Rí Rá Irish Pub — Restaurant in Charlotte

We hosted our wedding rehearsal dinner/welcome party here in November. I originally contacted Ri Ra in April, and toured the private event space at that time. While we liked the food options, pricing and atmosphere, a large factor in us choosing to host at Ri Ra was the private 2nd floor patio which was part of the private event space. We signed the contract and thought all was good.

Well come to find out, they lost access rights to the patio which they never communicated with us although we had a signed contract for the entire private space. We only found this out prior to the event due to us choosing to retour the space 1 month before the event! We understand things can happen, but it's the lack of communication that bothered us. The patio/outdoor space was VERY important to us, and with finding out only 1 month prior to our event we did not have time to relocate. And to think, if we hadn't retoured the space we would have found out the day of!

The only concessions they offered when we expressed our disappointment and inquired what could be provided to even partly make up for the lack of communication, were a reduced minimum spend and an extension of time for the private event space. Both being things that don't actually impact the company at all. Even when I let them know that we would be meeting the original minimum spend anyways and did not need the space to be private for any longer period of time, they refused to offer anything else.

Come the event, we show up to the restaurant and inquire about the validated parking that was listed in our signed contract, as our wedding party members were told by the parking garage that parking was not validated. Well Ri Ra proceeds to tell us that they no longer validate parking... as if contracts just don't matter? They put this in our contract that they had us sign, and yet they tell us they will no longer provide that for us. And this is after not communicating regarding the lost of patio access, which was also in our contract. So everyone had to pay $20+ for parking which we had told everyone would be validated.

To top this all off, they then proceed to turn on all of the lights in the private event space 5 minutes BEFORE our event ends with no warning, to let everyone to know to leave. We were not told that we would have to leave the event space, it was only communicated to us that the space would no longer be private after the contracted time.

I have been coming to Ri Ra for years as I previously thought it was a nice restaurant and business. We were very excited to have our rehearsal dinner and welcome party here, thinking how fun it would be. Unfortunately, while the food was good and we liked the atmosphere of the space, the way they handled our important event was atrocious! It's very disappointing and I would warn anyone looking to host a private event to...

Rí Rá is sort of an old family tradition. My father-in-law used to go there often when he was volunteering at Discovery Place, just down the street. My wife and I went there with him a few times, years ago.

She and I were touristing in downtown Charlotte yesterday. We decided to renew the family tradition and have lunch there.

It was just before noon on Saturday, and they were offering their 'brunch' menu, mostly burgers and their signature fish and chips. I expected some breakfast type items, but they weren't on that menu. That was fine, we were there for lunch, but just odd they called it a brunch menu.

We opted for the fish and chips, I almost always do. I thought they were pretty good - a single, large fillet that was crispy on the outside, flaky and flavorful on the inside (although to be honest, fish and chips is mostly a delivery system for tartar sauce).

My wife thought they were just ok. She said the fries were mushy, and the tea was terrible. I didn't have a problem with the fries, and my diet Coke was fine. So my review would have been four stars, but her addition knocked it down to three. And I thought I was a pretty rough critic.

They had music playing, or blaring - classic rock and roll, certainly not Irish. They did turn it down after a while. We were seated up front, and I thought maybe it was quieter in the back. But when I walked through the restaurant to the bathroom, it was loud everywhere.

The picture shows the interior. Dark, wood, typical for an Irish pub. The seat cushion had tears in it, so it looks like economics aren't great for the restaurant.

It was a quiet memorial day weekend Saturday in Charlotte, and the downtown area was not very busy. My walk to the back of the restaurant showed that there were quite a few people there, so apparently it's still pretty popular.

We now live in a Charlotte suburb and will likely be back downtown now and then. Will we be back here? I don't know. They probably have things on their full menu that would make my wife happy, but there's a lot of competition in town...

Mixed experience. Two friends and I stopped by Saturday night. We first were hanging out at the bar upstairs. The atmosphere was nice, and the service was great. The bartender was attentive and nice. She quickly responded when we needed more drinks or waters.

Things went south (no pun intended) when I went downstairs. After waiting at the bar for some time to get the bartender's attention, she finally addressed me in a rude, hurry up kind of way. I tried to order two Old Fashioned's and a Guinness. In about as rude of a way as possible I was told that "I don't have time to make those. Look around. We're busy. What else do you want?" At this time I paused, because I had never been to a bar that told me they were too busy to make a common cocktail. Apparently my pause to reconsider was too long for her liking as she then said, "whatever" and immediately went to someone else.

I contemplated whether or not to write a review, but this was seriously my worst experience at a bar uptown. I've been in Charlotte since 2005. If you don't have time to serve decent cocktails, don't put a full service bar with all the necessary ingredients within plain site. Put up a sign that says you only want wasted college students and you're only going to serve beer and shots.

Granted she couldn't have known that I had just tipped $40 on an $80 tab upstairs, and simply treating my friends and me in the same manner as her counterpart upstairs would have likely result in a similarly gracious tip. In reality, that shouldn't matter. Even if for some crazy reason, you can't make a drink, at least attempt to be diplomatic about it. Don't look at me like I'm crazy for ordering an Old Fashioned at a bar.

This followed another previously poor experience after I brought my friend from Florida and his wife who went to UF in for a UF game. The service was so poor that day, he wanted to leave after one drink.

It's just sad. It could be a cool place, but I...