Lepley's Kitchen & Lounge — Restaurant in Tampa

I wasn't even going to say anything because I hate to bash a black owned business, but when I got details about what the rest of my party endured, I had to make sure to warn others to steer clear:

This past weekend was my little sisters 36th B day. We had a HUGE party there, probably about 25-30 people. The employees of this establishment disrespected us time after time after time all night, despite us being the main people in there. They would have had about 5 guests total that night if not for our party. instead we spent THOUSANDS of dollars and they made BANK. Aside from them just being completely unprepared for a party of our size, giving slow service, food that wasnt great, missing items, and other normal things someone would have every right to complain about, they really went above and beyond to do their jobs incorrectly or poorly.

The drinks on the menu had descriptions that included top shelf alcohol, however we WATCHED them pour our drinks with the cheaper stuff. And they still proceeded to charge the top shelf prices. Why should a Tito's vodka martini EVER cost $20?

We got 3 or 4 $65 Hookahs. They didnt change our coals at all. We didn't get to use even half of each hookah we purchased.

At some point I went up to the bar to ask if I could have more tips for the Hookah hoses. The person working there at first refused to come over to me and speak. She kept pointing behind me and she was way too far away for me to be able to hear what she was saying. Now mind you, she wasnt busy or doing anything at all. She was leaned up against a counter with her arms crossed doing nothing so it isnt as if she was too busy to help me. When I wouldnt leave she eventually came over and pointed at my waitress (the single, solitary waitress they had serving our entire party) and said, "Your waitress is right there," turned back around and went to lean on the counter again. Whole time there are tips literally BESIDE her. It would have taken less effort to just hand me a few.

The bartender made drinks in the same shaker without cleaning them in between. She'd made a mojito and then other drinks after it. EVERY drink tasted like mint. When members of our party went back up to the bar to let her know that their drinks didnt taste right because she hadnt cleaned the shaker, she remade the drinks in the same dirty shaker w/ out cleaning it. right in our faces. And didnt remove the original defective drinks from the bill. Keep in mind these drinks were $20 each.

We ordered several rounds of shots. Not a single shot was chilled, not all of the shots has limes, many of the shot glasses were near empty, and again we are getting well liquor when we asked for top shelf, but were still charged the top shelf prices.

My sister, of course, received gifts, cards, money, and flowers for her birthday. She accidentally left her gifts there but realized it on her way home that night and called them to let them know she'd be back for them. First thing the next morning my aunt swung by to pick everything up and they told her it was gone, they'd thrown it all away (Yall stole it!). They told my 50 something year old aunt that If she wanted to get it back she should feel free to jump in the dumpster and go get it herself. I wish I was exaggerating!

Its a shame because we were all planning on returning and becoming repeat customers DESPITE the awful service. We love to spend money (and a lot of it) with black owned businesses. We had people all over social media asking us where we were that night on our pictures and videos. We had to tell them all to skip it. The way staff was acting, its as if they dont want business. They absolutely couldnt stop us from having a BALL, because we're fun where ever we go. But the treatment we received was abysmal!

Dont go to this...

I never write a negative review about a minority owned business because y’all are my people, however, I must say something. I paid for a reservation for 25 people and told that the fee would be applied to my check - it wasn’t. It was almost impossible to reach them as I had emailed with no response, called endlessly with no answer. Therefore I eventually DMed their IG where I was given Xavier’s number. He was INCREDIBLE with responding so I was so excited to spend a BAG there. Upon arrival the tables were nowhere near large enough to fit us and they refused to accommodate. I arrived early and sat at the bar and ordered The Pynk. On the menu it states that Empress Gin is used for it however, I watched the bartender grab a completely different bottle. I’m pretty sure you can lose your liquor license for this. My party arrived to be squished and uncomfortable. I assumed that because I made a reservation 2wks prior they would at least have two servers for us. Shanté did everything in her power to accommodate however she is only one person. I watched as servers/bussers/ bartenders watched her struggle and pointed my very patient guests to her (instead of helping) as they watched her in the weeds all night as they smoked hookah and took shots. Of course, all food/bevs took a ridiculous amount of time to hit the table, but the DJ was good so we danced instead. The food/drinks are ridiculously overpriced and subpar. My party alone ordered about 2-3 hookahs at $65 a piece and not one time were the coals refilled. My party spent thousands of dollars. Unfortunately, when I left I forgot my flowers, cards and balloons in my seat as it is dark in there. About 15m after leaving, I immediately called with no response so I texted Xavier and completely understand why he left me on read as it was after midnight. I just wanted to be proactive. To my dismay my aunt was told that everything had been thrown away when she got there at opening the following day. I don’t believe it for a moment. I, too, was going to let that go and say nothing about it as it was my mistake.. until my 50 year old aunts were told that if they wanted it they could grab them out of the dumpster. The entire staff could use a retraining. Unfortunately Lepley’s just lost about 20 return customers. I did enjoy my night because that’s the type of person I am but I will never be back. They have ALL of the ingredients to be a successful business but the staff, mediocre food and price gouging will be the death of them. You all need to update your QR code menus and stop misleading people on the liquors used in your cocktails. You also need to consider a lost and found area somewhere in the shoebox sized establishment. I feel absolutely scammed but happy...

I really don’t like leaving bad reviews as a manager of a restaurant myself but I felt I had no choice. when me and my friends got there, they said it would be an hour wait to be seated. We said OK fine an hour had passed. We had a buzzer that did not go off so I walked from the car back and into the restaurant to see that there was plenty of seating and they had just forgot to even tell us anything and then said they can seat us after I said something. The place is nice, but the people in staff and management not so much. My girlfriends and I finally sat down we came for drinks, but we weren’t able to get those because we waited so long everybody looked like they were closing up shop. I ordered the pasta which was OK but you can taste the flour from them trying to make the sauce. One of my girlfriends ordered the KFC chicken, and they gave her 6 wings, but instead of the fried chicken and failed to let her know that they were out of the KFC chicken (or just didn’t want to make it), my other girlfriend ordered something with shrimp, but her shrimp was cold on the inside so both of them sent their food back or asked for accommodations which they said they had to see if they could do it. We asked to speak with the manager I saw them walk over to the manager and let her know that we would like to speak with her, she looked over and continued to talk. Another manager was sitting at the bar talking to her friends. We waited 20 minutes to speak with the manager after asking to speak with one 2 times she came over there, she had a little smirk on her face. Seeing that we were upset she wasn’t taking me serious about what I was saying until I said I’m a manager myself, and I would hate to leave a review because I know how that could affect the business after I said that she started to take me serious, but I feel like I should not have to go through that to be taken serious and I shouldn’t had to waited 20 minutes to speak with a manager that wasn’t busy she was just talking to her associates and wasting our time. she still offered no accommodations. I told her that I could taste the flower in the sauce and she said she apologized for that. She did not offer to discount it or anything so I paid for $32 for something that wasn’t even worth it. My friends did not eat at all, so we had to go somewhere else to find some food for them. This is really unacceptable. I love to support black owned business, but things like this really damper me from doing so. She offered for us to come back, but with the way we were treated, we would never come back they don’t pay attention to you. This place is not managed...