Main Event Suwanee — Restaurant in Suwanee

Disappointed with Our Visit – Needs Major Improvement

My family and I (a group of 10) recently visited Main Event, and unfortunately, we did not have the best experience. Despite the venue being relatively empty (maybe 50 people total), the service and organization were lacking throughout our entire visit.

We purchased the “All You Can Play” package and started with bowling. Right away, there was an issue with the bumpers. Only three of us needed bumpers, but the system activated them for everyone—and staff couldn’t seem to correct it. It was frustrating, but we tried to move past it.

Service was another major issue. We didn’t have a server come by until about our fourth round of bowling, and that was only after we went to the front desk to request help. Even when we used the lane call button multiple times, no one responded. One of our family members had to walk to the front desk—where several staff were just standing around on their phones—just to get someone to come help.

When bowling time was up, our server had vanished, so we had to go back to the front desk again to find someone to help us close out our bill. We were told to go to the bar instead. There were only two people sitting at the bar, yet we waited over 10 minutes and no one helped us, so we gave up and waited for the server to find us.

We then moved on to laser tag. The staff member there was completely unengaged. We stood there waiting while he ignored us. When we finally asked how to play, he just told us to wait for the previous group (two people) to finish putting away their gear. He gave us no instructions other than to watch a video. We weren’t even told there were teams until halfway through the game, which would’ve been nice to know up front. He acted as if every question we asked was a burden.

Finally, when we wanted to try the gravity ropes, we asked the staff in the gift shop how to get started. Again, they were just standing around on their phones. We were told we had to get on a waitlist—even though the ropes course was completely empty. We waited 15 minutes anyway.

At this point, one of our family members (who is a regional manager for a large company) asked to speak with a manager due to how poor the experience had been so far. The manager did apologize, but also tried to claim they were “busy,” which was clearly not the case.

We were visiting from Florida, where our local Main Event is much busier, yet it runs far more efficiently with better customer service. My sister, who lives locally in Georgia, mentioned this is her fourth time at this location—and that every visit has been just...

Overall: Okay experience and good service, but felt a bit baited and switched on the price with hidden fees and things not working. The bad first: Price: When initially booking on the website it seemed like the price was going to be under $300, but once all was said and done it was like $450. About $35 of that was an optional add on that I knowingly added, but the rest was hidden/unexpected costs. The biggest one, there is a 40-something dollar “service charge” that showed up on paperwork at the last minute - I assumed at first that that was an included gratuity for the party host, but the receipt still had a tip line and it wasn’t clear if the service charge was also part of the gratuity or what - so adding a tip was another unexpected hidden cost. Experience: I booked the VR experience because that was the only one that included a “fun card” that was time limited instead of limited to $10, and I wanted the kids to be able to spend the whole party playing the arcade games, and that’s kind of the whole point, right? Anyway, presumably the two VR experiences per kid were a big part of what I was paying for, but the VR did not work as all of the helmets were too big to fit any of the kids. Honestly in hindsight I should have asked for a discount for that as none of the kids got to actually play VR. Communication: The website was confusing when booking (all the better for tacking on extra costs), and I couldn’t get anyone to answer the phone when I tried calling on the weekend with questions about what I needed to bring (they did answer the phone when I called earlier on a weekday, though.) The way they set up the party was also kind of weird and confusing - they had set aside 45 minutes at the start of the party for VR and were counting it as a “five hour experience” with the arcade games starting two hours into the party - we opted to just give the kids their arcade cards as soon as they got there because who stays at a kids arcade birthday party for five hours? Now for the good: The service was good, with the host greeting us as soon as we came in and keeping things moving along smoothly (minus the VR thing which was not their fault) for the whole two or so hours we were there. They had a nice big table for the kids with a centerpiece with balloons. The laser tag was fun. The arcade games were fun. Unlimited fountain drinks for both the kids and adults were included. Plates and etc....

My daughter and I visited on April 14th. The first impression was good. The arcade area looked exciting and full of games with many newer games. However, as soon as we went to buy the credits, only 2 of the machines worked out of 6 (?). She spent 85.00 and we went looking forward to playing games and having a good mother -daughter day. The first game was a Sponge Bob game. You shoot the token down and try to get it through a hole. Took the credits but never released a token. Went to the Wizard of OZ. Put credit after credit in only to find out the it, also, didn't release a token. Tried 3 other Oz machines and none worked. We found some non-reward games and played those. Our favorites are always the skeet ball, ping pong into the cup games, basketball and knocking the clowns down. All of these were lined up and almost none of the worked. Either no balls were released or no reward given, all still taking the credits. At this point we asked for our money back. The manager was very nice and explained that she could only replace the credits and said the machines were being fixed. I reluctantly took the new card and waited to try again. Nothing was fixed and the unbelievable part was there was not ONE out of order sign on any game when clearly at least 1/2 didn't work. I watched kids go from game to game swiping their cards and nothing worked so they just walked away. The new card we were given barely worked. It would not read it half the time and had to swipe it 10 or more times. The experience was frustrating and exhausting. We finally gave up. The gentlemen in the reward room was kind and gave us some credits when we returned the cards. We gave up and decided to eat really quick as we had an hour drive home. I ordered the spinich artichoke dip and after 25 mins was told that they were out. Our waitress was kind. We then ordered the bread sticks thinkng that would be fast. Later they brought out the spinich dip. She still brought out the bread sticks and we took them to go. She didn't charge us for the spinich dip which was nice. But a quick appetizer ended up taking an hour to complete. I can not recommend this event and i hate that because my family love to find new arcades and events to...