likely will be the last time...atleast the Atlanta location anyway. So to start with we had no issues with our waiter,he did the best he could under the circumstances outlr negative experience was not on him at all. So we get there around 540p.m. we're shown to a table in a polite and timely manner. Our server comes over and introduces himself,then gets us our drinks,giving us a few minutes to decide what we wanted. He takes our order and so the wait begins.....typically for a family of three your gonna wait on average 15-20 minutes for your food to be prepared and brought out to your table. Well today went much differently. So after about 20 minutes or so he apologizes for the wait and brings us a side of fence fries to munch on while we wait,telling us our food should be out shortly. After another 10 minutes or so passes one of the shift managers comes over unprompted by us and also apologizes for the inconvenience and explains that a big order for...no exaggeration 70+ burger order had come in and the kitchen was backed up and that was the reason we had been waiting 30+ minutes for our food,she also said that if we needed anything to feel free to ask for her by name and she will "take care" of us. Fast forward to about 10 minutes later and finally our food gets to the table. We eat,the food was "ok" we all had burgers and they were just "ok". So the waiter comes ND takes our plates asks if we would like more to eat/drink we say no thankyou,he sees to his other tables before coming back to us about 10 minutes later with our check. Now,knowing that we had been there for 2+hours from seating to this point you would think the shift manager that said she would take care of us,well that didn't happen and the I'll was for the full amount. I said to the waiter hey can you grab that manager that spoke to us earlier she said to ask for her if we needed anything and that she would take care of us,he went back to the kitchen spoke to "someone" and hands me the bills and says the manager gave you a little discount on the bill for your inconvenience.....that little discount....was a 20% off "birthday" discount,it took off $11.00 not even one of the three meals we ordered,are you kidding me?!....I said let me speak to the manager,he said he'll send him over. I won't bore you with the back and fourth of the next 30+ minutes but long story short I had to walk up to the kitchen area because the manager(Tim wyatt) refused to come to the table to address a customer's concerns with the dining experience which is just flat out wrong. When your in the customer service industry and one of your customers has a problem with the service of your establishment you come out and have a conversation to try and improve the situation. Now wether you were short staffed that shift because of a call out,or because you haven't properly staffed your downtown Atlanta business is irrelevant, when a customer asks to speak to a manager,a manager needs to make all efforts to meet with his customers,period! He never came out from the kitchen,after waiting all that time we were given another updated bill in which another $8.00 off At this point myself and my family are fed up and way past ready to just get out of there which I'm sure that's what the manager wanted so he didn't have to do his job. We paid the bill,tipped the waiter because again it wasn't his fault he did what he could,and we left. We have no plans to go back to this location and won't be recommending to any of our friends/family to go there either. Hard Rock as a company should expect better from their managers and customers deserve better treatment/service,we will take our business somewhere else where we are appreciated and taken care of properly and...

Planning in advance for an Allstar Comp in Nashville, we chose this location for kid friendly service.

On Mar 29, we booked our reservations accordingly for May 3 and showed up as a group. There were two host, they graciously accepted us, and even though I explained we did not have to sit as group and could patiently wait according to our reservations they attempted to seat us in one area. We had at minimum 10 reservations between 8-830PM for large groups of 5-10.

All of a sudden pure chaos when a manager later told to be Rebecca abruptly stopped them from servicing us and said that we were disrupting the business because we all showed up at once, I explained that I told the host that we were OK with waiting for our reserved time and continued to be met with resistance. Another gentleman stepped in and explained he can take 8 people at a time and we worked together to get my party seated, assuming she felt dismiss she continued to insert herself and try to make a problem, when all other team members were trying to contribute to a resolution including myself.

It started with you all are crowding my lobby, it was cold and raining and we were told to step outside, we complied.

She returned and said we were disrespectfully sitting in seats before they seated us, I asked her to show me and it was an 7 and 8 year old, obviously cold and tired and just trying to rest their feet. I had them get up and return to their parents.

The area that were being cleaned for us initially was then giving to a group of about 20 and I was told they paid for their reservation in advance, I didn't know that was possible?

It took them about two hours to seat us and although we were split up she charged all tables 20% gratuity, even though most table had less than 6 people, the receipt said gratuity would apply at 8 plus.

Most of our tables were never serviced and never got food, I felt as if when she could not intimidate us to leave, she aggressively just made our experience less than remarkable.

Why did I stay, we were in downtown Nashville with minors at 9PM after a long day of competitions, we had already started paying for parking and it was cold and raining, where else would we go on Broadway that was kid friendly...

At the end of the night, the hostess, one of two that initially assisted us walked up to me and said her name is Ms. Rebecca with tears rolling down her face. I asked her why she was crying and she replied no reason but it was obvious she had be reprimanded. Rebecca summoned her and begin to publicly ridiculed in front of a restaurant full of customers and then hastily sent her to the back. What followed next added fuel to the fire, multiple employees ran out laughing with Rebecca that the hostess was in tears in the back. The hostess coups not be more than 17...a child.

Not exactly sure if it's the Nashville culture... but I am Black, all of my party was black, the hostess that was reprimanded was black, the other host that stayed on the floor white, Rebecca white, the party that was seated before us white. The employees that were laughing black/ white and the gentleman unsure of his title white, so I don't want to make this a racial issue for the company but we just don't know what our employees do outside of work and how they can bring that to a replicable establishment.

I will be emailing...

I don’t normally write reviews as I understand things can happen and everyone’s experience can be different; however, our experience was yesterday was just beyond horrible. My 6yo daughter has a rare form of epilepsy and after a long day of treatments and test at CHOA, I gave her a choice of where she’d like to go to eat in effort to lift her spirits. She hadn’t eaten all day due to treatments. It was around 5 and the restaurant wasn’t busy yet and just the two of us. After we were seated, we waited about 15 minutes before approached by our server. He immediately started to go over the drink menu (alcohol) and I said oh no we aren’t interested in those. My daughter asked for a Dr. Pepper and he put his finger up towards her and said “you can wait until I’m done going over these specials.” It took everything in by being to not react. I repeated we didn’t need the drink specials and asked for her Dr. Pepper and I ordered a water. When he returned with drinks, he asked for our order and my daughter said she wanted a cheeseburger with just ketchup and fries. He looked at her in the meanest way and said adults order, not kids. With her condition, I always encourage her to try to do things on her own; however, it also makes her super sensitive when people are mean/loud to her, it’s actually a side effect of her condition. I mentioned she had just been released from the hospital and was just excited. She hadn’t eaten all day, been in treatment including an EEG and a MRI. Again, as a tired mom and trying to just get something to eat, I finished placing our order. This place was not crowded at all. A few groups who came in after us were getting there food but not us. Both of us just ordered cheeseburgers and fries. Right before our food arrived, she had an absent seizure - in a daze and zoned out for a couple minutes. While I was assuring she was okay our server brought the food and asked if we needed anything. I asked him to give me just a second because I needed to make sure she was okay. This man said “spoiled child just whining.” I don’t think he meant for me to hear the comment. When she came to and I knew she was good to go, I asked for ketchup and the reply was I asked when I brought the food. I tried to explain she has a medical condition and I was focused on making sure she was okay. My daughter started crying, server walked off, and never brought the ketchup. She did eat her cheeseburger. I got mine to go because at this point, I was infuriated because they made her cry. Maybe the server was having a bad day but to treat a child - especially a special needs child - with such rudeness and harshness is completely unacceptable. She was so excited to go to a Hard Rock Cafe and it was ruined. I watched the server with other tables and he was super friendly which makes me think instead of a bad day, maybe the issue was a special needs child being in his section but we will never be an...