The Society Restaurant & Lounge — Restaurant in Maryland

On Friday, May 7, my friend invited us to join him at this lounge to celebrate his birthday. I had friends over for the weekend, because it just so happened to be my birthday weekend, in which I planned on celebrating on Saturday elsewhere. My friends and I arrived, we were about 7 individuals including myself. My friend who invited us to the bar, came outside to get us into his “VIP” where he already had a group of roughly 10 + individuals. We didn’t think anything of it, so we joined his group and started our nightmare. I do not drink, but a few of my friends ended up walking over to the bar to get themselves something to drink and brought it back to the table. About 15mins into the party, the music shuts off, and the manager and society staff ganged up on our table and started yelling at us telling us there can only be 12 people to a table, we need to purchase another table for $600 or leave the table. We were confused because they could’ve pulled the person responsible for the table aside, and explained to him the situation politely, but they decided that intimidating innocent people and yelling at their costumers was the better option. Finally, the group that we met at the table, and the birthday boy, decided to up and leave. Some left the club and others just went to different parts of the building. My group of friends thought “okay everything is settled! (So we thought). Less than 5mins, a waitress comes to our table and hands us a bill, a bill that the group before us racked, but she was demanding we pay. We refused to pay the bill because we weren’t the group responsible for that bill. The waitress got upset, and told staff to not let us out of the club unless we paid. I was furious because I couldn’t believe a waitress couldn’t identify the people who she actually served but was handing us a bill because we were sitting in the same spot the last group was at. She knew we had just arrived at the club about 20-30mins ago, but chose to make someone responsible and that someone was me and my friends. I called the birthday boy to come back and try to resolve his mess that we, as innocent bystanders, was getting blamed for. Once again, the music went off, and my friends and staff were having a screaming match over a bill that wasn’t ours. I even challenged management staff to go look at their security footage and see that we just got here a few moments ago, and that the group who they had yelled at to “leave” ran out on their tab. They threaten us by saying they’ll call the cops, but we knew we were innocent, so we told them to call them so they could review the videos and look stupid with the cops standing right next to them. My friend had mentioned to the manager that they should’ve had an open tab going to avoid situations like this, but the manager responded that they have an honesty system, but clearly when we’re being honest, we’re being labeled as being dishonest. Thankfully my friend still has her receipt for the drinks they purchased 15mins prior, and the birthday boy arrived to handle this unfortunate dispute. We left when he got there, because we were over the embarrassment and the rude and disorganized staff. I just moved to MD, so for that to be my first experience at a club was disappointing, and to have my friends who don’t even live in the state come and experience that, was also disappointing! I personally will never step foot into this establishment again! I hope they learned the importance of keeping an open tab, because innocent people shouldn’t have to be embarrassed by staff in front of everyone, not once, but twice! And the waitresses need to know their table and know who they served before handing someone else’s bill to complete strangers. The first group at the table has no masks on and could’ve been easily identified! As I even identified a few of them just watching the situation unfold from other areas of the establishment, and that was my first time even...

-We had a 12:30 pm reservation for a booth. -We arrived on time but were not seated for 45 min. -The hostess lacked customer service skills as she avoided eye contact and conversation with us when we inquired about our table. -We were given the run around to speak to management. We noticed the floor manager, Melissa, actively avoiding us as well. -Staff refused to tell other patrons that their 2 hour seating time limit had expired. -We did not receive a booth as promised but watched other parties with later reservation times be seated at booths. -We were finally able to speak with Brian Williams, who identified himself as a manager. He promised us bottomless mimosas in return for our inconvenience. -After being seated at an undesired table it took our waiter 15 more minutes to greet us. Yet he did not bring us silverware. One of the members of our party had to grab silverware from another table. -When the waiter finally did come to greet us there was a dispute about whether or not we were promised bottomless mimosas. -The floor manager Melissa then approached our table with an argumentative tone and expressed Society would not honor the bottomless mimosas promised to our entire table by the other manager Brian Williams. -We were given the runaround by the two managers, Melissa and Brian, who bounced our inquiries between the two of them only to be approached by Melissa, who expressed that as a manager she didn’t want to “get in the middle of it” and would send Brian back over to resolve the misunderstanding. -With disappointment in our experience thus far, we conceded to pay for the mimosas. It took 30 mins to receive mimosas we agreed to pay for. -In a final conversation with Brian, we expressed our disappointment with our experience and our reluctance to return. Brian arrogantly told us that fortunately business was great for them and they are booked up all the time. He sarcastically remarked that it was his pleasure to set the standard for black owned businesses. -Also, buffet...

I came to this restaurant to celebrate my uncle's birthday. Recovering from an recent surgery, I was on crutches. When I arrived, there was a gate outside with what I assumed was supposed to be "security". They said they needed to check my bag before going inside. I gave a sideeye because: 1. There was a bout 6 men outside in all black street clothes, some with masks (nothing saying they worked at the venue) and 2. there was not professionalism; they were just outside shooting the breeze ( I actually thought they were waiting to go inside, not actually working there). Anyway, I said ok and as I was taking off my bookbag purse, one of the men had came behind me and was opening my bag. I snatched it back and told him I would open it for him, he just needed to be patient because I was on crutches. He claimed he had to be the one to open my purse and I couldn't do it myself. Mean while the crew is gaslighting me, telling me I must be upset because I'm in pain and on crutches. I said again, I don't have a problem but they are not police and have no right to just start going through my bag, especially while I'm in the process of taking it off for them to look. That left a very bad taste in my mouth and I was pissed. Asked several of my aunts and they said noone checked their purses upon entry. I was heated. Needless to say everything else was nice. The food portions, drinks, wait/bar staff was very nice and our celebration was fun. As much as I would like to support this buisness, I can say they would be back because of how "security" operates. In my opinion, they need to actually act like they are there to do a job and also, they need to look the part(shirt with the restaurant name or something). They honestly look like any other dude off the street and I don't appreciate the one guy thinking he had the authority to just...