Cloud 9 Rooftop Bar — Restaurant in Wilmington

I had an absolutely horrible experience at Cloud 9 Rooftop Bar. Upon exiting the elevator, my guests and I were greeted by an extremely rude staff member. Due to policy, she had to mark large X's on our hands with a Sharpie. