Acapella — Restaurant in Oakland

I'm changing my review from one star to four, because the owner did respond to me; I contacted the Starline via the email address listed on their website. He went out of his way to make sure that all my concerns were addressed.

My original review is below, for reference.

First time there. There was a total of six of us there. Four people ordered the Funky Cold Medena, and did not like it. The bitters had taken over the drink. We sent all four of them back. The server later informed me that he was only able to take two of the four cocktails off of our tab, and did not explain any further. I asked him about it later on, after having to flag him down, and he stated that he was doing us a favor, that "cocktail bars don't take drinks off the tabs just because the customer doesn't like them". Uh, since when? I asked to see the manager. The manager never came to the table.

The rest of the evening, we had to wave down our waiter, who was busy dancing around in the foyer of the cocktail bar, in order to get another round of drinks and our tab.

I would rather spend my money elsewhere, than within walking distance of my house, and be treated with dignity, than as if the server is doing me a favor by gracing me with a drink designed by a mixologist and the implication that I am not sophisticated enough to enjoy it, but have to pay...

Wednesday night extremely rude disrespectful bartender disaster. Really expected better at least decent service like the positive experience the past night with the other bartender Crystal. She was great. But this one on Wednesday Bartender was drinking shots back to back drunk, sniffing drinks she was serving like she wanted that also, giving me an attitude when she broke a glass and shards were every where near my drink and I kindly asked her to make another. She thought that was unnecessary but it wasn’t cuz she was intoxicated and I was seeing all the debris all around the drink. She slammed all the cups around and mouthed off like I was inconveniencing her. This is after she took at least 12 minutes to acknowledge me to start my drink. I explained if I was making a drink for someone I wouldn’t do that like that. She huffed and puffed and was irate and angry. Then she was telling other patrons I was “ trippin “ when I was out front when she was explaining that she was cleaning area up with the glass. Not good at all. This type of behavior in a service setting or any is...

Original msg below. In response to computers crashing, We had already heard that it was last call a couple minutes before because of that. No one cared about drinks, people just wanted to keep dancing. The DJs computer hadn’t crashed, but they still shut off the music and made everyone leave.

Went to the “Sounds of Africa” party, everyone was dancing and having a great time. This party happens ONCE in a while. People wait for this party! It’s a rare safe place for the remaining Bay Area POCs to come dance together to our music. Without any explanation they shut it down at 1:15 but was supposed to end at 2. I had paid to get in after arriving from a gig at 12:15. Everyone was upset. The folks I saw the DJ/promoter arguing with looked like the same type of people that took over the bars in the mission. Don’t make Oakland like SF, let us keep the few Oaklandish Afro events representing our culture...