City Food Hall - Grandview — Restaurant in West Palm Beach

Our Wedding Reception Was a Deep Disappointment – READ BEFORE BOOKING A PRIVATE EVENT

We hosted our wedding reception after five months of planning in the Livingroom and Tearoom at City Food Hall – Grandview, based on clear promises from multiple members of their team — and from their own website — that the space was private ( see attached photos from their website). That was a non-negotiable condition for us. We would have NEVER had our reception there had we known it was not private and open to the public.

We were told Gypsy Life Surf Shop would use their alternate entrance on the main street for the two hours they were open during our event and that only ADA guests would pass through our space which we understood and were ok with. We never had any contact with the shop — all coordination was through City Food Hall . On the day of our reception as our guests are coming in there was a group of 7-9 non party guests that walked right through our reception. When we asked the coordinator what is happening it was relayed to us that Gypsy Life Surf Shop refused to use their other entrance as we were told they would and that anyone wanting to go to the shop was to be allowed. A sign was written by Gypsy Life that said: “ We are open during event, please come thru” Unfortunately this intrusion into our "private" event continued with multiple other non invited individuals coming thru our very intimate party for several hours. Beside the annoyance this was also a liability as our family had personal items like purses, gifts/cards to us, personal photos etc laying around easily taken by these intruding customers.

Other issues included:

Guests (my husbands family) were denied use of drink gift cards we had preloaded, forcing them to pay out-of-pocket. Clare Avenue: said they weren’t aware of our event and were extremely slow due to understaffing. -Cesart: ran out of lobster rolls after just two orders and tried to charge my husbands uncle $39 when it was clearly listed at $27 The sushi bar stopped taking orders altogether saying they were too busy despite having double the staff. The AirPlay system froze constantly during our slideshow rendering it useless Guests were served ice from drink coolers rather than clean bar ice, not by our assigned bartender. It was something I witnessed myself, my own drink was from the drink cooler bucket. One of our guests was a Palm Beach County Food Health Safety Inspector.....I don't image he was very happy with this. A floral arrangement was placed in a visible Ace Hardware bucket with the logo facing outward, in a prominent area — unprofessional and distracting. my husband and I had to personally intervene multiple times just to keep the event on track. The stress of managing these problems during our own wedding reception is unforgettable — and unacceptable.

We want to note that Sam, our coordinator, was wonderful and truly did her best. She was as frustrated as we were, but this was far beyond what she could reasonably manage. We even saw her in a corner looking completely defeated by all the mishaps and issues that we had spent so many hours planning for to not occur.

It is a shame we have to rate this place a 1 star, it really is great food for the most part. This venue failed to deliver what was promised unfortunately with our very private and long planned event. If privacy at your event matters to you, we recommend looking elsewhere. We were informed that there will never be a truly Private Event because of Property Management and the Gypsy Life Surf Shop Agreement about using the door attached to the Living Room as their Primary Door. The surf shop even mentioned that they were only using the doors they were to manage theft, what is of concern is that if their theft rate is so high they would knowingly send those customers thru our private space where further theft could occur and with no notice to use despite months...

I love food halls! I love that there are so many options and there's plenty of seating. I've been to a few of these - Charlotte, Knoxville, Raleigh, Greenville, Bentonville. And they've all been fabulous. Grandview is no exception!

Grandview has ramen and sushi and pizza and burgers and cookies and gifts. There is inside seating near power outlets. There are outside seats that are covered and have fans. And they have a parking lot with plenty of space with payments via Parkmobile. Or you can try for the free street parking.

We have a great evening and enjoyed our...