Funny Bone Comedy Club — Restaurant in Tampa

Visited Tampa Improv for the 7pm Show on Saturday August 26th, 2023.

Ordered:

4 Champagne Splits for $80 Hillsborough Alcohol Tax 6% $4.80 18% Automatic Gratuity $14.40 Total $99.20

Gave $10 tip ON TOP of $99.20 to server to be "nice".

Grand total SHOULD have been: $109.20

Unfortunately, instead the bill was somehow $136.00???!!!

Was charged $26.80 for a "5th" bottle which was never ordered.

As for the "Service" the server provided, 3 out of 4 drinks ordered & I went to leave the table missing the show on 3 separate occasions.

Only 1 time was the server there to take a drink order & never came back again to ask if more drinks were desired.

Until the show was almost over to give the checkout, that's when the server returned. So 2 Trips total visiting the table to "serve".

It's also inappropriate from a guests perspective, to be touched on the back while engaged in watching the comedy act.

It is startling & did not ask to be touched on the back. This felt very unprofessional & strange. This happened only once as the check was being shown on a digital screen.

Simply using voice to communicate would be more than sufficient to & get a patrons attention.

Also, the server was on their cell phone surfing the Internet the majority of the show since table has a clear view of the server station.

No other staff was behaving this way, just this 1 particular staff member.

This was the worst server ever in my opinion.

I served myself the majority of the show, missing valuable parts of the comedy act. No real point to have a server if the patrons have to get 3 out of the 4 drinks ordered by getting up out of table to personally retrieve.

It makes no sense why this lazy server is employed if the most basic function is not occuring.

This server as well was very dishonest when questioned about the bill total being off.

Server did not offer a printed or digital receipt which was highly suspicious.

Only offering later to give a receipt printout after being asked then "altering " the receipt adding items never ordered.

This is not only stealing money from guests who order at this club, by making a fake checkout receipt adding items never ordered & pocketing the profit or stealing that item. ( whichever )

It is also that this server steals money from the business owner too. Due to not being a server & continuing to checking in with all patrons beginning to end of show.

Sitting on a chair surfing the Internet letting patrons get their own drinks & getting tipped is not a great way for the business to grow & owners should immediately fire this server for their appalling & unprofessional behavior.

Not checking in on tables more than once to take drink orders the entire show...??? Just no. How much $$$$ money has the owner lost from this alone? Check the cameras it's all on footage.

Finally, outside of the server being terrible...the rest of the staff was kind, welcoming, & courteous.

A manager was informed right then & there at end of comedy show about the server. Manager was informed to check inventory & surveillance cameras to investigate the server.

The comedy act was funny the facility was clean & would definitely return.

I did not ask for a refund from the manager just simply for this server to be investigated & all of these claims to be verified through such an investigation & evidence. That alone is sufficient enough justice for this terrible service experience.

Hopefully, this type of service staff will NEVER be hired to represent this Comedy Club again. Also, that no other patrons in the future will have to SUFFER through such a stressful uncomfortable, distracting, dishonest & unprofessional experience with such service staff.

Anyone reading this ask for your receipt before paying in cash. Lets protect each other from petty theft from servers whom prey on customers which are engaged in watching the comedy act & also may be inebriated.

Thank you for reading this! Have a fun & safe time at the...

