Cajun Roux Bar & Grill — Restaurant in Hoover

My family and I decided to take our mom here for her birthday. I checked in with the hostess for a party of 7. I was told the wait would be about 2 hours. Which was no problem because we are use to long waits when going out due to our party size. I was never told we could not be accommodated. So I finally get the call our table is ready. We were ambushed at the door by a man; later to find out he was the manager named Chris. He notified us that we would be seated separately! I stated if that was the case you could have already seated us. He stated he had a lot of large parties so that was our only option. I noticed there was only one large party. We decided to stay because we did just wait 2 hours! We were seated in separate booths with each booth having its own waitress. While waiting on food I noticed Chris paying a lot of attention and interacting with the 1 large party. Service was nice and food was good. We were given our tickets. 3 separate tickets at one booth and 1 ticket at the other booth. We notice gratuity had been added. We were seated separately, had 2 different waitresses, one table was served before the other. WHY WAS GRATUITY ADDED TO THE TAB??? We tried to talk to Chris but he did not want to hear us out. He was rude, unprofessional and showed poor manger skills. While over talking us he eventually told us our table was given away to the other table. He also stated the other party was the owner's family. After that I stated he needed to take the gratuity off! You split the party at the door. We were no longer a party of 7 after being seated separately. He did not want to hear that and stormed off. He even went to alert the police. As a "manager " Chris could have handled the situation better. Knowing the seating was the restaurant's fault! As a owner, Jeff, your paying customers should come first. Especially after waiting 2 hours! Be professional and run a business! Tipping is never an issue for my family. Our issues are the bad business practices going on at this establishment. We spent too much money here to be treated poorly. Provide Chris with more management training and possibly anger management! You could have a very nice restaurant. This was not my first time patronizing this establishment but it...

The ONLY reason I am providing two stars v. 0 stars is the quality of the food. The raw oysters weren't spectacularly tasty, but were very large and satisfying. My fried grouper was delicious. Now, why otherwise 0 stars:

The very first "greeting" we encountered upon walking in was a placard stating "1.5 hours max seating time." Okay, weird but I can understand this policy during very busy shifts. We then were ushered a seat (very loud music and atmosphere, just be warned). Our server came and literally the first thing she uttered was, "We have a one and a half hour maximum seat time." Really. Okay, this is clearly a case where she was uncomfortable saying this, and a case where management demonstrates their appreciation and support of their customers by creating this script for their staff. Additionally, this was the middle of the afternoon, and there were plenty of available seats.

This was a Saturday, and we arrived about 2:30 PM. "Happy Hour" was listed as 11 AM - 2 PM on weekends (early day drinking!). My partner ordered a specialty bloody mary for $12. It was okay - in a smallish glass and packed with garnishes so that there was little actual drink to consume. The Happy Hour price on House bloodies was $5. So, when the server came around again, my partner asked for a house bloody, and asked what the regular price was.

The server informed us that there was no "house" bloody mary's available after Happy Hour. Really? So, we asked, why the bartender couldn't just put together a basic bloody mary - these were offered literally 30 minutes prior. "Management decision," was what was offered. So apparently "Happy Hour" offers mixed drinks that can never be conjured outside this magical time. If you've seen "Five Easy Pieces" and the "Toast" episode- yeah.

Now, the server was polite and seemed embarrassed to have to repeat these ridiculous and insulting "policies." This review has nothing to do with her. I will NEVER return to an establishment that treats its guests as potentially guilty upon arrival, and clearly feels such entitlement to customers who literally make...

Stopped by with a few friends for dinner. As we walked in (2 of us) we told the sweet hostess we had a group of 5. She asked where was the rest of our party I told her they were parking , she says okay and sat us at the long table by the bar that the bartenders serve. Our friends started drifting in slowly because it's a Saturday and as you can imagine parking is limited.

We noticed the bartender (older looking lady with long dark hair) never made it a point to speak , offer waters , or anything instead she stops the hostess as I am making eye contact with her and yells "tell THEM I am not serving THEM until their whole party arrives". The hostess is clearly embarrassed and does not come to us and relay this message. When the older looking bartender notices this she storms around and grabs the male manager and the hostess and proceeded to yell at them for seating us without the full party. So as you can imagine I am offended because she could have easily told us this herself but you chose to be tactless and disrespectful. The hostess sat us on her own accord after I explained all of our party was not there. The bartender treated us as if we snuck to the table and sat ourselves. So as she yells this to the manager and hostess I am witnessing all of this. The manager comes over frustrated and basically blames me for lying about all of our party not being there. He then says we only have an hour and a half to eat and we are on a time limit with or without our full party. Y'all the restaurant was not even crowded. As many times as I have been to this restaurant I have never been told this. We were at the point of wanting to leave because we felt targeted as the older looking bartender continues to roll her eyes at my table and walk right past us.

This was extremely disappointing to say the least ,but I will say the highlight of the night was our sever Nikki who helped us because we were basically forced to move outside. Thank you for being so nice.

Moral of the story after this type of discrimination and treatment.I will never return here again. I will take my business to...