Theme House restaurant & karaoke — Restaurant in Chicago

Brought a group of 10+ to celebrate my birthday. Host said it would be 5 minutes as they needed to “clean the room and get it ready for us.” Cool. 20+ minutes later, we’re all still standing around the front bar. Host is behind the bar bartending. No communication about the room at any point. After 25 minutes, I finally ask a different lady at the front when our room would be available and she had no idea what I was talking about. She asks the other chick behind the bar in a different language what we’re waiting for, and suddenly we’re being shown to our room. Why not 20 minutes prior?? What were we standing around for??

We get in the room, we give a card for the room fee, no explanation of the automatic 20% gratuity. We expect with paying $150 + grat for the room, someone would come take our drink orders. Nope. I finally had to go to the bar after 15 minutes to see if we could get a server only to be told we all needed to come get our own drinks. We were in the room furthest from the bar at the front. I finally got fed up and just ordered a bottle and a bucket of beer. Tried to order a bottle of Tito’s and was told they only had Grey Goose, despite ordering a Tito’s and sprite 20 minutes prior while waiting on the room. $200 for the bottle. When they delivered our bottle and bucket, they just plopped everything down on the table and walked out. No chasers. No ice in the bucket. All the buckets we ordered subsequently had no ice in them. We didn’t have a single server check on us in the hour and half we were there in the room. Didn’t even tell us there was a personal bathroom in the room we rented, found out about an hour in. An employee eventually comes back in and asks us what chasers we want and when she delivered them eventually, she just plopped them on the table and dipped out. No hospitality whatsoever.

Fast forward when it comes to pay the room fee, I just had a weird feeling about the lack of hospitality and asked if there was gratuity added on the tabs and sure as hell, there was a 20% auto gratuity on everything, including the room fee!! No wonder they didn’t give a shit about us. They already got paid. Ugh. What’s crazy is we were all restaurant industry and had the service been even somewhat decent, we would have tipped well over 20%.

So they tried charging us for 2 hours even though we were only in the room for an hour and half, the male manager finally adjusted our room fee, thankfully. He apologized and acknowledged the lack of service and gave us 5 free white claws. Which a bartender put in a bucket with ice, finally. Too little, too late. Between the booze and room fee, my friends and I spent over $800.. but yeah, 5 white claws is supposed to make it all better. The manager even tried justifying their lack of service by saying there was a graduation party. And I said ok, well it was my bday and I brought 12 people with me… 😕

Shitty service. Crappy sound system. We heard the DJ set outside our room the entire time we were trying to sing. Shady undisclosed gratuity practices.

Will literally never come back to this karaoke...

I visited this venue on Saturday to celebrate my birthday, and unfortunately, it was an incredibly disappointing experience from the start. Due to unforeseen circumstances, several people in our party had to cancel, so we offered to downsize to a smaller karaoke room or at least inquire about the possibility, given the high price of the larger room. Before we could finish our sentence, a woman came from behind the bar and immediately yelled "no" without any explanation, empathy, or professionalism. This was a frustrating and unwelcoming response that set a negative tone for the evening.

Once we were settled into our larger room, things didn't improve. The room still had decorations from a previous party scattered about, and the temperature was set far too high. We had to ask twice for it to be lowered before the room became bearable. Additionally, the karaoke machine was extremely difficult to use, with a limited selection of songs that mostly featured older or non-mainstream artists and very few current options. One of my guests had to act as a "DJ" to navigate the machine, leaving him unable to participate in the singing at all.

The drinks were underwhelming—small in size, smaller than typical bar servings, and priced at three times the normal rate. The food was average, typical bar food, though it didn't help make up for the overall experience. The bathroom was also poorly maintained, with one of the stall doors in the women's restroom coming off the hinges.

Overall, this was a huge waste of money, and I left feeling deeply disappointed. I would not recommend this...

I booked the private room for about 18 people, which was the large room, I believe. I came here on a Saturday from 6 pm to 8 PM. The music selection was quite large, but there really was only throwbacks.

The karaoke system was a little difficult to navigate but once you figure it out, it’s fine. I personally like the throwbacks because they were songs that everyone knew.

If you want to order drinks, you have to go out to the main bar. This can be a pro or con, depending on who you are. The bar was never really that busy so you did not have to wait to order. For me, having to order at the bar was a pro because then each individual in my party could order and pay for their own drinks.

Once our time for the room was up, myself, and a few friends stayed in the main area of the bar. We ended up ordering some wings. And let me tell you, these wings were phenomenal. The wings were large and crispy, and the sauce was delicious.

The only con is that no one is allowed to sing karaoke at the main stage. Instead, the playlist of karaoke songs that they have plays on auto. And we were forced to listen to Taylor Swift on repeat. They do let you request song though. But once the song you requested is over, more Taylor Swift will play. According to the owner or the manager, they use that main stage when they have performers or Bands come to the bar. Overall, I highly recommend this place for both renting a private karaoke room, and to just eat some of the really good wings. Oh yeah, the drinks were very...