Bottle Cap — Restaurant in Nashville-Davidson

If you don't read any farther, this experience is summed up by, "We made a mistake. It sucks to be you." I strongly recommend that you avoid making plans with this restaurant.

It takes a lot to get me to write a negative review. If you look at my profile, you'll see that hasn't happened much. This particular restaurant blew that threshold out of the water as this ranks as one of the biggest service failures I have ever experienced.

As a bit of backstory, I own a service focused business, so I understand how challenging it can be to provide great service all of the time. In my view it isn't if you will make mistakes, it is what you do when you make them that distinguishes the best companies from the worst.

In this case I was traveling as part of a large party to spend the holiday weekend with long term family friends from multiple states. Because we were staying in Nashville over New Year's Eve, we selected our VRBO entirely around our plan for a kid-friendly New Year's Eve celebration.

Searching online, my wife found The Bottlecap was offering a family friendly DJ and food. That was perfect. We found a VRBO in walking distance, the kids and adults could dress up and dance, we could eat, the adults could drink, and we could have a great evening together.

With that in mind we called to make a reservation. The tables cost $$ to reserve. That was fine. "Do we pay over the phone, or can we pay when we get there?", we asked. "Pay when you get here is fine", they said.

There was even a follow up text from the restaurant the day before that confirmed the reservation and asked that we call as they had some questions. We called and re-confirmed that we could pay when we arrived. All good.

Fast forward. It is New Years Eve night. Our reservation is at 8pm. Our kids have spent the past couple hours getting snazzy in sequins and now look like a fashion show. They are super excited.

We make the short walk to the restaurant, arrive to a venue that is nearly empty. The DJ is setting up along one wall. The manager on duty walks over to tell us that because we didn't pay in advance they sold the tables they promised us. We can't stay as there are no tables left. She acknowledged they had made a mistake, but there was simply "nothing that could be done."

With an empty restaurant behind her, she couldn't make space, she couldn't offer to let us eat while we tried to recover our plan for the night, she could do nothing.

Despite the extreme disappointment we were feeling, my wife is a rock star when it comes to dealing with difficult situations gracefully. No voices were raised. No angry words were used. No names were called. She was persistent in trying to recover something from the situation, but the manager was unconcerned. Finally, we asked for the owner's contact information.

The manager initially refused to give us this information. Then she said it was available on their website (it isn't). Finally, she agreed to write it down. After providing the contact information she told us we had to leave. "I need you to get out."

The contact info she provided was false.

So to sum it up we made a reservation. We confirmed the reservation the day before. We showed up on time. They made a mistake. They acknowledged they made the mistake. They had no plan. They didn't text us ahead of time, but let us show up unaware. They lied about the contact info.

We had a party of dressed up and disappointed kids at 8:30pm on New Years Eve in a town we don't live in. It was too late to make alternative plans even if we knew what options existed.

They clearly didn't care about any of that. In fact, as far as I can tell, the only thing the manager cared about was that we were not recording the conversation. When asked why she didn't text us to let us know there was an issue she replied, "I'm too busy to text you."

Hopefully this will encourage you to find an alternative for your future plans. I suggest the 12 South Taproom. They helped us save what we could of...

Visited Bottle Cap for a girls brunch on a Saturday around 1030 AM. I was unsure of the parking situation but found limited spots in the back of the Restaurant. I am not sure if this is available to customers or not but its where I ended up.

There were 8 of us including myself, we were seated right away. At this time in the morning there was still ample seating with a very relaxed casual atmosphere. Since we were celebrating a birthday in our group, we ordered "Breakfast Shots". It felt like a very long time between the time we ordered the shots and when they arrived but there were 7 shots which probably took some time to make. The minute the waiter arrived with the shots a guest at the neighboring table threw her arm back and knocked the entire tray of shots out of the waiters hand all over two of our party. Absolutely not his fault but a huge inconvenience in and of itself. When he brought back the replacement shots, we placed our orders.

While we waited for our food, the restaurant started to fill. All the tables were full and there was a lot of hustle and bustle, but still a comfortable casual atmosphere. This is when what we thought was live music came in and set up. It was not live music but a DJ who played club music. It was so loud we could not even have a conversation with each other at our table. For a Saturday brunch, I expected easy country or folk, it was legit club mixes. Instead of the mimosa feel in the afternoon, it was like we were closing out the bar at 2 AM.

Now here we are watching all the other tables that came in after us get our food, our waiter was no where to be found. When he finally came over to apologize about the wait, we ask what was taking so long. We were told that they had run out of waffle mix for the Chicken and waffles, but that they were making some more. We ask if we could get our other food since we were all hungry and had waited over an hour already. Some of our food started to come out, delivered by a different waiter. Each of our items came with something missing. Pancakes with no syrup or butter. No silverware. And still no Chicken and Waffles. The waiter that wasn't ours helped up quite a bit. He told us that they were out of Chicken and Waffles and we might want to get with our server to choose something else. Our waiter still said that they were making more batter but by this time we were frustrated and hungry and ask to cancel the order.

The food that we did get was just average bar food. The Wake and Steak was just Steak Ums with an Egg and peppers. It was greasy and just texturally weird. Pancakes were fine but nothing special. The French Fries were good, fresh cut but the toppings on the cheese fries again was just basic bar fare with little flavor.

Overall, great club vibe but at 1030/11 AM on a Saturday with Mimosas, it just didn't work. Food was nothing to write home about and the service was lacking. I did appreciate the other waiter who helped us and that our server did offer us a discount on our meals. Wouldn't be back for Brunch but would try it again for a...

The absolute worst restaurant experience of my life.

Imagine showing up to a restaurant on New Year’s Eve with a party of 12 including 6 children where you have confirmed reservations and when you arrive, you are turned away at the door and the only thing that you are told by the manager is that they are sorry and they made a mistake there are no tables for you……. The manager made no offer to try to accommodate our party and said it was their mistake when they took the reservation they were already booked up. As you can imagine we were shocked to find that our reservations with voicemail confirmations were not going to be honored, and when we asked to speak to the owner, we were told we need to leave. To add insult to injury we asked for contact information for the owner and we were provided a bogus email address……

The Reservations: The reservations were made a day in advance and we received a voice mail message back from the hostess later that day confirming our reservation for two tables to accommodate 12 people including children. When the manager Sam was provided all of the details for the reservation, she said that the hostess that took our reservation was not on duty and the hostess had made a mistake. Apparently Sam was aware of our reservations but did not have tables for us nor was she able to accommodate our group.

The Manager: Sam presented herself as the manager, yet it was clear she had no management experience. She repeated to us multiple times that they had made a mistake, and that when our reservation was made, there were no tables available . With this in mind, she still offered no alternative solutions or accommodations. Keep in mind the reservation was for 8 o’clock and includes children so our intent was to only stay for a few hours and have dinner. When we pressed her for some accommodation or a chance to speak to the owner, she immediately said she wanted us to leave. The interaction did not improve. Once we asked for contact information for the owner she reluctantly agreed to provide the contact information for the owner which turned out to be a bogus email address…….adding insult to injury.

Business Owner's Prospective: Since we were provided bogus information to contact the owner directly, I felt necessary to post this review on Google to warn others about this experience. The party of 12 includes four small business owners each of which is in the service industry. After a long discussion, each of us has agreed that if one of our employees had such a poor interaction with a client, they would be terminated immediately. There is no place for callous disregard in the service industry no matter what the circumstances there’s always a compromise or alternative solution. But in this case, no attempt was made to come up with an alternative plan, or even an attempt to help us find another place to go.

I hope that this review gives you a better perspective into the management of...