12 Stories — Restaurant in Washington

My friend and I went to 12 stories on a Saturday fairly early in the evening, about 7pm. {We have been here a couple times before but usually have to sit in long lines to get in due to its recent increased popularity}. This particular time, my friend and I went upstairs without any problems. There was a small table outside that was empty which we asked a hostess if seating was possible and she happily made this available for us. My male friend arrived about 20 min after we did and was stopped at the front door. He was told that there was a private event upstairs and that he wasn’t able to go in. Regardless of the fact that his friends were upstairs with a table. I heard about this and came down stairs. The downstairs hostess I guess didn’t believe that I had been sitting at the table and grilled me on which seat it was and then proceeded to tell me that I had been there since 5:00 so we would be wrapping up soon and he didn’t need to come up. I corrected her and told her that the hostess sat me at the table very recently. She then wanted me to go upstairs with her to show her where the table was and how we got it. (Mind you, my grown adult significant other is being held at the front door while other people are going upstairs) I arrive upstairs and tell the “hostess” from downstairs who helped me with the table. I’m not sure if there was a miscommunication or what but it was a very awkward and unprofessional situation. I asked for the manager because at this point I’m pretty sure there is no private event and my significant other was racially profiled at the door.

I told the manager what was going on and she offered to bring my friend up. We then sat back at the table and watched many new parties sit and tables with ZERO signs of any private events even in the works.

?!???!??!?

The staff easily flipped their script once I caught on to what just happened. My friend and I are white and Hispanic. We had no problems getting in. 20 min later my friend who is an African American male with tattoos came in by himself and was told that he couldn’t come in because there was a private event. Looking around there were multiple other people dressed very similarly to him that were already upstairs. He said that while he was waiting for us to go upstairs with the hostess, a group of African American women were told the same thing. While a party of 6 white people got right in without any comments.

I am a highly educated person who deals with customer service on a regular basis. I was sick to my stomach that this would happen to anyone. I felt awful for my friend who was put in such an embarrassing and awkward situation. I feel sick that an establishment...anywhere, but especially DC would have the nerve to do such a thing based purely on looks (dress code is another story..if that’s the case just say that?) . {Even funnier when you see that most of the staff is African American!!!}. We were not drunk. The sun was still out. Just wild.

Don’t waste your money here. While the view is phenomenal and our server was really sweet given the situation, no one deserves to be treated like that. Please let this white blonde woman call it like it is: racial profiling. Do better 12 Stories. I’ll go...

HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE experience! This place doesn't even deserve 1 star 😤. I came to 12 Stories for the first time last night (8. 2.19) and I am sad to say it will definitely be my last. I went out for girls night with my best friend and we were excited to go. She told me that it's upscale, pretty views and good food & drinks so I was sold into going. We get there, reserve a table, and go to the bar while we waited for our table. Incident #1:. Waited at the bar for over 10 minutes. Didn't get acknowledged or anything. There were two bartenders right in front of us and neither one of them asked can we help you? We had to tell them we wanted to order and then one of them said, " oh you have to go to the other sides of the bar because I am making drinks for table service only." So we're not mind readers and we had to call the young lady to come down to our end of the crowded bar to take our drink order. Then all of the sudden we had 3 bartenders moving with urgency to make our drinks once the manager came over and asked if we needed anything. Smh....there was nowhere to sit as we waited for our table. So we went to the balcony/deck side to talk and see the view. Incident #2:. As soon as we went outside a very very young looking man told us we couldn't stand out there unless we had a table. We explained we reserved a table with the hostess and we would check to see where we were on the list. So we go back to the hostess, explained what happened and she told us we could sit in VIP until our table was ready. Not even 10 minutes later, another hostess informs us to get up because another party was coming and that she would see what she could do about our table situation. So we headed back to the bar for another 5 min and the table was finally ready. We received the best table on the balcony and immediately our waitress took our orders. Within 5 minutes of her leaving our table, we had two drunk men trying to sit with us. Incident #3:. My best friend asked one of the drunk men to stop touching her and to leave our table and he refused to get up. She basically had to curse him out (make a scene) in order for someone to escort him out of the restaurant....smh. So where was the little boy at to tell them they had to have a table in order to stand around or sit down in the balcony area 🤔. 12 stories need to have one of the big intimidating looking bouncers from downstairs to work at the balcony because that little boy couldn't get the job done. Soon as the two drunk men left, 2 more men came by our table. Even when we went to the bathroom, people immediately sat at our table which caused the last and final incident. I couldn't enjoy my date, dinner, and drinks. I will stick to going to The W for now on. At least I will not have the unprofessional service and I...

My family and I went to 12 Stories last Wednesday to celebrate a birthday. We didn't know you had to have reservations but since it was a Wednesday, there weren't many people and they were able to take the four of us anyways. It was my first time there and I was immediately impressed with the venue and the view from the balcony. We sat down and ordered our drinks and food (two burgers, the fried chicken sandwich and pretzel bites). Our server was nice but it seemed like she was in a rush the whole time. She'd drop something off and then practically run away. The drinks came out and all of the cocktails tasted like there was barely any liquor in them, which is annoying given the price is $15-$18. I ended up ordering a shot on the rocks and a separate soda so I could mix it myself. The server came out and stated that the chef accidentally put bacon on both burgers and asked me if I was ok with that. I do not eat pork so I told her no, it was not ok and she went back to tell the chef. When our food came out, my cousin's fried chicken sandwich looked and tasted burned so she asked if she could get a new sandwich. When they came back with the second sandwich, my cousin happened to cut it in half, and thank goodness she did because the inside was still PINK. She sent the sandwich back and just asked them to take it off the bill entirely, which they did. The pretzel bites were brought to the table without the mustard mentioned on the menu. After we asked about it, they told us they were out (which would have been nice to know beforehand) but would double check just in case and they ended up having some.

Everything else went smoothly until the bill came. I am a math teacher so, logically, I am always stuck with splitting the bill and calculating how much tip + tax everyone owes. When I split it, I noticed things didn't add up and realized they charged the 20% gratuity on BOTH of the chicken sandwiches that were taken off our bill ($32 for both sandwiches) which means that also made our tax higher by a little bit too. We brought this up with the server and she went to the computer to double check and came back and said there's nothing she could do about it because that's how the computer calculates it. We asked if she could just take it off completely and we'd just tip the 20% based on what we actually spent and she agreed to that.

Overall, I enjoyed my burger and fries but I don't think I'd come back to this bar. Too many things went wrong for us to have spent...