Vino Bella — Restaurant in Issaquah

BEWARE OF THIS PLACE!!!! I came in with some friends on a Thursday night a couple weeks ago and had separate checks.Service and food were just ok. A couple days later I noticed I had 2 charges on my credit card from them. I called and spoke with the manger and told him they must have accidentally charged my card for someone elses tab, he said he would have to look into it and call me the next day because they were in the middle of karaoke. 2 days later after no call back, I called and spoke with the manager again. I was told that a different person signed on their bill with my credit card. Turns out it was of the friends I was with that night. He told me she did not have enough funds in her account. 69 cents is what he said and somehow the credit card machine “messed up” and charged my card after hers declined because they had just run mine right before. First of all, credit card machines do not do that, if it did businesses would get in trouble and the credit machine companies would likely get sued. Can you imagine how many people get declined for things and the machine just automatically charges the last person? (Like I’m some sort of idiot) No one came to the table to say her card was declined and how did they even know how much she had in her bank? Pretty sure machines don’t give balances, did they call the bank? Regardless of the stack of lies the manager tried to tell me, that night they just decided to charge my credit card without asking and have her sign it, KNOWING FULL WELL it wasn’t her card! The manager then told me he needed my friends number so he could have her pay. Not my problem I said, he needed to refund my money! I said I wasn’t sure I had her number because she was more of a friend of a friend. Then he asked me for my friends number so he could call her to get the other persons number to pay the bill. I again said, you need to refund my credit card! He said he couldn’t, which I also know is not true. (Maybe to late to cancel the charge but there’s a little button on the machine called REFUND) He said he would have to send me a check in the mail the next day. Well, that was 5 business days ago, I live in the next town over. Nice try! I just disputed the charge as fraud to my bank and will also be contacting the better business bureau. Watch out if you go to this place! They are extremely dishonest and do not know how to treat their customers, NOT ONCE did I hear as much as a I’m sorry. I hope they get fined or something once my bank investigates. They give honest small businesses who care about their customers a bad name and I will be telling everyone I know about...

Went to Vino Bella last night for 'date night'....service was good, wine was tasty, food was delicious, crowd/vibe was cool with a good band playing.

So why am I rating them with only one star?

When we got the bill we noticed that we'd been up-charged for two additional glasses of wine....and trying to get this resolved turned into a weird and uncomfortable situation....

The owner happened to be walking near our table so I got his attention and explained the discrepancy, he asked for us to wait a moment and came back with the bartender who was a bit aggressive with questioning the discrepancy (not sure why they didn't first talk to waitress since she was probably the one that added the two extra glasses of wine to the bill...)

After a lot of back-and-forth between the bartender and owner with raised voices to hear above the band, they FINALLY took the extra charges off the bill...

This situation really did not need to escalate into what it became, it could have easily and quickly been resolved with the owner and bartender (or waitress) apologizing and taking the extra charges off the bill....but this is not how things played out....I really don't understand why they had so much pushback towards us for a mistake that THEY made!! It doesn't make sense...

I've heard of establishments "accidentally on purpose" adding non-existent costs to patrons bills to make extra profit (in the hopes that the customer does not look closely at bill and question the discrepancy)....I certainly hope that Vino Bella is not one of those types of places, but I honestly do not know....

IF YOU HAPPEN TO GO TO VINO BELLA MAKE SURE TO LOOK CLOSELY AT...

ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE SERVICE. I have never felt the need to write a review in my entire life, but my experience at Vino Bella was that bad. I look young, so it wasn’t surprising that the lady behind the bar wanted to check my ID. She was pleasant and handed it back to me with no issues. It’s what happened after that really shocked me.

Seconds after getting my ID back a gentleman tapped me on the shoulder and demanded I show him my ID. He failed to introduce himself, so I had no way of knowing if he was a random person or someone that actually worked at the bar. I asked him why he needed my ID and he smugly replied that “I had to.” It wasn’t until further questioning him that I figured out he was the owner. He stared at my ID for a couple seconds and said he needed to check it in the back.

While he’s gone ANOTHER waitress (extremely rude) bumps into me and yells, “ Yeah no, you are definitely giving me your ID.” At this point I have been asked for my ID 3x in less than a minute and have to explain to her that I can’t give her my ID because the owner of the bar currently has it. She acts annoyed and storms off when the owner comes back. Meanwhile, half the bar is looking at me with the same, upper-middle class, judgemental ass face like I’m the one doing something wrong. Some lady even had the nerve to tell me to calm down, when I never once raised my voice and gave them my ID every single time.

I would have never step foot in this sad excuse for a wine bar if I hadn’t been invited by family, but the service I got made it clear that I’m never coming back.

TL;DR: Owner and staff are incredibly rude....