Bamboula's — Restaurant in New Orleans

Please read if you have children / kids / young families. I read the reviews, looking forward to bringing my wife and 6 children (youngest is 5) in the late afternoon to have a meal and listen to the band. Website says families welcome, and one drink per person purchase required. We planned to have a few drinks and a couple of plates to share. We arrived at 545pm and the security man at the front said that we would need to buy drinks and few share plates of food. I asked if we could share, and he said yes and to find our own seats. We walked in. No tables of 8 available, so we went to the tall table section so we could see the band. The manager came up to us and said we could sit around the corner out the back on the low tables, but we couldn't see the stage. He said we couldn't sit on the high seats because of liability. Fair enough. So I went to a single lower table within view of the stage, and got my young kids to share seats so we could fit. Our young sheepish waiter then comes yo us and says that his manager said we must purchase a meal per child! Ok, so I asked - "is there a children's menu?" He replied that there wasn't. When I asked if we needed to purchase 6 adult meals, he replied "if you think it's enough!?" As we couldn't fathom eating that much, and in principle, we left. I don't think he was trying to be rude, but the joke didn't go down well in this context. I've only posted one other poor review, but I feel compelled to give feedback on the poor management. I totally understand that these places need to make $. But all I ask is that you have a consistent policy. The manager made it clear to us, by making up rules along the way, that he didn't want us taking a table. I would suggest just make a blanket rule no kids at particular times (like most of the other bars), or put your policy of "each child must order an ADULT meal" on your website and on the sign...

What a horrible experience we had in Bamboula's.

There was really no need for it.

We were walking by Frenchman street to check out the various clubs and decide where to stop, as you do when you are in that part of NOLA.

We were entering in Bamboula's and a very grumpy man at the entrance told up quite abruptly "you need to pay if you want to listen to music".

"Fair enough" we thought and didn't give it much weight as the message was in line with other clubs.

We got in, ordered 2 drinks, and had to pay cash, which is not ideal but ok.

1 of the drinks was watered down, which is extremely unusual in NOLA.

We then started watching the show. As we were squeezed in a corner, we saw a free stool. Awesome! We had been walking the whole day and decided to sit on it.

The grumpy man comes back and quite rudely tells me to hop down.

"Ok" I think "it must be his stool" so I move a few steps to allow him to sit & control the room and allow me to keep watching the show (that we had paid for at that point).

The man immediately comes to me again and tells me to move because that was a fire hazard. He almost shouted at me and called me "kid".

Now.. I am a pretty big man, I'm over 40 and I have my dignity.

With total calm I move and tell him "I'll do it but there is no need to calm me a kid, thanks".

The man lost his temper and aggressively told me to shut up and stop acting like that or he would have had my a** kicked out.

This was the only single bad interaction with a human being in NOLA. It left a very bad taste luckily washed away in the other days. I am surprised that place is not empty by now.

Maybe that's because the following day they had already changed the bouncer.

In addition, after the first song, music was...

I left a 5 star review for this place in 2019 but I’m updating it to 1 star as the way we were treated last night just felt slimy. There’s a one drink minimum per set rule. The four of us sat down as the new band was setting up and each ordered a drink. Halfway through the set our server came over and said “you guys can’t just keep sitting here and not ordering, there’s a one drink minimum per set.” And I replied that I knew, and that this is still the same set. And she said “my boss said you’ve been here since the previous set.” I told her, no we sat down when this band was setting up this is still the same set. Instead of vouching for us, as she was our only server the entire time she said “well this is what my boss said.” Either she’s dumb or the business is just trying to force customers to order more outside or their own policy. Either way they wanted us to order more or leave our seats. On top of feeling a bit scammed, when I went up to pay, they charged us $16 for a mocktail. A beer was $7, the daiquiris were $10, and the non alcoholic drink was $16. I asked if this is correct as there’s no alcohol and she pointed that there’s a note that says “virgin.” It just felt so slimy. LA and NYC doesn’t charge $16 for mocktails at high end places. This...