Fifth Avenue — Restaurant in Royal Oak

I dont think ive ever experienced such blatant homophobia in my life than I did spending 40 minutes at this restaurant.

After we were seated, we weren't sure if we had to go up to the bar to get our drinks, considering this is in the middle of arts, beats and eats festival. Protocols might be different and there were a few customers already.

We found out that a waitress would come over and take out orders. So me and my wife sat at our table and waited. We waited for almost 10 minutes before we tried to flag down a waitress so she could take our order. She would respond in a way that promised she would get around to us.

So we continued to wait.

My wife was trying to be kind enough to give this place an excuse abt 'maybe being understaffed' or 'they might just be too busy'.

But i started looking around and noticed that groups of ppl that showed up way later than we did. All had a table full of drinks- variations of half full and half empty... meaning they had those drinks long enough to reach the bottom of the glass.

At this point me and my partner are getting frustrated.

We had (what i assumed) to be the boss come around and tell us someone will be there shortly.

We continue to wait and while we wait, we watched multiple waitress pass our table multiple times and help every other person around us.

Other girls would show up and the boss would tell them to serve us, but one would make an excuse that she had to leave and the other would just not even listen.

Yes, we are in ear shot of all of this and are both watching as this poor guy almost pleads to these women to come to our table. When it finally looks like someone agrees. The man leaves and I watch as the girl who agreed to serve us walk to a different table.

My wife gets fed up, so we grab out things and go. The man comes up to us and convinces us to give them another chance. We tell him that we don't want to sit around for another 20 minutes.

He offers us a complimentary free drink for the trouble, so we decided to go back.

Again, we continue to wait until the boss man makes our drinks himself. He reassures us that someone will be coming for the rest of our order. We didn't even plan on ordering food but my wife wanted another kind of drink.

Again, we waited for someone to come around and finally take the other drink order my wife wanted.

By the time my partner got her drink, she just wanted to leave due to how uncomfortable everything felt.

When a waitress finally came to us so we could pay and leave. she had the audacity to ask who helped us during our 40 minutes of waiting for someone to even acknowledge us.

It honestly got to a point where I felt more embarrassed for the man who was literally begging the pathetic staff to serve us during the whole thing.

I would expect this kinda service in Florida, definitely not in Michigan.

If you got to this point of this review. TLDR- don't go to this place...

5th Avenue has a RACIAL QUOTA!

5th Avenue is listed as a sports bar, pub, pool hall. They do have an upstairs that resembles more of a club atmosphere. They also serve food until close most nights they're open. This review isn't covering any of those aspects of this establishment, this is to address the blatant racial singling out by the bouncers.

Unfortunately this was not one isolated incident. There is 3-4 bouncers at 5th ave running the door and one of them usually walks down the line to let people know if they are doing something that will prevent them from getting in e.g., being too drunk.

The first time we encountered a problem was a few months back and we were in a larger mixed group of people (white, black, girls and guys). We had 3 guys with us and they were all wearing v-neck shirts. One of the guys who is black (will refer to him as PATRON Y) was wearing a hat. The bouncer came up and said he wouldn't be let in wearing a hat so he took it off. We looked in the window of the bar and there was quite a few people wearing hats. Once we got in he put it back on and no one said anything else about it.

The second time we had a problem was last night while we (2 girls and 1 guy-PATRON Y) were in line the bouncer came by and said they wouldn't let PATRON Y in because he was wearing a hat. Once again plenty of people wearing hats inside but he said no problem and he took it off. Then the bouncer immediately follows that up with "they won't let you in because your wearing a V-neck".

I should mention there was a guy 5 people ahead of us in line drinking a pint of fireball. This gentleman was white (will refer to him as PATRON Z) and was wearing a black v-neck. The bouncer spoke to him moments before PATRON Y and said that he couldnt have the open container. He let him get out of line throw it out and get back in line with no mention of his shirt.

We decided to stay in line because they couldn't let in PATRON Z and not let in PATRON Y, Right? WRONG! Because the bouncers did exactly that and then tried to claim that they didn't. It was shocking to say the least. They proceeded to lift the rope and we got out of line. Infuriating! Hurtful! Embarrassing! Wrong! Infuriating!

I really hope the owner(s) of this business aren't instructing their staff to do such a disgusting thing. I would like to say I have no problem with dress codes and rules but it is unethical to only apply rules to a specific groups of people to keep them out. I'm fully aware discrimination exists and I'm glad I got to see it at 5th avenue because I will not be going back to this establishment. Discrimination doesn't just hurt the person your doing it to, it...

The nonprofit I volunteer at hosted our annual fundraiser here and I cannot describe how disappointed we were in their location and services. Despite signing a contract, Fifth Avenue changed their mind several times about how much we owed them for the venue since we were supposed to get it at a discounted price. They had only just decided a couple weeks before what our final price would be, despite having booked the venue months before. Five days before the event, they told us we were no longer allowed to sell or bring in baked goods, which was supposed to be part of our bake sale. We already had people who started baking and purchased supplies. This alone cost us about $400. We were promised the venue would be set up and ready to go when we got there in the morning, but absolutely nothing was prepared. Our planner was late and seemed to have just rolled out of bed, and stood in the corner watching us. The entire second floor was in complete disrepair. Tables and chairs had no order, the floor was so sticky you actually had to do a light jog across the floor to unstick your feet, and the bar was covered in dried alcohol that made everything stick to that as well. We asked them to clean up and were met with grumbles and groans, so we had our own volunteers go out to get Clorox wipes and cleaned the entire place ourselves. Theoretically there were large pieces of wood that were supposed to be placed over the pool tables so we could use them for our silent auction items, but when we asked where they were, our planner told us they were too heavy and packed behind other things, so they wouldn't be getting them out for us. Their alternative solution was to use mismatched tablecloths over the pool table, which did not look at all classy. The stage floor was covered in DJ equipment. They didn't move it until minutes before the event started, after having two hours notice to do so, and their solution was still to just push it back a bit. Continuing the theme of terrible service, the bartenders were refusing to give customers their change back and instead keeping it as a tip. People had to ask for their cards back several times before they actually had it back in their hands. Overall this was a terrible experience and we paid for it dearly. I would absolutely not recommend this...