Voodoo Bayou — Restaurant in Fort Lauderdale

Well, I wish I could start this review with a positive experience but unfortunately, we never even had a chance to try and have one.

I'll start by saying I never leave bad reviews, I just don't go back, as everyone has an off day now and then.

I gave 5 stars for Atmosphere, because it has that in spades! Place is beautiful for sure and it took quite a while for this build out. (I'm sure it wasn't cheap either)

We were so excited to try out the new Voodoo Bayou on Las Olas because it is so beautiful inside and the brand is well known for great food and drinks.

So, we showed up on Saturday morning at about 11:15 or so, just as the place was opening up (8 of us all together) we were looking to start our day of bar hopping and lunch. We saw that they have an upstairs bar area and thought it was really cool looking so we asked the hostess if we could go up there.

She told us that they do not open the bar upstairs until Noon, which of course we understood, although disappointed.

So the hostess said well, let me just get you table of 8 and get you started. Sounded good to us. We could have moved up there once they opened if we wanted.

Then out of the blue, the day manager comes up to us (didn't get the name) and proceeds to tell us that because we wanted to sit at the bar upstairs, he wasn't going to seat us downstairs!

We all kind of looked at each other and snickered in laughter as we thought he was joking.

Um....no. We were turned away, because we wanted to sit at the upstairs bar area? A party of 8 looking to drink and eat at a new establishment...turned away and refused to be seated?

We were all shocked. It was 8 girls looking to party and some more us were going to meet up there with them a bit later.

Talk about a complete let down and turn off.

Why would you turn away 8+ people looking to eat and drink at your brand new business? Still trying to figure it out. We were talking about it for the rest of the day.

So, needless to say, we ended up next door at El Camino (one of our favorites) who were more than accommodating for our larger party, where we ended spending $600-$700 between us on food and drinks.

The main reason I decided to write this review, is in hopes there can be a learning and training experience for the owners of this establishment and management staff.

There were a few active social media influencers in our group, and I would just hope that the manager that was working that day has a chance to go back to hospitality 101.

Never turn away paying customers, especially during your 2 week grand opening. Must be new to the business?

You have 10 people that will probably never go back because of that poor decision and treatment.

I do hope they work out these service kinks so they can be successful. I don't care how good a brand's reputation is or how beautiful the place is, the transient and generally indifferent South Florida hospitality staff will kill it quick!

Living down here for so long, we are used to bad or slow service most of the time, but we were really hoping for something...

Voodoo Bayou My friends were in town so we were looking for a nice upbeat restaurant to grab a really good bite to eat. Unfortunately, Voodoo Bayou has really let us down. Let’s start with what was done right. We called to make reservations and Athena, answered the phone really politely and was able to accommodate a time change. The hostess who greeted us - (I think Her name was Valerie) was very sweet, and communicative however she told us 5 minutes when the wait was really 15 minutes, I would’ve preferred her to over estimate than to under.

Upon seating, we were given menus and explained how it works, being that this was our first time I really appreciated this! Unfortunately, it took 15 minutes for our waitress Marianna to come to the table so another waitress had to come and give us waters. Once she did come she only put the napkins under our water and didn’t ask if we were ready to order, adding to this already sour experience. We would’ve appreciated her telling us she’s really busy - this did happen, but only after we ordered appetizers.

Now, our food did come out very very fast as did our drinks. For drinks I ordered the Black Magic Lemonade, and my friends ordered the Hurricane. All of these drinks were AMAZING and looked great! For appetizers, we did a whole bunch,just to share- gator bites, fried oysters, oysters rockefeller, stuffed mac and cheese, and the barbecue shrimp. I have to say the only real tasty item was the oysters. Also, we did have to wait a while for sharing plates and the table was really small for a party of four ordering a lot, so be mindful.

Service did start to get better as our food was being delivered. For the mains, two in our party got the Cajun Carbonara with added shrimp and steak. This was okay, the noodles were overcooked and our added meats weren’t nothing to lose sleep over. Another one ordered the Cajun Salmon and it was raw in the middle. They were apologetic and offered a new dish to compensate but at that point we were over it. We did get a free Banana bread pudding which they hardly enjoyed as I was not in the mood to be disappointed further.

Overall, the only thing phenomenal about this place is the decor, live music, drinks, and oysters. We would return during happy hour for drinks and the vibes and absolutely sit at the bar. For the disappointment we faced, we all agreed it wouldn’t be worth it to pay full...

I experienced probably one of the worst experiences of my dinning in the south Florida area. I mad a reservation from open table for a 7:45pm time slot. I called in because there was horrible rain and spoke to a person that shared that it would be ok to be 15 minutes late I shared we were driving from over 50 miles away and they shared they would see us soon. On open table it states there is a 15 minute window grace period. We arrived right at the 15 minute mark 8:01pm. We were met by a host who used her walkie to another host insides the host inside made a angry irritated face and told the host outside that we could not be seated because we were 2 minutes over the 15 minute grace period. At this point we go back and forth between the two for another 5 minutes finally I ask to speak to one of the managers. A manager by the name of Jonathan introduced him self after he spoke to the host inside. At this point it look like he had made up his mind already. He shared their policy and I shared my story. I also shared that we drive from over 50 miles away and that we were excited to be here. At this point he restated the policy and shared that he could seat us outside with some f the guest that were walking in. I was shocked that they were even seating walk in’s. He was very passive aggressive and did not seem to even listen to our reasoning. At this point we were frustrated and shocked that he wouldn’t even adjust with multiple tables open and them seeing walk ins. We agreed to wait around at the bar and he shared that he could not tell us a time but that he and 3 canceled reservations due to a leaky Air conditioner. I was shocked that he was sharing all these details as if we should feel thankful that he would try to seat us. Long story short he called us 15 minutes later after they set up a last minute table at the front of the restaurant in the middle of where everyone walks in and out. We stat for about 2 minutes and decided to leave due to being bumped into and walked passed several times by host and waiters. I would save your money and go to the west palm location or just not go at all. Horrible customer service from Jonathan and I hope the owner retrains the staff or I don’t see this location...