Dave & Buster's Tempe — Restaurant in Tempe

So, I bring my kid here to Rio Salado Parkway Dave & Buster's on 50% off Wednesday at 5:00 p.m. for dinner and gameplay and you are closed until 7:00 p.m. for a private event for Home Depot? Are you out of your minds?!? Not cool and you should know better. You deal with my kid!

REQUESTED FOLLOW-UP (per your reply):

What happened at Dave & Busters at the Tempe Marketplace tonight (Dec. 12, 2024) was corporate greed, pure and simple. Your location left the common family out in the cold to cater to a corporate party event.

Now I can understand Dave & Busters closing out for a few hours in the middle of the day for a corporate Christmas party from 12pm-4pm before school ends. You did so last Thursday. But to turn away a family with kids at 5pm and on a Wednesday…YOUR 50%, highly touted, always promoted, 50% off day? Unbelievable!

I’m certain that you packed the house with Home Depot employees and corporate players tonight, and good for your bottom line, but you did so at the cost of a kid and his parents who travelled needlessly for 20 minutes through rush hour traffic to have dinner and enjoy the games as a reward for being good and to use a free appetizer coupon that came into his parent’s phone app. 5pm on YOUR big promo Wednesday.

Your event planners are either greedy and uncaring or it’s amateur hour by them. Seriously. Pick another day and time for your closed event. All of your endlessly repeated promotions and offers are for naught when you turn away a disappointed autistic kid so that a group of grown ups can take over the entire location on your own biggest promo night of the week.

My wife is right, if you DO want to reserve the place at that hour and day, give Home Depot the entire upstairs, don’t reject families that came to your most highly touted, weekly event night. Your loyal, repeat customers know what Wednesday is!

Common sense should have prevented this or at the very least a halfway decent app developer. At least send an email or text your subscribers (which we are by phone app and email) informing us NOT to come on that date and time. You text us incessantly, maybe send a courteously text about the closure at that location if we highlight your location as our preferred location (and we have). Simple enough to do for an app developer using a relational database in the year 2024.

You requested more information. There you have it. Corporate greed or no consideration for your loyal patrons on your most touted day of the week during game time at dinner time led to a dour experience for a frequent patron...

I am extremely disappointed with my recent visit to Dave & Buster’s on 3/28/25. My family and I went to celebrate my sister's birthday, and the experience was far from enjoyable. I hadn't been to D&B in two years, and unfortunately, it has only gotten worse.

We arrived around 4:30 PM and immediately noticed that many of the machines were either broken or out of order. Some even took our chips without working properly. Despite this, we played games for about three hours before deciding to attend karaoke at 9 PM.

After playing games we waited from 8 to 9 PM for karaoke, expecting the event to be 21+ like before. However, we soon realized it was now open to all ages. When karaoke started, we were shocked by the number of unsupervised children running around, climbing on windows and ledges—especially concerning since this was on the rooftop. Their parents did nothing to intervene; instead, they sat drinking, smoking, and leaving their kids unattended while they went to the bar or restroom. At one point, we even saw a child who looked as young as 3 sitting at the bar.

Throughout the night, about 10 young children (ages 3-8) were constantly running, climbing, and disrupting the event. Three 10-12 year olds later joined them, nearly colliding with us multiple times. After an hour of this chaos, we notified management. A manager came up, briefly spoke to one parent and the older kids, and then left. As soon as he was gone, the kids resumed their reckless behavior.

In addition to the chaos on the rooftop, we noticed a surge of teenagers in the arcade, especially after 9 PM. Many were running around, taking over the machines, and being disruptive. It was clear there was little to no supervision. Dave & Buster’s really needs to reinforce its curfew for children and teens to ensure a safer and more enjoyable experience for all guests.

We stayed until 10:30 PM, but the situation never improved. We had planned to stay until 1 AM, but with everything going on, we felt too frustrated and uncomfortable—especially since we didn’t want to witness a child getting hurt or falling from the rooftop. Before leaving, we informed management again, and the same male manager returned upstairs. However, nothing changed, and the issue remained unresolved.

Overall, this experience completely ruined my sister’s birthday. We rarely get the chance to go out and enjoy ourselves, so it was incredibly disappointing. I do not feel like our concerns were resolved and I won’t be returning...

IF I COULD OF GAVE THIS PLACE ZERO STARS I WOULD HAVE!!! Evidently there is a time limit to be here. We spent a lot of money and kids still playing games while we enjoy the fight. The manager (assistant General manager) Sydney continually asked how much longer we will be. Still enjoying our time that slowly pushed us to 1 table from 3. At 7:30 she came to the table and said "in 15 mins we need this table." 20 minutes later while we are enjoying the fight and the kids are still playing. She again approached us and said " what are you guys doing? So what's going on? Are you guys waiting on more people to come back?" So I asked her "is there a time limit or something?" She said no. So I asked then why is she trying to make us leave. She said that she had several people waiting for tables. Mind you there are six tables around us empty. But according to the manager there is 50 people waiting in line and they want seats where they can see the fight. All while we are watching the fight also. While the kids are playing. I got up to go walk around and see the line she spoke of. There was no line. Not only was there no wait. There was also eight tables on the left side of the building and on our side of the building, that had several people sitting at the table with all their dirty dishes piled up hanging out watching the fight. There will never be a day that I return to this Dave & Buster's because of Sydney! We are paying customers too and we deserve to have our moment especially during the birthday party and spending money in this facility. Whether or not there was open seats there should have never been this approach towards customers. As we were gathering the kids to leave, Sydney was talking to another manager about the situation. Talking and pointing at our table....