Main Event Atlanta — Restaurant in Vinings

If you’re hosting a large group, I wouldn’t recommend this place to you (or really anyone)! From the onset, the manager Gemma had the worst attitude ever for someone positioned in leadership. From the onset, she literally acted like it was a burden or chore to have to be bothered answering any questions we had about Main Event, the food & game packages, our event and to assist us in general for our event, which cost over $2000+. It was painful to have to reach out to her for anything but we grinned and bared it only because at that time, we planned a movie outing with our group at the theater upstairs and it just made sense to feed the folks downstairs at Main event and let them play games afterwards. There were no other comparable places in proximity to fit our tight schedule so against my better judgment (regarding her dispiriting attitude from the start), I swallowed my pride and went ahead and chose the place thinking it would all be ok once we got there. I was so wrong! Not only was the seating cramped up, we didn't even have enough seating for a party of 40 people. The server offered rock hard cold metal chairs to put with the tiny tables in the bowling lanes. However, the lanes were so narrow, additional seating wasn't possible to place at the tiny tables so many of us had to eat standing up or sit away from the group in the hard chairs since they couldn't fit at the tiny tables in the bowling lanes. The restaurant side of Main Event was pretty empty. Years ago when we had our large group there, we had a good experience. We had proper seating in the restaurant to accommodate our entire group, and the manager at that time was thoughtful enough to reserve our lanes as well. To add, the food was really good back then. I thought we’d have a similar experience. I thought this current manager would do the same seating arrangement, but considering her horrible attitude from the start, silly of me to think she would have the sense to do this. Instead, she situated us in a cramped area, with tiny tables in the bowling lanes and again, this was not enough seating or table space for us to even eat comfortably. Furthermore, I saw no fountain drinks pitchers (just tea, and lemonade) despite the fact i paid $3.99 per person for 40 people to have fountain drinks. What a rip off! Two of the bowling lanes were defunct because we had to keep getting someone to manually make the bowling pins reset 4x. Mind you, we had a short amount of time to be there so to have to keep wasting time trying to get a defunct lane to work was totally unacceptable. Also, many of the games did not work so that part of paying for the package was useless! For example, of the 5-6 air hockey tables they had, only one (yes, only 1) worked. And the two people playing it stayed on the table forever. Many patrons swiped cards only to have their credits taken but no game play. Most of us felt the food was sub-par. The rice was over cooked thus mushy. Groundbeef was dry with hardly any seasoning. The chicken breast dish with red sauce was tough to eat. Tortilla shells stale. No carry out plates to get the remaining food so all the bland food we paid for went to waste. At least I could've given it to our dogs to feel like we got our monies worth somehow. But I guess they threw all our food away or reconstituted it for someone or something else. I’d never ever bring my group back here again so they need not bother sending me emails asking me to return. Besides the nice server we had (she is the reason for the 1 star since i can’t do this review putting zero stars), it was just an awful experience to say the very the least! Please remove me from your event planner email list. As soon as my hectic schedule settles, I’ll be contacting the corporate office about this mess. P.S. tried to call and email corporate, but phone #, nor their emails work. I even used the “contact us” form per the reply below from them but to no avail. So this poor customer service maybe indicative of the overall corporate culture of this place. Main Event has certainly...

Worst bowling/arcade/laser tag place I've ever been to. I showed up for the all you can play 15.99 deal I saw floating around on a bunch of ads only to find out that this deal for Fridays past 9pm doesn't exist I ended up spending upwards of 70 for all you can play and the arcade (two separate charges). However, it was a Friday night, and I was looking for a fun time, so I brushed it off as whatever; at least I was in for a fun time! Nope.

My group of 4 decided to grab a bite to eat. We found a sign that said "a server will seat you". There was no one around for that; we had to just find a seat ourselves at a table next to another one that had yet to be cleaned off. (Spoilers, our neighboring table full of half eaten food, empty platters, and discarded to go boxes saw as much attention from staff as we were about to get all night.) Getting someone to at the very least get us drinks was a chore on its own. I hardly even knew people were working here. After waiting a full hour and a half from sitting down (30 minute wait to even find someone to take our order) we were served the blandest chicken and the most tasteless, generic french fries. The honey mustard had more character than that food. Oh yeah, don't forget about the exorbitant cost of food tagged onto the experience. Sure, the prices were pretty standard for a fun & games place like Main Event, but I would've been better off eating at a waffle house first. At least then, I'd be served my mediocre food in a quarter of the time we waited.

