Kaya PDX — Restaurant in Portland

DO NOT plan on having your birthday or a big group of people here, not very accommodating and staff needs better training on their policies.

I planned my cousins birthday here two weeks prior to the actual date of February 1st at 9:30pm, she was super excited for the vibes and good music, plus she would be having people from out of town coming to celebrate her birthday.

I set a reservation for a table for a group of 10, knowingly we had more guests to show here and there due to it being her birthday. (17+ people)

I arrive at the door 9:48pm to check in and waited for a host, stated. name for reservation she proceeded to say "oh we gave your table away (to a group of 5 men she pointed to) there's only a 15minute grace period" we are asking her is there something you can do the birthday girl and rest of our group are on their way here from dinner, nothing in our conversation for reservations said anything about a grace period. She continued to say "oh well it's first come first serve whoever gets up from a table and we tried to call you" I DID NOT receive a call from any Kaya team, ONLY a confirmation text which I replied with confirming our reservation and is this establishment musical Chairs for even reservations ?

I went to the bar and asked nicely for a manager to speak to for any accommodations, especially for a large group for a BIRTHDAY celebration. One bartender stated nicely "okay it'll be a moment" we proceeded to wait around for another 15mins. until another nice bartender(blonde, forgot her name) came up to us and stated "did you guys need anything" I proceeds to tell her no still waiting on a manager to speak to (15mins later) as we are waiting a group of 5 girls come in and instantly get a table.....

The bar manager finally speaks to us from other side of the bar and I explain the situation about our reservation, he stated "we have a 45minute grace period for our table reservations and it's been an hour reservation was at 9:00pm" I said "excuse me my reservation is actually 9:30pm and your host said it was a 15 minute grace period?" I proceed to Show him email of confirmation and now there is no policy with tardiness. He says "oh I thought it was 9:00pm, next time we will need to put that in the email sorry nothing we can do about that" he was very rude and not accommodating at all for customers who are trying to spend money at this establishment for their birthday. Most appalling experience of customer service and birthday Girl was not happy of this manner of untrained staff.

So our group of 14 left and will never be back spending a dollar here again, we were accommodated nicely at another establishment just fine with...

This review is specifically about how my family was treated by the Bar Manager of Kaya. Summary of the long write up below is that the Bar Manager likes to gate-keep the code to shared restrooms in the building and chose to treat me (a brown person), and my family differently than a caucasian dad and his family. This felt like a power play by him rather than an actual need to gate-keep the restroom. This is abhorrent behavior in a neighborhood we have lived in for over a decade. I am very disappointed that the owners of the restaurant complex, who are also the owners of Kaya, would be accepting of this behavior.

Context: Kaya is part of a larger building which houses multiple restaurants. My wife and our two kids frequent the ramen restaurant next to Kaya and were there this evening, June 11, 2025. The ramen restaurant and Kaya have shared restrooms accessed by a code.

I popped into Kaya on the way to the restroom to ask the Bartender / Bar Managar for the code to the restroom. His immediate response was "Where did you come from?" I pointed to the ramen restaurant and told him I was eating there. His response "Go ask them for the code. They have a different code." When I went back to the ramen place they gave me the code and mentioned that it's not a unique code. I returned to Kaya on the way back to the restroom and the Bar Manager claimed that he did not give me the code because he didn't believe me that I came from the ramen restaurant.

My wife went in shortly after with our two kids and asked him for the code again to see if he would respond differently, and he refused to give her the code as well. While she was standing there, another dad (caucasian) and his kid walked up and asked for the code and the Bar Manager gave it to them right away. When my wife asked why he refused us the code but gave it to someone else right in front of her his response was something to the effect of "I can give the code to whoever I chose...

Even though I travel the world touring with "my" artists, this was my first time in Portland, Oregon. Our friends booked us a personal guide (Adam Thorn Smith, highly recommended! ) who showed us around and made Yelp even sent us a message on the day like "wow - you know how to explore all hot spots on one day". He made sure we saw the Alberta Arts district and so we came back the very same evening to check things out.

Even though the place was close to empty - a clear warning sign on a Friday night), the Kaya looked very special to us. The décor is undeniably swanky and gives off an upscale vibe -- the clientele at the time added to that impression as well. We each ordered a drink, but found them average at best. The four of us also shared almost all of their bar snacks - they call it "elevated bar food" and I could not find anything elevated. The olives were good, the fries and chicken wings OK and the charcuterie board disappointing.

I was think how do I possibly rate it - but as much as I liked the place in the first place, "good" would be too much. It was OK, and I mean OK in a positive sense. The ambiance was appealing, the service as nice as you would expect - so it is a cool spot which by design promised to be better than in actually was. A...