Rikenjaks Brewing Company — Restaurant in Lake Charles

This WAS one of our favorite places to eat and hang out with friends. I'm not sure what happened to the business, but clearly it has gone down hill. Took a friend who has been gone almost ten years here on Wednesday night for karaoke and I have to say I was very disappointed and embarrassed that I had recommended this place. Everything was terrible from the entertainment, drinks and employees attitudes. If the owners are wondering why they aren't making money on Wednesday nights here is a rundown of our experience: The bartender was not very nice, nor friendly. She must have forgot that it's your job to have a happy upbeat personality to make tips and keep your customers there. When you serve drinks at the bar, it is customary to put their drinks on the bar in front of them not left on the bar mat where they are made. By the time I realized that my drink was still sitting on the bar mat it was watered down and I had to ask a different employee if that was my drink. To which he replied "Oh, she does that all the time?"Who trained this girl?? Because they both need to be fired along with the manager. Entertainment needs to be fired! I'm sorry I thought hiring entertainment was to bring in customers, not run them off so you and your friends can hangout. First when we got there they were playing Bingo. Not my thing but we said what the heck, we'll play along til it's time for Karaoke. This was NOT kid friendly at all!! Because the person calling the numbers made it X-rated. The O 69 was appalling and drawn out way longer than it should have been. The moaning sounded like a sick cat and we were all embarrassed for the family that had children there. We also noticed that the only ones winning the prizes were people that knew the bingo caller. So we were in agreement that it was rigged. People don't want to come and participate when the same people are winning all the prizes. Next up Karaoke. There wasn't a lot of people there when we arrived, but no thanks to the x-rated bingo it had cleared out what little business that was left. I saw a few people looking through a binder type book that appeared to be the song choices so I went to the DJ table and asked for one or if I write down the song I wanted to sing. He tells me to give him a minute to finish setting up and he would take care of it. No problem there. But I hadn't been back to my seat two minutes and people are already singing. I was a little unnerved at it because he hadn't called for anybody to turn in song choices or explained how to go about it. But what tipped the scale and I was done... when you are the entertainment DJ hosting Karaoke it is customary to let the customers know you are about to start karaoke and if anyone has a song how to get in the lineup and to let ALL the customers go first!!! Then if there is a break and not enough people to sing you 1) Play music to line dance to 2) Play current hits 3) Let the customers know that that it's karaoke night and get their songs in the lineup to sing by doing ...? When I saw him singing I no longer wanted to sing. I had my fill of horrible entertainment and it's catering to their friends. No wonder there isn't anyone there! It's a shame that all that money spent adding on the patio area was a total waste. As a former bartender and manager, if that were my business I would do a total clean sweep and get rid of employees that were not happily doing their jobs and the managers for not doing anything to help the business make money and keep...

Bad experience and lack of caring by the manager. We had family from out of town and took them to sit outside at Rikenjaks to eat and listen to the music. Our party consisted of 6 adults and 2 kids (ages 7 & 5). That it was busy and took 20 minutes to just get drinks was ok but when over an hour later we started getting food it went bad. They first served 3 adults. About 5 minutes passed and they served 1 adult and the 2 kids. My wife and I watched our party eat as we waited another 15 minutes for our food. When they brought her fish tacos and my ribeye, my rikenjaks fries with beer cheese (that cost extra) were cold. Then my other side (which cost extra) came about 5 minutes later. Oh did I forget to mention that with a ribeye if you pick a house salad for one of your two sides you get, it cost $3 extra. If you pick onion rings $1 extra and if you pick Rikenjaks cheese fries it's $1.50 extra. So after paying extra for everything to get it late and cold was to much. Our little family night was a disaster. The waitress apologized numerous times and said we would get a small discount for all the trouble. We hadn't really fussed and were very polite about the whole ordeal. The manager however would not offer any discount and wasn't even adult enough to come apologize but hid at the bar. The little waitress waived the mandatory 18% percent added gratuity for a table of 8 but we told her no that's your tip and tipped her correctly anyway. It is just sad that management couldn't even apologize but this waitress bent over backwards trying to make sure we felt better about things. I didn't mention that we had eaten here already this week and twice last week also and our smallest check has been $60 plus. So we spent the almost $200 dollars and went home but will think twice before taking anyone else back to Rikenjaks where undoubtedly the management doesn't care about customers that not only eat there but were bringing new customers most of the...

I have tried to keep my negative experience private between me and the company. However, there is NO email address or contact info for Rikenjaks that I could easily find.

My son attends McNeese and I was visiting Lake Charles from Kennedale, Texas (right near Arlington, Texas) and a old High School friend was in town (from Houston Area) practicing for the Lake Charles Symphony Orchestra upcoming performance. It was around 9pm on Saturday Night 4/30/2022. We stood at the entrance for about 5-10 minutes to even be greeted by a host. We were then seated... Of course we were talking continously catching up with each other.. meanwhile, 30 minutes past.. no drinks, no food, no contact at all.. We attempted to flag someone down, asking if they could get the assigned person to visit our table.. no luck.. after about 45 minutes of sitting, we got up and visited the bar ourself and purchased a beer (the bar tender was rather friendly).. meanwhile, our table was taken by another couple.. so we relocated at another table.. still no contact at all... was there nearly a hour and a half, no service at all.. I understand the shape Lake Charles is in, I understand the lack of employees, and other economic struggles facing the United States AND Lake Charles in particular. However, if you can not handle running a business, why open at all? I ALWAYS give the business the benefit of the doubt, but I think this one no longer gets the benefit..The place was not overly busy, nor were they completely dead... but I would say nearly all business was outside.. I saw no tables inside in use.. I have attempted to make contact with Rikenjaks via Facebook messenger.. no response.. I wouldn't take my chances at visiting Rikenjaks, there are other people that want...