After this, we went to bowl. Here's how that went. Broken pin machines that inconsistently pick up the pins, bowling balls getting stuck behind the pins (at one point we saw 5 sitting back there), no staff being around at all to even help us get our machines fixed or our balls retrieved, and serves shooting us a dirty look just for asking for water (WHICH WE HAD TO WAIT 45 MINUTES TO EVEN GET). Thank god we didn't order food at the lanes; we would have never seen it. We dipped pretty quickly after frame 10, opting to just go enjoy some laser tag.

News flash: there may be no line at all, the game ahead of you may have just finished, there may be absolutely NO VISIBLE SIGNS SAYING SO, but you need to reserve a time to do laser tag at the front desk. My group didn't even bother with that due to the service we'd received all night up to that point. Best case scenario: the broken system would just delete whatever reservation we made because of some glitch after the front desk person made it visibly clear how much of a burden we were being just for existing. We said screw it. Let's just go to the arcade. Here's how that went.

-Half the time cards didn't work -Machine didn't work half the time No one is working the prize booth (SURPRISE, THE COTTON CANDY MACHINE IN THIS PLACE WAS MORE ATTENTIVE THAN ANY OF THE STAFF)

At the end of the night, my friend and I had hit the jackpot on one of the machines. However, it was close to closing, and the machine was still counting. We asked a worker if the points for winning were loaded on the card already or we had to wait for it to finish counting. He gave us an inaudible answer and just walked away like it wasn't his problem. The machine shut off before it finished counting our points. We asked a guy at the front desk if we would get the jackpot points we earned. He said "yes, come back next time to cash out." There will NOT be a next time.

The bathrooms were absolutely disgusting. It was very clear that no one was in charge of cleaning them. Scratch that, no one had EVER been in charge of cleaning them. That sticky sensation on the bottom of my shoes will forever haunt me.

There was one staff member who actively tried to help us get served. She was very sweet and could not do so directly because she was in training, but she definitely helped to get someone to at the very give us the time of day. I don't know who she was, but she was a true saint in that god forsaken place.

DO NOT GO TO THIS LOCATION. Your money is better spent at Dave and Buster's or Andretti 10...

The facility is pretty nice. There's a bunch to do, and they have a fun menu.

Too bad having a fun menu is meaningless if you never get your food, and having a lot to do doesn't matter if things don't function right.

We went there around 4:15 PM. We stood at the front counter while 5 or 6 employees were talking to each other, and after over 3 minutes, one of them finally acknowledged us. Said employee then proceeded to talk/mumble way too softly for such a loud environment. Despite it being before 5pm, he initially was telling us the price for bowling was the after 5pm price, luckily the computer automatically puts the right price in.

We get to our lane, and start bowling. After about 10 minutes, we wondered where our server was so we could order some food. We tried using the video intercom on the console for our lane. No one answered, but it told us they would call back shortly. After a few minutes my lady went to the front counter, and asked for a server. 10 minutes later, no one had arrived. She went back to the counter, and they told her they would send someone right over. ANOTHER 10 minutes later, yes 30 minutes (!) into our hour of time on the lane, and the server finally showed up.

We placed our order. 10 minutes later only one drink showed up. 10 minutes after that, the second drink showed up. During this wait, our lane also stopped working. The pin reset just stopped in place. There seemed to be no manual button for the pin reset (like most bowling alleys have). We tried using the video intercom again. After a few minutes, I went to the counter to get someone. At least that was taken care of by a nice young man who also said he added time to our lane to make up for what we lost. We finished our time on the lane, and even hung around for a little after, waiting for our food. At a whole HOUR after we had ordered our food (making it a whole hour and a half total we had been there), we decided to get our order canceled, as we had an appointment to get to. While we were at the counter talking to someone about getting it canceled, our server comes up to it with the tray of food, and said something along the lines of "I thought it might have taken too long". We had to leave, and still had the order canceled (although we had to pay for our drinks, and the process took another 10 minutes), we didn't have time to eat anymore, and had to head off hungry to our appointment.

We will NEVER be coming back here. We will be telling others to avoid this place.

If you are reading this, go to one of the many similar, but better places in the area. Round1 is right up the road, and it isn't too far to the nearest Dave and Busters, or even Andretti Indoor Karting and Games, among others. Save yourself the hassle and go to one of those far superior places instead.

"Main Event" is garbage. It isn't even good enough to be the opening act.

PS If you notice, there are a lot of 1 and 2 star reviews expressing some of the same or similar problems. Some of the higher star reviews even mention similar complaints. Main Event responds to every one of them apologizing and saying they want feedback to fix things. Considering the reviews cross years complaining about the same thing, they obviously aren't actually sorry and don't actually want to fix anything and are trying their best to make themselves look better with the absolute bare minimum effort. Don't believe them. Nothing will change. Do not come here....