Hard Rock Cafe — Restaurant in City of Niagara Falls

My fiancée and I went here today, and we ended up leaving before our food even arrived. We had reservations, so getting a table was not an issue. However, we were seated way in the back sandwiched between a busy restaurant and a wedding party; the poor waiter had to keep squeezing by our table because there was no room for him to walk. We ordered two alcoholic drinks (one each), water, and the nachos to start. It took some time for the drinks to come out, and I was talking to our waitress before they came out. She said her daughter was training on the bar, and she already had her remake the LIT because it was too dark the first time. When the drinks came out, we thought all was well. My fiancée's was extremely strong at the start because it was not mixed. After drinking some, the alcohol was basically gone and the rest of the drink was not worth the money we paid. I am someone who is extremely "lightweight" when it comes to alcohol, so even two or three sips will buzz me a little bit. I drank half of this margarita and felt NOTHING. I am confident there was no alcohol in this drink at all, and no, it was not ordered virgin and there was no expectation for it to be because our IDs were checked. No taste of alcohol whatsoever, and it wasn't the mix that covered the taste. It just wasn't there. About halfway through my drink, I started to feel nauseous. I didn't think much of it, but it kept getting worse, so I stopped drinking it. There was no way I was going to be able to eat anything. The drink was entirely drink mix. There is no way a bartender should be allowed to serve if they make drinks like this. There was also no need for her to tell me her daughter was the one that made them; I felt like I couldn't say anything because of it. I know it was not the nachos that made me sick because it would not have affected me that quickly, I started feeling sick right around the time we started eating, and my fiancée did not feel ill. I'm not a confrontational person, so I didn't say anything at first, but we decided to leave, so we called our waitress over and told her we had to leave. I mentioned everything about the drink I stated here, and she just said "Awh, well I hope you feel better." I thought at least she would have offered to remove the charge for my drink since half of it was left and it made me sick. These drinks were $14 each and it's not like they would have lost money on alcohol regarding my drink because there wasn't any in it. $50 for nachos (which were fine, not an issue) and two drinks that were probably worth about $5 or less. For what it's worth, this same waitress broke a glass of water right over one of the couples seated near us; I felt so bad because he was soaked. I know stuff happens, but this on top of our poor experience and several other glasses/dishes breaking in the distance (3 or 4 within 10 minutes) just tells me this place has really gone downhill. We will NOT be returning and I wish we did not waste the gas it took...

I went to Hard Rock on a Sunday night for Drag bingo with my friends. This was our first time doing drag bingo. I couldn't find any information about it, besides what Hard Rock advertised, so I am including it in my review of Hard Rock.

The ticket for the drag bingo, bought in advance, was about $30. The ticket advertised a $15 off coupon towards your bill. This coupon was only for a $30 order of food and non-alcoholic drinks. It was difficult getting to that amount solo, and all the food plates took up a lot of room from Bingo cards.

There are no cash prizes. So if you go into this thinking maybe you will win your money back, you will not. I believe there is a NYS rule that you can't serve alcohol at bingo events with cash prizes, but I don't have the citation to that handy. The prize was a gift bag with a hard rock T-shirt, a bracelet and a sticker. They all looked similar, but there was a little variance of the T-shirt type, and some appeared to have koozies. They had 40 prizes ready.

There were also no rules, really. You are given three sheets of bingo cards (with three on each). We couldn't hear which color we should use, and how many. They literally said "all the cards" and many tables used all of them the first round, which made the remaining games difficult! In retrospect, they probably meant all three cards on the sheet.

Despite there being screens all over the place, they didn't have a number board up with the called numbers. At time it was also very difficult to hear. This event is more about the fun, and not the game.

The queens did perform two numbers each. They were entertaining, and I enjoyed it since I haven't been to a drag show in half a decade. If you enjoy drag performers, bring your dollars and fives to tip! They were also fun to listen to during the bingo calling, and were surprisingly not too crass.

Now, for the food. Delicious! I don't think my $18 Bahama mama had any alcohol in it, but my friend that had a Paloma said hers was definitely done right. The waitstaff was attentive and friendly, which must have been tough with all the commotion! Don't eat dinner first, and maybe don't buy a fancy mixed drink if you don't want to feel guilty about the price later.

One last thing... Parking! I paid $10 to park at the welcome center right across, which was fine. My buddies parked at the park parking (say that 3 times fast!) across the other way, and it was free after 5 on Sundays. So I guess they're the real winners of Bingo!

I won't be returning to this Bingo unless I acquire a generous and wealthy friend that would foot the bill for me. I may return to Hard Rock, I live...

I submitted an email through their web site to book a party for 15. They never replied. I called the day before desired date to inquire about this, they had no idea. Due to short notice, I simply made a lunch reservation for the next day for 4 people at Noon. I mentioned in the original email, on the reservation phone call and several times to our wait staff that it was my son's 14th birthday celebration ( He just took up the drums in the last year and is young enough to be impressed with the Hard Rock). Despite all this, they did not bring his birthday sundae and wish him a happy birthday until all 3 of us, except him, had our desserts and I had to directly order them to do so.

Not only that, when we arrived there was a lot of traffic so I had my son and his two school friends get out of the car while I found parking so we would not be late for our reservation. The trio entered the restaurant well before Noon as I caught up with them around 11:55. My son said we had a noon reservation for four for his birthday, they asked him under what name, he gave my full name, and they argued with him back and forth that that was wrong because they had the reservation only under my first name and only last initial! Finally, they showed the trio to a table. When they did not immediately order food stating they were waiting for me to park, they were then escorted out to wait in the lobby carrying their drinks. That all happened before I caught up with them by 11:55 and our reservation was at Noon.

Only perhaps one or two other occasions in my over half century of life have I encountered such moronic incompetent hospitality - the antithesis of customer service. Despite this, I left a generous tip. Oh, I should add, that ignoring my son's birthday until I finally had to demand it, was after I discussed plans to buy a souvenir glass for each teenager and the$45 hat and t-shirt combination in their souvenir shop that they actively advertise at the table. We spent a good amount of money in the gift shop afterward.

I should mention that I am female, a single mother, my last name is Hispanic, though I am blind and Caucasian, and one person in our party was a black boy. I wonder whether any of these factors had anything to do with our treatment by mainly two women who appeared Caucasian and middle aged.

I did not vocally complain much while there as I wanted to raise a positive energy for my son and his friends celebrating his birthday. However, I did take all this time out of my day to write this...