The Rabbit Hole Astoria — Restaurant in New York

If I could rate this place zero stars I would. I would never trust them for any event. We found this place on their Instagram page through a promotion they were doing for the Love Island Finale where it said to register to reserve our space for their watch party. NOWHERE in this registration link on their own website was it mentioned that this was for general STANDING admission only and that we would not be getting any seating. Nor did it make any mention to reserve through Open Table if we wanted to reserve a table specifically. So imagine our surprise when we get there and they tell us that we don’t have a table registration and that the registration we booked through their OWN website was just for general admission and we wouldn’t be getting any seating for the whole 2 HOUR Love Island Finale episode if not longer considering we arrived 2 hours before the start time. They kept saying we needed to have registered on open table for a table registration where nowhere on their website nor the follow up emails they sent was this ever mentioned. Eventually they gave us seating and apologized for the inconvenience of the registration system but then 20 min before the show started they told us we had to move and stand because that seating was reserved for a private party. By this time my family felt so uncomfortable even staying there because the hosts where all giving us uncomfortable stares and it really completely ruined the vibe for us. The owner, Matthew, came and apologized to us and offered to pay for our food but after completely ruining this whole experience for us and making us feel like we were the problem for their poor management skills, paying for drinks and food hardly made up for anything. We were going to leave and just watch at home, but the owner said he had a restaurant friend a few stores away that could give us a private room to watch the love island finale and he would cover our food and drinks. This was about 10 min before the start time so we agreed which was an even worse mistake because the owner of that restaurant was so condescending and arrogant, tried to make us pay for the drinks that Matthew had promised to cover, and muted the show right when they were doing the winner reveal. We could clearly tell he didn’t want us there and it just made the night even worse. My whole family was incredibly disappointed. We really should have just left and taken our losses because my family felt traumatized after that whole experience. I will never be returning to this establishment ever again. I should mention the owner did offer to allow us to rent out their place to us for free if we want to host any future events, but after experiencing their incredibly poor management skills I don’t want them anywhere near any event I would host in the future and neither should you. Mind you I have various connections in the restaurant industry and I myself have hosted various national and local large scale events and while I understand mistakes happen never have we experienced any establishment that has made an error this large with their false advertising nor made us feel completely attacked. The owner made it a big deal that he was the owner of various bars and restaurants (All the Blend restaurants) and this bar alone has hosted multiple watch parties leading up to this love island finale and yet somehow they never learned how to manage an event of this size and this was all a one time error? While their instagram page is out here showing they have these types of events frequently. I don’t believe them one bit and seems like they are out here scamming people continuously, we were just the unlucky ones this time. I will not be trusting them nor any Blend restaurant with any of my future events and neither should you. You can bet I will be telling all my connections to avoid this bar and these restaurants like the plague as they’re run by this horrible management. I added a screenshot of the event listing and the limited info we got after registering so you can avoid being scammed...

TERRIBLE CUSTOMER SERVICE by bartender Justyna (that’s the name that was on the receipt) Came to this location to watch the boxing match as a group of 4. 2 males and 2 females. We reserved a table online for $300 which included $220 as credit for food and beverages. We got to the location and were taken upstairs and were given menus which included specialty cocktails. My friend and I asked for one of the specialty cocktails and we were told that we can only get those at the bar downstairs and that she can only make classic cocktails for us upstairs. (Why even give us the menu with that in the first place?) we went along with it and just ordered 2 cosmos. After a little while, my friend and I wanted another round of cosmos and the bartender rudely told us that this table is reserved mainly for bottle service and that she “didn’t have time” to make us drinks. The online booking did not specify bottle service at all, only a reserved table with credit for food and drinks (which is what we wanted anyway, we did not want bottle service) Meanwhile the same bartender was tending to another group that reserved a table right next to us and was drinking with them while on the job and was making everyone else at the bar drinks but told us she couldn’t make drinks for us. As we were about to leave, she gave us a bill for $296 and I asked her to clarify that because there was no way we spent an extra $296 on top of the $220 credit we were supposed to have. I kept telling her we have the $220 credit and she gave me attitude saying “do I need to repeat myself 3x?” A member from my party had to pull up the reservation confirmation and had to explain it to this rude lady that we already prepaid for the service and she went to go talk to the manager (thank god he was there) and manager confirmed that we prepaid and that she should not be charging us. She came back to us apologizing claiming that “nobody told her that the table was prepaid”. She ignored us for majority of the night, was extremely rude and disgusting to myself and my friends, and told us she had no time to make us drinks meanwhile she was making drinks for everyone else at the bar? A bartender has no time to make drinks… that’s the first time I have ever heard of that. She was too busy having drinks with the group of people sitting next to us (while working) hence why she didn’t have the time. Even though we paid $300 for a table we ended up hanging out at the downstairs bar after the boxing match was over because we did not want to be near her or interact with her any longer. Terrible terrible customer service by this so called bartender. Rude, nasty, and with an attitude. No way to treat customers who already prepaid for a service. I would come back to this place, but only if she is not the bartender assigned. Thankful for management who handled the situation without causing...

Don't come here unless you're a known regular that gets treated good and better. I came here tonight with my girlfriend and her friend, and immediately, we didn't get any complimentary popcorn for our table when basically every other table did (we could have asked them to bring it out, but by the time we noticed, the time had already passed since we had our food and drinks already). We were also basically neglected most of the night.

When it did came time to pay our bill, they added an 18% gratuity without informing us of that prior and saw it when I eventually received the printed itemized receipt (we only had a table of 3 and typically, automatic gratuity comes into play when you have a large party, 3 people doesn't/shouldn't count as that). This was very shady and sleazy behavior. It's almost like they knew the service was bad, and were hustling for extra tip money. Had I known ahead of time, I wouldn't have added a tip of 7% when they brought out the scanner to pay. A very deceptive business practice.

Edit - it seems from other reviews and from what the owner says - is that the 18% gratuity is standard practice for them even if you're a party of 1 and regardless of what you order. In my view, this is pretty ridiculous as I've never seen this anywhere else, but even if I can accept that this is their policy, it needs to be better and more advertised throughout the place and on their menu aside from just a small snippet inside the bar on one of the walls. This is still deceptive to me.

I likely don't plan to dispute it with my bank, as I have better things to do with my time and it was only 7% (7 extra dollars), but it's the principal of the matter. Shame, because the atmosphere and other customers were nice and the food was okay enough (we had the bad bunnies chicken nuggets, which was on the dry side), but the service was awful and not good whatsoever.

Rarely do I leave reviews (let alone bad ones), but I definitely don't plan to come...