Rafters Food & Spirits — Restaurant in Nashville

Never before have I attempted to dine at a restaurant ran by such hostile and unprofessional staff! We visited Rafters while staying at the attached hotel for a conference. We had many friends and acquaintances along with us, some of which were allowed dine and others who were not! When we attempted to enter the restaurant with a party of 7 we were advised to sit outside and wait for an undetermined amount of time, while smaller parties were seated immediately. This obviously is not out of the ordinary, but the attitude of the staff was and is the reason for this 1 star review. The woman on the door was clearly overwhelmed, obnoxious and rude to everyone. The bar area was clearly wide open with at least 15-20 seats open and so the question was asked if we could sit there and wait with a drink until a larger table opened up. You would think we had asked for a free lunch with the way this was refused! We were told the bar staff would be too busy to serve us! Due to the poor attitude and complete disregard our party received from the woman, we asked to speak with a manager and man labelling himself as the owner came forward… who’s response was ‘well, just leave’. This man could not have cared any less that his customers were upset by the attitudes of his staff! It’s one thing for a restaurant to be full and to turn customers away as a result, but this clearly was not the case. Rather, the case appeared to be a matter of rude and arrogant people who were clearly out of their depth and in the wrong line of business. Hospitality training goes a long way! We ultimately ended up driving 2 minutes up the road to Hard Truth, who were clearly extremely busy but sat us immediately and provided exceptionally good service and food for all of us! My advice would be to go...

I had an absolutely terrible experience with this restaurant and would strongly advise others to avoid it. I placed an order, they took my money and made the food(I was notified when the food was prepared), yet when I called to check on it, I was rudely told to contact a separate company instead of them, with no context given regarding my call. The staff(one woman) refused to take any responsibility and showed zero willingness to help. Instead, spoke to me like I was anything other than a customer. Unacceptable.

I called this company back 40 minutes prior to close, and that same infortunate voice answered my call. I told her I would simply come pick up my order that I placed2 hours prior to closing. I was again told to call door dash and when I asked why I would call them, she again simply dismissed, ignored, and treated like a nuisance.. I made it CRYSTAL CLEAR I was 5 minutes away and left to go get my food.When I arrived, I was no able to get into the restaurant and this was 10 minutes before closing. I took my business and money elsewhere.

They proceeded to ignore my calls for the rest of the night. I even reached out to management and upper management, and left a message for the owner with a formal complaint, yet I have received no response whatsoever. The complete lack of customer service, accountability, and basic respect from this establishment is shocking.

This is by far one of the worst experiences I’ve had with a restaurant, and I would never recommend it to anyone. If the owner sees this, I would appreciate a response because your employees are failing your business, if the rest are anything like the devil that I dealt with...

Depsite being understaffed on a Friday night AND being just across the road from a large concert...we were treated amazingly by the staff. We were told it would be a 45 minute wait, but it was more like 25 minutes. I overheard the hostess explain that they were short staffed in the kitchen, hence the wait....even to sit at the bar. Having worked in a restaurant, I can appreciate that heads-up, where other people were getting annoyed and became ANNOYING. One group of 4 were over the top. Asking her every few minutes, "Did you call us yet? Did you call our name?"

The hostess took it in stride and jokingly told them when she calls for them, they will definitely hear her. I loved it.

Once we were seated, our server was still tied up with another table, so the hostess asked us for drink orders and explained that our sever would be right over. And she was. She took our orders, offered some advice on the menu items, all without rushing us and overall is very great at what she does!

In closing, there is a great team at work there because despite the wait and how overwhelmed they were, our visit was awesome, and the food was AMAZING. Also, try the Portobello Fries,...