Happy Karaoke — Restaurant in Doraville

I celebrated my birthday at Happy Karaoke last Saturday, and while the karaoke itself was fun, the owner’s behavior was absolutely appalling—rude, invasive, and blatantly racist.

The issues started when my friend accidentally locked her keys in her car and needed a locksmith. She briefly left to search for her keys, and upon returning, the owner burst into our private room yelling at us, threatening to kick us out without a refund because “you’re not allowed to leave during your paid singing time.” This is a completely ridiculous rule, and when we tried to explain the situation, he showed zero empathy and coldly replied, “That’s your problem.”

When the locksmith finally arrived, my sister spoke up for my friend, who was too scared to say anything after being intimidated by the owner’s earlier aggression. Instead of listening, he condescendingly sneered, “Do you not speak English?” This belittling and racist comment was directed at my friend, who is Hispanic, simply because my sister was standing up for her.

The harassment didn’t stop there. The owner sent an employee to follow my friend to her car, supposedly to “monitor” her, and even followed another friend into the women’s restroom. His behavior was invasive, degrading, and completely unacceptable.

It’s clear the owner is paranoid about people bringing outside drinks, but if he offered a better bar experience, this wouldn’t even be an issue. Treating customers like criminals is no way to run a business, and his hostility—especially toward my Hispanic friends—was beyond offensive.

Despite the enjoyable karaoke setup, I will never return to Happy Karaoke. I’ll also make sure to warn others to avoid this place. It’s a shame that what should have been a fun celebration was ruined by such an intolerant,...

Not a whole lot "happy" about it. We had a party of 11 people come in. We were greeted with an employee and the owner. Full disclosure, absolutely no issue with the employee. You can tell he was just doing his job.

When we went into the room, we were told by the employee that he needed to do a "bag check." For what? You'll see in a second.

All of our members went through the bag checks, and one of our members had a bottle of water in her purse. No big deal right? Wrong. This triggered the owner to demand the bottle to be disposed of. A completely full bottle of water. Naturally, the member of our party said she would just take the bottle back to her car.

THE OWNER OF THE STORE BLOCKED HER IN THE ROOM AND DEMANDED HE TAKE HER PURSE TO "LOOK AFTER" AT THE FRONT DESK.

Again, naturally, the member of our group wasn't a fan of that, and why should she be? Let a strange and controlling man take your purse of valuable possessions out of your view? I'm not the biggest fan of that.

So she refused, and insisted that she doesn't feel comfortable doing that and would prefer putting the bottle back in her car and coming back.

And that's it. That's the story. We were told to get out, given a refund and we left. 11 customers. A full party of people turned away because of a water bottle. The manager has serious issues.

Just a reminder to the owner, your business is reliant on copyright-free instrumental tracks of music you didn't write or create, and a sound system with lights. Literally anyone in 2025 can have the same environment at home or better. Your business is relying on your hospitality, and if you can't do that (and it seems you can't) your business will fail. Hope you can grow some sense soon,...

The private rooms are nice and spacious, with screens on two walls and a good sound system. Lights are synced with the music, and the large remote has quite a few fun options once you figure them out. There’s options to adjust reverb and echo, change the song’s key, tempo, and even substitute various new drum tracks like disco, samba or techno. November Rain sped up with a techno beat was fricking hilarious to try to sing. There’s also a handy button to skip Interludes which we just discovered on our last visit.

The food and drink are snacky bar style. They offer beer and mixed drinks and saki comes hot or cold. Fruit trays are brought in complementary.

Rooms are charged in tiers based on number of people by the hour. We often have folks coming and going so as long as the room is available we get an hour or two then extend as needed, adjusting the person count each time.

The only downside is the relatively small selection of western songs. We still find plenty to sing for hours on end but not every song you look for is available. If they improved their selection of songs I wouldn’t need to go anywhere else.

I never had an issue with rudeness, I’ve always found the staff to be accommodating, they’re just not very talkative which could be perceived as rude by some.

Overall I like the vibe here and the private rooms help give confidence to folks who may be less inclined to sing in a...