Room 38 Restaurant & Lounge — Restaurant in Columbia Township

I made a reservation here for my 19th birthday on a Monday and I was informed that management would be calling me back the next day(for what reason I don't know) because I gave them the exact time and the amount of people. I asked the person that I was on the phone with if my reservation was confirmed and they informed that it was. The next day, I had a missed call from a Columbia, MO number and I called back and told the man that I had a missed call from them, so I assumed that it was about my reservation and he informed me that "they make a lot of calls, so he doesn't know who he may have called." So I gave him my information, without him ever asking for it, because if I didn't he would've continued to go off on a tangent about them being busy. He then informed me that my party of 20, who were coming in town to celebrate my birthday would need to be gone by 7:15 because the person that I had spoken to the day before confirmed my reservation, when in fact they had a party coming in at 7:30. By this point, I said that I could move my party up to 5 because my birthday was a few days away and I had my family planning to come into town and I didn't want to flake. During this conversation, the tone of voice that the man maintained was very rude. Not once, did I raise my voice at him. I confirmed my reservation and I called back later to speak with a manager. When I initially called back, I was informed that the management was in a long meeting. But within 5minutes, a man called me back and I assumed that this was the same man that was very disrespectful earlier. He informed me that he was management and told me that disrespect can go both ways, without even trying to hear my side of the story. I informed him that I wasn't mad but there's a way that you talk to the customers and he had infact failed me by allowing his employee(or more likely himself,b/c I don't believe he was the actual management). He eventually apologized for HIS actions, yes his actions, despite the fact that I was under the impression that I was talking to someone higher up, not him. Upon arriving, some of the people in my party were not greeted, but they just had to find their way to the "red room." The waiter, Amanda, informed us that the sharing plates were 1/2 until 6:30 and she showed us this in the menu. Mind you, we've never been here before so we knew nothing about the 1/2 off and the food was cheap in the 1st place, so we were actually surprised by the discount. When we got our bills, we realized that the plates weren't half off and Amanda acknowledged that she made a mistake, but she wasn't going to honor what she told us. In that event, we asked to speak with management and she informed us that NO MANAGEMENT WAS THERE and NONE WOULD BE THERE THAT NIGHT. Eventually, we talked to Justin (who I've concluded is the same person that I spoke with on the phone) and his first words upon arriving in our room is "y'all are giving my waiter a hard time" and he repeatedly asked us " are you calling my waiter a liar", even after Amanda stood there in his face and told him she made a mistake. I'm actually getting frustrated writing this because he actually ruined my birthday. He was very rude and unapologetic to me and my family and that's the moral of the story. He came in the room on defense, instead of trying to get to the root of the problem. I don't recommend this restaurant to anyone. The food is decent, but their customer service...

Usually have a nice time at Room 38. Sunday brunch is usually pretty nice.

BUT TODAY. The situation was handled completely irresponsibly and negligently. I came in with a party of 6 and made a reservation for 12:30pm. When my party and I arrived the hostess told us that our reservation was for 12:45pm--an error on her part. This apparently isn't the first time the staff have mishandled reservation times.

A birthday party was sitting at our table we had reserved and had no intention of moving or finishing up anytime soon. We waited for 45 minutes on a reservation that was already incorrectly entered in the system. Then the other party and my own got into a slight altercation with another member who RUDELY reached over to place a wine glass on the counter in front of my friend who was sitting down without saying excuse me. Then another member in their party claimed us loudly as "being rude" when we were just sitting peacefully waiting. Very problematic.

When we FINALLY got seated--nearly an hour later, the supposed owner came over and blamed the whole ordeal on us. Our server was nice, she apologized to us for the mishap, but the owner did his best white man blaming the people of color routine that day. He said we yelled at the waitstaff--completely untrue and that we had to realize that--in his own problematic ass words--"it's a give and take.." whatever that means. it was completely irrelevant to what happened.

he also laughed in our faces when we were trying to tell him about the situation. Very dismissive and troubling as the so called owner of the place.

The fact that he's the owner of this establishment, had no intention of apologizing for HIS staff dropping the ball and blaming US for the whole thing was astounding. No sense of respect or decency for your patrons at all.

It's understandable that Sunday Brunch is probably the busiest day of the work week for Room 38, however good customer service and decency still should be a given.

Sad to say we probably won't be returning here--even though the business will continue as usual--operating with the same problematic and negligent customer service of SOME, not all inside the...

We really wanted to love this place, especially because of all of the rave reviews others have left. We took a day trip to Columbia and picked Room 38 out of all of the amazing restaurants downtown. To start, we stood at the door for 5 minutes to be seated. Noone ever acknowledged our party, so we walked towards the bar. The bartender behind the bar making drinks told us she would get us a hostess after we asked where we could sit. Someone came from the back and finally tried to get us seated. We were visiting at 2pm on a Sunday, when there was a basketball game playing. There were 2 empty tables but we were told they were already reserved. The only option was to sit outside in the outdoor seating area. On the day we visited, the high was 42 degrees and rainy. It was enclosed with plastic coverings & heaters, but it was still not a comfortable temp to sit and enjoy food (maybe after a few cocktails you could overlook the frigid temperature). That should have been our clue to leave but regretfully we did not. Our waitress was nice but had multiple other large tables and they consumed most of her time while we were there. We ordered the crabragoon dip that was supposed to come with fried wonton chips. It came with Tortilla chips instead. It was okay, I would rate it a 5/10. Some of the imitation crab meat tasted way too fishy, which it should not. After waiting awhile we finally got our food. Someone in our party ordered the 'house favorite' lobster Mac and cheese. It was so horrible we sent it back and asked for it to be removed from our bill. The fish smell was absolutely awful, and it had a sour taste to it. I wouldn't have even fed it to my dog. It also had imitation crab in it (supposed to be lobster mac and cheese?) Unfortunately, that member of the party did not eat anything after that. Someone else got the cranberry walnut salad, which was good and a great size. They added a chicken breast to it for an extra $6, which made it a $20 salad. Sad to say we left hungry, cold, unimpressed...