This rating is only based on my experiences tonight. I have been coming to Improv for over a year now and have always had a wonderful 5 star experience...until tonight. I would love to rate tonight as negative stars, but alas I am limited to 1. The show was supposed to start at 10. We arrived early, per instructions and past experiences. For whatever reason, the show before us ran late which could have been excused if management had handled the situation appropriately. Instead, they had everyone stand outside in the rain for over an hour. We arrived at 9:45 and stood on the sidewalk until 11:00 with no apology or explanation other than an announcement at 10:00 that there would be a delay. No updates, no further explanation during the hour and 15 min we stood outside. We were not allowed in to go to the bathroom despite being paying customers. Show finally started at 11:30, again it was supposed to start at 10:00. I would have at least appreciated an announcement or apology from management at the start of the show as the tension in the room was high. However no apology was given and the DJ was just as hyped as always despite the clear animosity in the crowd. We ordered drinks, a beer and a mixed drink, two waters, and a basket of fries because we were starving. We had had plans to eat after the show, but with the delay we couldn’t wait any longer. We got our drinks in reasonable time, despite my mixed drink being watered down. I know the bartenders here do an amazing job and I have never been disappointed in a drink, so I am assuming the service was slow and my drink sat on ice on the counter for awhile before making it to my table. Our fries on the other hand took a full hour which is unacceptable. It was a simple basket of fries and tables with full meals were getting their food faster than us. When it came time to pay, I left a note on my receipt expressing my disappointment in the evening and that I thought that the club should have comped a round of drinks per table or expressed some sort of apology. My server, after reading my note, brought out 2 souvenir glasses as an apology for the service. This added insult to injury! I am a loyal, consistent customer. I have plenty of these glasses at home already! I don’t need another 2 as an apology. We were forced to leave before the show ended as we had to get home to the sitter. Since the night ran MUCH later than planned due to the fault of the club, we were not able to finish the show or go to dinner after like we had originally planned. I hope that a member of management had the sense to go up on stage after the performance and apologize to the crowd, but since we were unable to stay til the end, I have no clue. I hope that the club will remedy the situation and reach out to the customers of tonight’s show via email. They should offer some sort of monetary apology as I am sure we were not the only ones forced to leave early due to a sitter, or had to pay extra parking fees. This should come in the form of reimbursing a portion of the ticket price, a voucher for a free show (and not the ones the email out all the time, one that can actually be redeemed for a “special engagement”), or a voucher for a free round of drinks. I understand things happen and the show doesn’t always go as planned, however the level of unprofessionalism in handling a bad situation made the night unacceptable. If you have read this far, I apologize for the long post, I always want to make sure my reviews are always as honest as possible. I still plan on attending future shows at Improv as we have had many good experiences here. However, we will NEVER go to a second show again. We will, going forward, only get tickets for the first show of the night to avoid another situation like this. I suggest other customers...

TLDR: everything besides the actual comedy seems intended to make you miserable and/or angry.

The actual comedy was good, but we were repeatedly amazed at how little (if at all) Funny Bone cared about its customers. Neither of us are fancy or finicky, and this was just a disaster. We showed up at 9:00pm for a 9:45 show, doors were supposed to open at 8:45. The line was already down the street when we arrived (my first thought was - how will they fit so many people inside?) At 10:00 pm, they still had not started letting people in, no one came out to give any information/updates, and it was a sweaty mess on an August Florida night. At 10:10 they started the process of super inefficiently letting people inside. You come in, have your ticket checked twice, get assigned a table number via sticky note, then get back in line to have your phone placed in a locked pouch. For each step, there is only one person working, so it takes forever, which is not ideal after sweating on the side of a street for more than an hour.

Once inside the actual venue, you are packed in like sardines. Each table is 2’x2’ with four chairs that don’t nearly fit around the table. The tables are, at a maximum, 2 feet from each other. It was so tight that waitstaff could barely move through, and in the case of a few tables with larger humans, the staff couldn’t fit by at all (also, those folks looked particularly uncomfortable). If you have to go to the bathroom, getting there is like frogger trying to find open space to put your feet. Because of how tight it was, when the waitstaff had to get anywhere it would take them a while, meaning every 5 minutes someone was blocking the view of the stage for a longer-than-normal period. It was convenient that phones were not allowed, because if people saw photos of the scene they would never buy tickets.

Once the show ended and the crowd started moving towards the door we entered, a staff member just screamed “Open the Door!” and pointed at a side door. When the side exit was opened, some folks turned that way, others didn’t understand and kept moving towards the entry door while dodging tables and chairs. No one explained anything, such as, how and where do we get our phone pouches unlocked?

Outside, in a random spot in the public courtyard, one person stood with a machine that unsealed the phone pouches. It was a crush of 100+ people trying to get their phones unsealed at the same time - again, with no direction, no explanation, nothing. Just find the mass of people then try to cram to the front so the one person can individually unseal hundreds of pouches.

Overall, the venue seemed to have a disdain for the customers and had no interest in people being comfortable. They can get away with it because there are only two comedy venues in the area that get national acts, but we well definitely not be returning (unless they are handing out free tickets to Dave...