Edge Rooftop — Restaurant in Austin

I booked an 8pm reservation for 10 at this rooftop cocktail bar to celebrate my birthday and have been to this bar before. However, I would not recommend coming here with large groups or celebrating a special occasion here. Overall the experience wasn’t horrible but definitely could have been better when comparing to other rooftop bars downtown.

Pros: they let us drop off my birthday cake ahead of time, stored it in the fridge and didn’t charge a cake cutting fee the view from the rooftop is great, nice place to take pictures they let us sit without our full party being present. I had a reservation for 10 and several people were late.

Cons: there are not misters, permanent outdoor fans or even much shade. In 100 degree weather we were miserable even at night. They were using 1 of those huge old fashioned outdoor A/C units in an area with 6 large tables/groups of people and had it pointed away from the tables so it really didn’t help at all. The Marriott Hotel probably needs to invest in installing permanent mounted fans with misters, other rooftop hotel bars definitely have these… the cocktails were disappointing, pretty sugary and nothing fancy or exciting. My espresso martini was fine (not great but not bad at all) and I liked the pina colada drink which was very sweet but still tasty the service was not good. Our waitress was not bussing our table and just let the trash and empty cocktail glasses stack up, with 10 people and a cake it was really awkward. We had to ask her to take empty glasses away more than once. She also failed to bring napkins, silverware and plates when she brought out the cake which we were told when calling ahead of time would be provided no problem. After reminding her, she brought spoons which was weird to eat cake with and eventually (took like 30 mins) of her going back inside and bringing 1 thing at a time we were able to get the cake cut and served with plates and spoons. my reservation was at 8pm and I was on time but the bar was unable to seat us until 8:20pm, we had to wait for quite a while for them to have...

Let me start by saying that if you want a high end austin experience this is the place. The drinks & the views are amazing! HOWEVER- I visited here on Saturday again with a friend who has never been to ATX and we left in 10 mins extremely upset at how this place handled our entire reservation. It was raining slightly but we were not worried because I knew they had umbrellas and some coverings. When we walked in the guy just walked us to a legit BONFIRE situation (not even a table) with another couple sitting right in front of us on the other side. WITH NO COVERING??? Wiped the seats down with an already wet towel as if that was going to make sitting in the rain better? We Asked if there was another place we could sit with actual covering then proceeded to let us know that ALL but 2 of their umbrellas are "broken"???!!!! We saw about 7-8 of them just down. Then said "well yall can go to the bar" - we didn't give up yet and we did in fact head to bar... to where then the bartender looked at us crazy and said "honestly we're probably about to shut down"... did not even greet us first lol. Mind you this is a saturday @ 8:30pm... it was not pouring down rain it was a light drizzle. You would think that a place of this calaber would have better covering options for people coming to spend what they do at a place like this. I spent an insane amount of money last time i visited and did not even think twice because I had such a great time here. but after this I will never come back. Great vibes, but the staff do not give a shit point blank period. It was really sad to see. I've been managing in the hospitality business for years & I would never tolerate putting any of my customers in a situation like that. At least call or text your reservations next time to make them aware of what is going on- knowing you don't have the proper set...

Overall, this venue benefits purely from its view up/down SoCo. The food menu is very limited which is supremely disappointing as it resides in the JW Marriott. They offer everyone champagne with these blue raffle tickets upon first seating in cheap plastic champagne flutes with branding for Veuve Clicquot. If you are doing this universally for all skip the blue tickets...I would be suprised if anyone tried to scam you for more. The glasses are incredibly ugly and tacky yellow (okay maybe to limit breakage). You know otherwise but your hopeful the champagne they give you will be something palatable (no expectation it is what is branded on the glass...although looking around the room, I am sure some are unaware). So you end up with something sparkling that is guaranteed to give you heartburn. We couldn't drink ours especially knowing what true quality tastes like. In the end you hope the cocktails will makeup for it but nope, they are way overpriced and lack imagination...$25 for a watery Negroni just doesn't seem warranted. My best way to characterize the experience is this was rememicient of the low quality you come to expect at public beach bars but you grit your teeth given the scenery is worth it...the good news in Austin is there are so many alternative scenic options so don't waste your time, money or...