Taboo Lounge & Hookah Bar — Restaurant in Charlotte

I arrived at this establishment last night and walked up to people asking the security guard to check the cameras ( seemed a little sketch but my friend wanted to go in so I went). The guard rushed me in I guess so I didn’t hear what they had going on. He said there was a $20 membership to get in which would make me think my experience would’ve been top tier if I was paying to have free entry on my return for a year….cool but unfortunately wasn’t the case. There was limited seating and the seats that the security/host atp were offering were on top of other people. We found an area, waited for 20min for someone to come and ask us if we needed something we told her and she came back in 10min with the hookah menu and drink menu. Waited another 15 min for the bartender to acknowledge us from across the bar that she was sorry for the wait and she was coming soon. She eventually made her way over and stated “sorry for the wait, y’all want a hookah it’ll be free since yall had been waiting, what flavor y’all want”…… my friend was like sure and told her the flavor and her drink of choice. It took another 30 min before we saw the hookah and then it wasn’t working correctly so my friend had to try and fix it bc by the time we waited again for service it was no point. I could go on and on about the experience but to wrap it up she ended up charging us for the hookah and stating she “got a certain amount of voids for the night and she already used them” if it wasn’t 2am and I wasn’t already beyond ready to leave anyway I would’ve asked to speak with a manager but I just couldn’t give this establishment any more energy. ( I wouldn’t have stayed after waiting so long to be served but my friend drove and just paid $20 as well to get in). Long story short…. I paid for a membership for no reason because I won’t be returning or...

Service. What service?! 8 people all at the bar, it took 5 minutes just get a hello. Ok, no issues. After the hello, it took another 10 minutes to get water. In my curiosity, I asked to see a hookah menu, which I received from the young lady, who proceeded to go sit down and smoke a personal hookah. Finally after an another confusing 10 minute wait, I flagged down a different worker, who had to go tell the young lady and only person working the bar I wanted some assistance. Only for her to come back to say they are more serving hookah past 12:30a. Okay, no problem, but why give me hookah menu albeit 10 minutes late? BUT…..! What killed any further patience, as she asked did I want another shot, to which I said no and asked for the bill, she proceeded to take the little bit I had in the first place to throw away, gave me the bill and went back to her hookah😂👀. I had to get up and go to her seat where she was smoking her hookah and ask for her to come run my tab so I can pay the bill. I didn’t even finish my small drink. Poor poor customer service. For full transparency Taboo never was like this. Usually was a great vibe, with good service. I just hope she’s gets retrained. Maybe she just had an off night. I can get that, but it’s not accepts when you lack an understanding of what...

It seems as every time I go the service gets worse and worse. I don't understand what the purpose of the membership is if every person that comes in after someone with a membership does not sign up for a membership or does not sign in. Kate does not seem like she wants to be at work a lot of night and gives very poor customer service. However Darrell goes above and beyond. To me it seems like they only cater to the people who are spending the most money which is not fair to the people who just want to come in and relax as the lounge. At one point I was told that there was a dress code however whenever I go it seems that no one follows that dress code what's the purpose of this lounge having a yearly membership if we can't even get decent Service as a member. Is very inconvenient to have to come into the lounge just to make a reservation and what we call the number that is on the website for the lounge we can never get anyone on the line. If you are planning on being Uptown Savvy your customer service needs...