Topgolf Rhode Island — Restaurant in Cranston

My girlfriend and I went on a double date last night with some good friends of ours. Our first impression was great. Reservation and arrival was smooth with no glitches. As soon as we arrived to our bay we were met by a very happy and pleasant server who gave us the rundown. We are golfers so we brought our own golf bags and clubs.

The first thing I noticed in the actual golf bay was that the rubber tees on the mats were extremely small. You absolutely cannot hit a driver off of the tees provided and they are just tall enough that you would not tee your ball so high with a fairway wood… so they were essentially useless for anyone who knows how to play golf. I thought maybe just our bay had small tees and perhaps it was an oversight. I know some driving ranges have multiple sized rubber tees for you to switch out and adjust for your preference.

So I started playing by going through my warmup and hitting through all of my irons. Then I put one of my own tees inside the small rubber tee provided so I could hit driver. I have done this at other driving ranges many times in my life to get the tee height to my preference as I have seen countless other golfers do. The netting at the end of the range seems to only be about 225 yards so my drives were going well into the netting and just dropping down. I only hit about 3-4 drives and a staff member (not our server) came over and chastised me in a pretty abrupt and rude manner. She took my tee and was huffing and puffing and all bent out of shape. She went on to say that using your own tees were against the rules because of concerns that you could hit the ball out of the netting area. Fair enough. I tried to explain that I was unaware but she seemed very upset about this and then picked up the handful of tees I had laying next to the mat and put them in her pocket. Another employee stepped in and said you can give him his tees back which I put back in my golf bag. Her whole attitude and demeanor was beyond off putting. This is a new place and I am sorry I was unaware that you can’t use tees like every other golf range I have been to in my 35 years of playing the game. Just some polite education on her part would have done the trick. I’m a 50 year old man who can follow directions and would have just put my tees and driver away. The four of us then watched her for the next two hours going up and down the bays feverishly nitpicking at others.

The food and drinks were solid and the atmosphere is great. To actually work on your golf game I prefer a range that allows you to hit all of the clubs in your bag… so not great for that. However it is a nice facility and a fun date night notwithstanding the one uptight and rude staff member. Every other staff member in the place was pleasant and inviting.

Pros: beautiful new facility, solid food and drinks, plenty of parking, mostly courteous and helpful staff, and seamless reservation process and procedures to get us right to our bay on time.

Cons: one very poor employee who is probably in the wrong profession, a short outdoor driving range that doesn’t allow an experienced golfer to hit his or her woods, and a little pricey.

I don’t understand why a company would spend that much money on a beautiful state of the art facility but not allow distances of at least 300 yards. With all of the money they must have spent on that facility it could not have been that much more to extend the range to accommodate people who can hit the ball 300+. Imagine, you can’t hit DRIVER at a DRIVING range.

For the money we spent, the four of us could have played an 18 hole round of golf at a nice course without being chastised. I don’t think I will be back...

This is a follow up on my initial review. It includes my original Review and TG's corporate responses. I have also modified my original rating given the new information.

As you can see, TG Corporate provided a boilerplate response and included the following: "Your message and contact information have been passed along to the management team at the location you visited so they can review this and follow up with you."

9 months later and TG Cranston has made no attempt to address this matter. Unfortunately, this is not surprising given the experience we had and the negative feedback we have heard from multiple other friends who have been to that location.

In short - TG Cranston doesn't seem to have what they need to provide a good experience or to deal with negative experiences when they happen. Cannot recommend you spend your money or time there.

Cheers,

-c

(Topgolf Corporate Response - sent on January 5, 2024)

Hello Grimption,

We'd love to hear what you think of our Guest Service. Please take a moment to answer one simple question by clicking either link below:

Topgolf

How would you rate the support you received? Good, I'm satisfied

Bad, I'm unsatisfied

(Topgolf Corporate Response - sent on January 3, 2024)

Hi Christopher,

Thank you for taking the time to reach out to us, and we apologize for the delay in our reply. We regret to hear that you experienced issues with the service and the food during your most recent visit. Your feedback is greatly appreciated and will help us improve the Topgolf experience that we strive to provide each and every one of our players.

Your message and contact information have been passed along to the management team at the location you visited so they can review this and follow up with you.

Regards, Hailey Topgolf Guest Support

(Original Review - Submitted on January 2, 2024)

We went to TG Cranston for the second time on Friday, December 30. Generally speaking, the TG experience is fine for what it is (essentially bowling with golf clubs). That said, the service at TG Cranston leaves quite a bit to be desired:

Our drink order was wrong and was late Part of the food order was late. When I say late, I mean more than an hour late. When the food finally arrived (it was a chicken sandwich), it was cold - as if someone found the original order and decided to serve it, instead of making a new one (which we were told would happen). Our 2 hour slot was timed on their system as 1 hour and 45 minutes. They did come and fix that, but it took them 7 minutes to figure out how to add the time. There was a lot of finger pointing by the staff, including management - it was the bar's fault, it was the previous server's fault, etc. The music is way too loud and just isn't good. We asked if it could at least be turned down, but apparently that isn't possible. The manager was involved with us quite a bit, given the many problems we experienced. Despite that knowledge, there wasn't any attempt to mitigate the damage.

All in all, not a good experience. Can't...

I was very excited for the opening of a top golf local to me as I have a lot of friends that are avid golfers, and I’ve been to other locations on vacation in the past. The reception was very efficient as we had made a reservation online and were at our bay instantly. When we arrived at our bay we found it covered with food and drinks from the people prior to us. While our game timer had already began. Even if we’d like to ignore it, the computer would not allow us to enter our names, and begin playing. The employee working our area was kind enough to reset the computer and clean up the stall but that was 15 minutes after we arrived and once again, our time had already begun while at the bay we had no issues and the food came within a reasonable amount of time the ball tracking system seemed to have a few issues, but it was not a surprise because they had just opened which I completely understood. After our two hours we had looked to sit down to eat lunch. We had waited unsuccessfully for 25 minutes to get a server until an employee had tried to deliver someone else's food to us where we explained we were still waiting for someone to take our order. Only after another twenty five minutes did anybody come to take our order. I was very disappointed to find it took an additional hour and fifteen minutes to receive five entrees with no special requests or added layer of complexity. We were alone on this floor aside from one our two other groups who ordered 25 minutes after us and received their food before us. No one between ordering and receiving our food had informed us of any extended wait or delays or showed even the mildest bit of care that we had been waiting for so long. I had to flag down an employee who wasn't working in the restaurant area to inquire what had happened with our order she was very kind and I could see she took the time to figure out what happened at which point the food came out soon after. Although she had helped us which we greatly appreciated no one came back to provide us any explanation or apologize for our experience. Our food came out and it was a bit cold like it had been sitting in the window for a while as well as some sides being incorrect. We also were not provided any napkins until we walked up to the bar to formally request them. I completely understand when launching such a large establishment there is bound to be difficulties and issues to a degree but what was the most upsetting was nobody took the time to rectify or even show any degree of care for what had happened with some employees even making remarks like “I noticed you guys have been waiting forever but I wasn't sure what was going on”. Although numerous managerial staff had passed by and we all were visibly upset not a single one took the time to see what was going on or show any degree of care. Id like to return to this establishment regularly but with this initial visit id be hesitant to until these issues that adversely affect our experience...