The Grape Escape — Restaurant in Galena

Our visit started off bad, then was awesome. Then was bad.

Our wives left us and went shopping and we came in for a beer and to listen to music.

We sat down and the female owner seemed to be on a rampage storming around the bar barking orders at people. We ignored her and she later left for about 4 or 5 hours.

The rest of the staff was fantastic and kept us well taken care of. Our wives ended up joining us after a few hours and we listened to the evening music instead of going to our dinner reservations. We were having a fantastic time and so was the rest of the bar.

Female owner came back that evening and immediately the vibe in the place changed.

She appeared to be swarming all over the entire bar making a scene with numerous tables and patrons.

In fact, she had a shouting match with one woman who finally left.

We had 8 people in our group. We are from Iowa where 8 is the magic number for groups. We actually were going to have 10 in our group but because of the rules, 1 couple decided to stay home and not join us. We didn't know until we were actually ready to leave the bar that the rule was six in Galena.

So when the owner came up to us (again after we had already been there for several hours with eight of us and all day with four of us) and rudely asked us how many were in our group. we said eight. She rolled her eyes made some hand gestures and stormed off. We were confused.

We had already seen her harassing other tables and patrons so we were wondering what the heck we would have done to make her mad.

Again, we thought the rule was eight people. We sat there all day thinking we were fine.

At one point She tried to come over and sit down and explain why she was upset but she wasn't really making sense. Part of it is because of her wearing a mask and not being able to read her lips or see her facial expressions and the music playing in the background made it difficult as well.

It was hard to hear her but she has very poor people skills And just came off poorly and was rude and standoffish. She actually never did tell us the rule was six people. We actually googled it because we assumed that that must be the issue. We left 5 minutes later because We didn't want to not follow the rules.

On the other hand she didn't even try to explain them to us she was just being weird.

I don't think she was drunk. I just don't think she has good people skills. I get it, she's probably exasperated from all the shutdown issues but you have to have better communication skills if you're going to be a successful owner.

3 of the 4 couples in our group actually are successful business owners And we just couldn't believe her attitude and the way she was acting towards people.

There's a way to get your message across and to educate people on the rules and also to encourage people to follow the rules while still making people feel welcome and that you appreciate them coming into your place.

I would give the owner one star. The two performers that played that day were outstanding and the rest of the staff did a great job of taking care of us. I would have given it a one star otherwise.

Again. The people in our group have a pretty good idea of what good customer service/interaction looks like.

Hopefully, the female owner takes this to heart and doesn't look at it as an opportunity to simply make a snarky retort to somehow try and save face.

Just be a better...

My girl friends and I were on a weekend trip to Galena and stopped here on Saturday night seeing they had live music, the hostess let us in and found us a table right away.

A waiter brought us all water and took drink orders, 2 of us are pregnant so stuck with water, not wanting all the sugar in Mocktails and soda, while others ordered their drinks. After 10 minutes or so the owner came to our table to take another drink order, the drinks were still full so we politely declined more drinks, the owner made a scene people at the table only had water and insisted we either order drinks or leave. Not wanting to have a soda loaded with sugar while pregnant, the group again politely declined additional drinks. The owner then expressed concern about paying her bills and staff on people who take up space in her bar ordering water and again told us to leave if we didn’t order soda or a mocktail.

Multiple people at the table were drinking and fully intended to spend more money at this establishment. There was no wait outside and other tables also had water or empty drinks. Instead of allowing our group to continue drinking we were pushed out the door by unnecessary and rude behavior that in no way could be deemed appropriate or justified on behalf of the owner. Based on previous review there’s a single common denominator ruining this establishment.

Edit based on owners response: 3 out of 5 patrons ordered 2 drinks, the pregnant people got waters after a large dinner. Once we were berated we left, otherwise we planned on...

If you are looking for wildly overpriced drinks and downright rude service, look no further - this is the place for you!

During a recent visit here I had the strangest, most negative experience I have ever encountered at a bar or restaurant. As soon as we entered the place we were rudely told by the owner that our group couldn't sit together because there weren't enough seats for everyone. So, a few of us branched off and sat at the bar instead. During our short stay, we noticed the owner would routinely bark orders at the other patrons and members of our group if we tried to socialize with one another at a place designated for that exact thing. Apparently wherever they were sitting/standing was not good enough to satisfy her holier-than-thou attitude. We quickly downed our drinks and decided to visit one of the many other establishments in Galena that are 1. fun 2. not run like a dictatorship.

It's sad because in years past we have had nothing but friendly, positive experiences with the owner. During previous visits, the atmosphere played a big part in justifying spending $15 on a drink you can easily make yourself at home using 3 ingredients. Perhaps the added stress from the pandemic has caused the owner's brain to short-circuit or something. I look forward to reading her snarky response to this review, that will surely put me...