Vue Rooftop — Restaurant in Iowa City

So I traveled from AZ to Iowa for my best friend’s bachelorette party. We wanted to stay at the Hilton Garden Inn so we could stay and have what we thought would be a lovely dining experience upstairs at The Vue. It took multiple hours talking to at least five different people who would guarantee then take back the guarantee of us having adjoining rooms or room right next to each other. Of course when we checked in the rooms were neither. When we made the room reservations months ago we were told to call in and reserve a table upstairs. The Matron of Honor called more than ten times to make the reservation but no one answered the phone a single time she called. In a last ditch effort to make sure that the reservation could me made we had the nearest person drive from Cedar Rapid to Iowa City to go up to the restaurant in person and make he reservation. A server named Marissa M. made the reservation and verbally confirmed the reservation for fifteen multiple times and was accompanied by another server Brandon (who was a wonderful server on the multiple occasions he has served my friend). Marissa said she confirmed with management that the reservation had been made. This then leads us to the day of the celebration. We all successfully checked into our rooms. Our only goal is to make sure the Bride to Be has a wonderful evening. We go upstairs and are told that we do not have a reservation and not only that but we’re told that there was nothing they could do and we needed to leave. The bridesmaid that made the reservation in front of her boyfriend pointed out the server Marissa who walked by as the person who confirmed the reservation because at that point we were being treated as if we were lying about making the reservation. Kristin Kyle the manager spoke with Marissa out of view of us. She came back and said that unfortunately the server was not at liberty to make the reservation and that without a confirmation “email” we could not be seated and needed to leave. Please keep in mind that I personally understand that mistakes may have been made and quite honestly, in my opinion the responsibility falls on the poor training of management. Having worked in the service industry, healthcare profession, and soon to own my own business I understand the importance of exceptional care. We asked what could be done in regards to this error and were told unfortunately nothing could be done. The tone and demeanor of the manager was rude at this point and inconsiderate. Not once did the mistake get acknowledged nor did anyone take responsibility for the error so we left. The Hilton Garden Inn, did try to compensate out complete dissatisfaction by comping 20% back on our rooms and provided a complementary breakfast the next morning. Much gratitude to them for attempting to make up for the fault of another company that will in many ways impact their business unless some serious staff training in hospitality done. The hotel also provided a shuttle that brought us to 30hop which last minute made accommodations when completely booked for our entire entourage. Thank you Hilton Garden Inn! I will be giving you a great rating. As for the manager of The Vue, it is apparent that you are responsible for not only our displeasure but the displeasure of multiple others that had poor experiences at this establishment. I really hope the owner of this establishment will ensure the proper training of staff on service and comes up with a suitable way for resolving similar issues like this. This review will be followed by at least 15 others who endured the same experience.

• Circumstantially I randomly met the owner of the establishment at a different restaurant. He was very unhappy to hear about out experience and made it up to us by accompanying us to brunch the next morning and graciously paying for our meal himself. I will happily change my review from one...

The atmosphere was overall nice - I would describe it as upscale casual lounge. I had a reservation for a party of two, and had indicated in the reservation that it was my partner's birthday.

I called the day of to make sure there would be no cheesey birthday song and attention grab and, during the process of the phone call, was told that tonight was Salsa Night, so people would be dancing (no other information about Salsa Night was provided during this call) so no worries, there. Since it was his birthday, he would receive a complimentary dessert.

We arrived and were seated immediately. They were, unfortunately, out of the appetizer I wanted, so we just ordered dinner.

My sides were good, but the Tomahawk Pork chop was just okay (very greasy and the meat was tough). Our cocktails were also good.

While we were dining, staff began moving furniture out of the dining room, and theyset up a DJ booth.

I was still very hungry and wanted dessert, and, again, it was his birthday. When our waitress returned, rather than ask about dessert, she informed us that we either had to leave or pay a cover charge to stay for Salsa Night.

I explained that we were celebrating his birthday, and wanted dessert. She offered that if we wanted dessert, she could go grab us dessert "real fast."

They were out of the dessert I wanted (chocolate cake) , so I asked for cheesecake. It was just okay - identical to what you could buy at Walmart, but topped with sliced and sweetened strawberry. Additionally, I felt rushed and pressured to eat quickly.

We may or may not return. If we do, I'll make sure to pre-order before arrival to make sure they have what I want and that we won't be forced to scarf down the remainder of our dinner, at some point, or pay for an event we didn't sign on for, to begin with.

Edit to add: I also specifically asked for a table with a good view when I made the reservation. We were seated in one of the U shaped booths. These are the tables farthest from the windows. The only view we got...

Our first time here, view of IC at night was awesome, server was great for one person for handling our large party, and few other table at the same. We were given a very limited food menu since we had more than 10 people at the table, and food in this menu was not impressive at all given that they are higher tier/fine dining, but this was more like bar food at best, and trust me when I say we have had better food at little towny bars around IC than here. Worst of all for a fine dinning place they have joined the rest of most restaurants around here by charging an abusive credit card fee! If you look into credit card laws for the state of Iowa, the establishment is responsible for notifying each and every customer that they do this before they take the customers card and run it, and let’s face it that no business should be passing this charge to their customers at this day and age when you are selling pricy food and drinks that are not even worth the price tags and you get to use the fees as tax deductions at the end of the year!!! Our fee on an almost $900 bill was 22$ and that included the additional $6 they charged because they automatically added gratuity to the bill and I understand that it is normal for larger table to have gratuity included but then that raises the fee even more without customers knowledge after they ran my card. I usually prefer to leave servers cash tips and our server still got an additional $50 in cash from me but hated everything about their approach to passing this fee to the customer! It is 2023, no one walks around with a 1-2k in cash on them. I understand the inflation but I consider all this funny business an abuse! Can you imagine if Costco, HyVee, any gas station, your mechanic etc. all charging you and everyone Credit Card fees or your credit or debit card??? I refuse to support that!!! I am pretty sure that we will never return here or anywhere that does things like this! I hope the 22$ fee was worth losing our future business...