Comedy @ The Carlson — Restaurant in City of Rochester

I currently live in Scottsdale, Arizona. I come from a large family of brothers and sisters that still live in upstate NY. We have all been big fans of Jim Florentine for over 30 years. Being the youngest of 6 brothers and now living in AZ, I wanted to surprise my older brothers with 3 tickets to see Jim live last night in Rochester, NY. I bought the tix online and had my brothers pick them up at will-call. My brothers have never been to a live comedy show and were super excited about seeing Jim. This is where this story takes a hard turn. They arrived for the 9pm show (5/31/25) and had a drink at the bar, went and took their seats. They were seated up front (2 to the left, one to the right) of the stage. The backup comedian (I don't know who he was, cant seem to find his name anywhere...but I WILL) laid into my brothers immediately. Knowing its a comedy club, and your in front, they understood the banter and things that come with it. Well, this went well beyond THAT. He (for no reason laid into them about how they were drunks, liked to smoke weed and were Trump fans) again, all expected when you sit up front. But then, he said he wanted them removed from the show??? He asked the audience if they agreed and NOBODY in the crowd applauded except one single guy. At that point the security removed all 3 of my brother's and escorted them out. The comedian at this point yelled " I hope all 3 of you rear end a semi on the way home"!! My brothers as well as the other guests were a little stunned, not to say PISSED at this! This was their first exposure to live comedy, and most likely their last because this was absolute BS that they were treated this way as they never said a word to the comedian and rolled with it. We are huge fans of Gutfeld and always watch Jim on the show, YES we are conservatives and Trump fans, but SO WHAT?? If he wanted to ride them for that, fine....but to have them removed from the show for that before even seeing Jim's act???!! They went to see Jim, NOT this amateur!! I bought 3 tickets to see Jim Florentine for my brothers and this is how they are treated? Unacceptable on every level. These guys are the most laid back hard working Americans I know, and to have them treated this way is horrible!! I will be posting this on social media repeatedly, NOT to hammer Jim, ( I don't know if he was aware of what had taken place) but this comedian and the Comedy @ Carlson and their management ,in Rochester, NY. This turned a fun night out into 3 pissed off brothers that will probably never go to another show. Again, unacceptable on...

in response to this review

lets just make sure all details are known the problem is from moment one when we were entering the show the “manager” was being extremely passive aggressive and a tone that made us uncomfortable. i respect any business following the rules and the law as we to own a business. the issue comes in when the person we met with was not id’d because the manager said she looked older which firstly is agism and even being of age she to could have had an expired id. than we than observed multiple partys hand their tickets to the manager with no request of an id so if someone enters an establishment already being made to feel uncomfortable by someones distasteful attitude than realizing certain rules were strictly enforced with them an noone else that would than lead them to feel like something is obviously not right. a scene was never made we were told by another employee to ask the “manager” if we could speak to mark to express our feelings when we asked him to get mark he got loud saying noone can talk to mark without going through him and really if he did nothing wrong why would it be such a problem to talk to mark? after HE made it a big deal we walked away and HE came to our table saying get out of my bar as if we just did something horrible to him. As we left mark came out and we were trying to explain our frustration and at this point were extremely agitated after being humiliated and kicked out like we were some delinquents and it almost seemed like our story wasnt to much of interest to him . a member in our party did call the manager racist but truly a better word would have been that he was discriminating because why out of all the people there did you choose to act this way twords us and we obviously stood out from the rest of the crowd that night. mark asked us to apologize to the manager for calling him that but what about an apology from him ? mark wasnt even present during the whole situation so it dosent matter how much mark sees the manager as a “good kid” it dosent take away from the fact of what people are capable of. the refund was greatly appreciated even though no sleep would have been lost over 42$ what would have been better if the actions of the manager were actually addressed and we werent made to be seen...

They book A-list comedians, the staff are friendly for the most part. My only complaints: one of the staff members chimed in with the headliner during meet and greet when she was ripping into my fiancee - he was apologizing for saying "Nailed it!", the show she's known for, after she was saying she is the host of a Netflix show. She said it threw off the timing of the show, something about 20 minutes of stuff we didn't hear (but that's a "her" thing, she was asking the audience what they wanted to talk about for the last bit of the show) - the staff member chiming in with "don't do it again, it's rude, you ruin it for other people" really made both of us feel embarrassed. The show could have gone on as she planned if my fiancee's utterance was ignored, but her choice to make a scene out of it was then blamed on him which felt very unfair, especially since he was apologizing for saying it. Then when he and I finished our meet and greet, we stood waiting for the other members in our group to finish their meet and greet, and the security guy wasn't having it. We even said we're waiting for them, they were on stage, and he made us feel rushed and unwelcome as he shooed us to the entrance. Three stars, ONLY because I want to believe this is a one-time flop and doesn't represent the Carlson's norm. I hope if we come back, we won't have as poor a time as our first and only visit thus far. Edited post-reply: he was neither the first nor the last to call out Nailed It. Blaming us for Nicole's choice to end the show early is incredibly hurtful - there are things you can do as a comedian to keep the show rolling, the simplest being ignoring it. Getting aggressive in your reply towards one heckler who was trying to apologize for it when there were 3+ others who didn't get booted, didn't apologize, etc. seals it, we will not be returning. We won't be back, your public relations person escalated tensions, and stars have been updated...