Topgolf Richmond — Restaurant in Lakeside

This review is copied and pasted from the customer feedback survey I left with Topgolf after they emailed asking about my experience (EDIT: note that they responded to THIS public review on Google, but they did NOT respond directly to me after I completed their own survey...interpret that as you will):

We arrived at 7 and were told there would be a 2 hr 45 minute to 3 hr wait. We got our bay right at the 2 hr 45 minutes mark--so, I guess that's good that your estimates are accurate, but we literally waited there at the bar for 2 hrs and 45 minutes. We went to the bar on the 3rd floor and it was very busy but also felt VERY understaffed. After sitting down, it took 15 to 20 minutes for a server to get to our table; after ordering, it took at least another 20 minutes, maybe even a half hour, to get our drinks and appetizers. In the whole time we were waiting--again, over 2 and a half hours--we had time to order ONE MORE ROUND of drinks before I got the alert that our bay was ready and that we had five minutes to get there. And so I had to go and sit at the bay for 15 minutes while waiting for the server to cash us out on our check ...WHICH WE HAD REQUESTED EVEN BEFORE I GOT THE ALERT THAT OUR BAY WAS READY. This is your survey so I'm sure you realize how busy you are on Saturday nights and that basically there's no way in hell that you can ask for your check, pay it, and get to your bay in 5 minutes.

At any rate, once I got to the bay, I had to wait for my party to arrive, but one of the Topgolf employees came after about 10 minutes and basically said I needed to go ahead and sign in, which I was waiting to do because I didn't want our time to start and be charged while waiting on the rest of my party, who was paying their checks. (I didn't realize till afterward that signing in doesn't start the time, but also, no one told me...I just felt rushed.) Once we started playing, for the first 45 minutes of our hour and half of play, several times the scoreboard DID NOT register our points. Fortunately we were not a terribly competitive group, but when we asked if there was a reason we weren't getting the points we thought we'd earned--like, if your ball clearly goes into, say, the yellow circle, but it bounced more than twice, does that not count?--the employee said, no, it's supposed to count, but sometimes the computer just doesn't read it and misses it. "You know--technology!" She said with a shrug and a little laugh. She was actually very nice, but that's like saying, "It's supposed to count, but you know--sometimes our whole business model just doesn't work because of, you know, technology!"

Food-wise, the pretzel bites were kind of gross, the chips and guac were decent, the drinks weren't consistent (at least for me: I had three Bulleitt old-fashioneds and the first was good, the second was way too sweet, and the third, which I ordered at the bay but came from the same third-floor bar, the ice was already melting and it felt watered down).

So, my overall impression is that Topgolf is a lot of waiting around and there are clearly not enough people working there to make it a good experience during the long wait. I understand it's still relatively new and super popular but that's all the more reason you have more than one bartender serving like fifty or sixty people.

That said, our server at the third-floor bar was nice but like all the servers was struggling to keep up; also, our server at bay 312 was nice. And I'm sure the bartender was doing his best (I think the bartender switched out while we were waiting for our bay), but again, it was crazy busy, but I don't think that's unusual given the crowds and the wait times I've heard from others who have been to this location (3 hrs on a Saturday night without a reservation sounds rather standard), and there were simply not enough people working there. Period.

Funny you sent this survey because I was thinking about writing a Google review and now I'm...

I've been several times but this time I brought both of my brothers who had a never been, so that we could celebrate all of our birthdays. We had a reservation days in advance, we were told our nasty and we went to start our time. We sat down and usually the waitress/waiter would normally be there within a few minutes and ask if we ever had been and setup our profiles if not (this didn't happen). I say up my brothers accounts and we just started to play. 30 minutes went by when I asked an employee who just so happened to be the manager of we could order food and drinks as we had not seen waiter/waitress. He told us that she would be with us shortly but took our order in her absence. We waited another 15 minutes before we got our drinks and finally saw our waitress. We continued to play, and when 27 minutes was left on the clock for game play.....our food finally arrived. It was barely warm but we were hungry and glad that it finally came. 12 minutes later the ball machine stopped working and that's when the 15 min warning came up if we needed more time. At that point we decided to leave when the manager came by and we informed him of the machine. He got a tech out to come clear it but our time was up. My brother said let's stay another hour so we continued since we were still eating our food and not spoil the day. We keep playing ball machine goes down again. We go find assistance, the manager and tech come back and started kicking the machine to get the door back in place. By that time, 15 min warning came again and we were alex would we like more time. I said can we be comped some time since we had to wait once again for maintenance. He gave us 15 min so that we could finish our game. My brother gets his first swing then tries for a second and what do you know, the machine is down again. We were competing well against one another as we have not played any sport competitively against each order in years. We were celebrating that we all were now in the 40s club and this completely ruined it. The manager once again was made aware. He said that he was taking off the Extra 15 minutes from our bill, where he told us initially that we could play those 15 minutes for our troubles. Then he said he was talking off another $50 for the game that we played but that didn't happen either. So for $300 plus tip (which I told my brother not to do but he did), we paid for terrible service and a terrible first experience for both of them. It was only 3 of us. The bay next to us had like 10 people and they were constantly being waited on. Couple bays down had a huge party and they got their food as soon as they set down. I don't know why we had this terrible service and experience but I hope that it does not happen again. This left a bad taste in my mouth and now I'm thinking of canceling my oldest son's birthday party next month....

I went to Topgolf on Saturday night with my family. This is my second time visiting this location. I waiting approximately 15 minutes to be seated at the bay, which was fine. While waiting we looked over the menu so we could order immediately once seated. After being seated at our bay the Topgolf worker stated she would bring kids golf clubs for my children. We waited for her to return because we couldn’t start our game until she came back with the clubs. I had to flag her down and she stated she forgot. Then when trying to place an order, we were informed that an order can’t be placed until you start your game. This was the biggest inconvenience because even after finishing our game our food had not arrived and we were told that if we did not start another game we would have to move to another area outside of the bay. They did bring our drinks (mine was wrong by the way, the waiter tried to give me a water and tell me it was lemonade) while waiting then my kids food came. After bringing the kids food, my family moved to an area close by to start eating while I continued to wait at the bay for my food to come. I was told I had to move although I hadn’t received me or my wife’s food. This was the biggest inconvenience because they could have easily seated another family and given our food away and there was no communication with the server to let her know where to bring my food. I waited here for another 20 minutes while my kids ate.The kids were almost done eating. They never brought our food out so I decided to confront the manager to inquire about my food. He then told me he’s going to check on it, 10 minutes later I’m still waiting and my kids are done eating. I then just decided to cancel me and my wife’s portion of the order. He then tried to offer me some 15% off tickets and I was really UPSET then because why would I come back to the poor service. So listen to me DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY PLEASE. If I could leave NO STARS as a review I would PERIOD. We left hungry and had to...