The Venue Raleigh — Restaurant in Raleigh

First, let me say that I wanted to have the best time when my friend proposed this place to celebrate my birthday. And of course, I want to start off with the good before I get into the bad. The atmosphere and the vibe is so much fun. There is great music and a lot of engagement. That being said as a veteran vegan, false advertising is something that CANNOT be tolerated. I am warning every VEGAN not to come here. They have absolutely no food for you! Even though the menu says vegan options available, there are none, and you will never get any food from this establishment. Now me and my friends, came for my birthday as my friend has already been here and knew that I would enjoy the environment. She even looked in advance at the menu where it says with stars vegan options available (obviously a PDF that was sent there and never updated). As I am from out of town, we were visiting, so we got up early to be at the front of the line. We already knew the wait was going to be long, so we arrived there over an hour earlier than the place opened. And waited in line patiently excited to go in. I even posted on my social media, ready to give a great review as a plant-based influencer. After waiting, we pay our $35 per person for what we believed to be a buffet style variety of options to eat. We get in there and are the first ones in the food line for me to be told there are NO vegan options. I proceeded to ask for a manager, for my waiter to let me know that he is the general manager… my waiter. He proceeds to tell me that they used to have vegan options, but because no one was eating them they just stop making them (without changing the Sunday Brunch menu). I asked to speak to the owner then to have this rectified. He lets me know that his resolution will be the only one, which was for me to get a full refund. As hungry and frustrated as I am, me, and my friends proceeded to come up with our own solution, since my friends have all paid, are able to eat, got drinks and everything. We ask if food can be DoorDash to me so that I can eat. He proceeds to ask if that’s possible and after another reminder, he lets me know that that is OK for me to order my own DoorDash. So now, I have to order my own food from another location. I now have to pay delivery fees and tips for that food as well as wait another 45 minutes for that food to be delivered to me. I was fully refunded my money as that was the same money that I would have to use to pay for the DoorDash, which was exactly $35. I am glad there is a place for people to have a fun Sunday brunch who are people who ONLY eat ONE way. The main request I have now is for you to take down the menu so that no other vegan person gets their hopes up to enjoy a great time and to be fed like any...

Let me start off by saying that this place definitely is a vibe but all the fantastic things I loved about this place was overshadowed by the negative things I experienced. First of all you need to be in line pretty early because it gets long fast. We stood outside for at least 1.5 hours in the heat waiting for it to open at 12:00pm which was closer to 12:30pm when I went. Admission was $35, front door staff was very pleasant. Once inside, we got lucky because we were seated in a nice brown booth area right near the stage. It was my birthday and I was excited we were finally in just to realize that we have to get in another extremely long line to get our food from the buffet. I also need to add that it was extremely hot inside, it was hard to feel the air conditioning. Once we were situated in our booth we decided to get up to get food because the line was getting longer and longer! We stood in line for well over an hour!! I was frustrated, hungry, thirsty, and annoyed at this point. I will note that there was a guy that was walking by with a large tray of fruit, folks in line could grab a piece of chunked fruit (it would be nice if it were small kabobs instead of just one piece of fruit and too be honest it could have been an actual sample of real food!!!) By the time we were near the buffet it was so hot I’d was nearly unbearable ( it’s not truly a buffet, options are very limited, they did not include fresh fruit, dessert, or bread) There was only 2 servers serving food for this entire venue!!! The guys were pleasant and gave a fair amount of food but water should have been included! I had to spend $2.50 on a bottled water and after standing in such a hot line for almost 2 hours! This place is nice overall but there is so much improvement that needs to take place. Pros: the food was flavorful, the host was fantastic and so full of life, she kept the show flowing nicely and she was so energetic! DJ was great too. Cons: stood in line for almost 3 hours total, it was so hot inside, the servers that were doing the food was so slow, and there probably needs to be about 6-8 staff serving food. I don’t understand why wait staff can’t just take your order and then bring us the food out!! It does not make sense that I had to stand in a hot line for what felt like almost 2 hours! They truly need to fix this, I will not be back because of it, also there was no real waitress’s, no one comes to give you napkins, ask if you want anything, that was annoying. Once FINALLY seated I did have a good time with my friends but standing in line for so long makes you feel drained!! I wanted to love this place but it fell flat. With some improvements this place...

Update to to updated response: As stated before no there are not any inaccuracies. If someone answered the phone and iOS took the call and stated that we could add more guest to our party then that’s a lack on your behalf. You were not present and nor was security. I am aware that this is a family business and you would like to take up for you hostess. Im the paying customer so there would be no need for me to fabricate a story. The thing is your establishment is a black business. No matter how you look at it. Again it’s hard to support black businesses when the paying customer is treated with such disrespect. And as stated before there was no altercation. We were greeted with disrespect. This is me detailing my experience. While I appreciate you responding a more appropriate approach would have been a conversation outside of this back and forth on a google review, but I completely understand.

Update to response: There are no inaccuracies in my review as my friend called and made the reservation and spoke with someone to increase the number. Also, there were several other reservations made by other customers with much larger parties. This is obviously a reoccurring issue being that there are other comments stating similar issues. We were greeted rudely from the time we stepped in the door. We were never disrespectful, aggressive or got out of hand. I’ve never been treated or disrespected by hostess as much as I have last night. I understand you would like to believe the best in your employees but the entire encounter was unprofessional and your security was not present for the conversation as he was outside at the time. I never got loud or disrespectful. The only mistake I made was not getting a manager involved from the beginning. The fact that no one wanted to speak with us initially from management when asked is poor customer service and highly unprofessional. Again, it is hard to support black businesses when customers are treated so poorly. My birthday turned out well thank you.

I tried to come here for my birthday and unfortunately was disrespected by the hostess and essentially my party was asked to leave. The hostess called us a liar several times because she stated we only had a party of 6 but yet we called earlier in the week to increase the number in our party to 10. We were greeted in a hostile manner from the time we walked through the door. It’s hard to support black business when treated so poorly by staff. This was very unfortunate and disappointing. I will not...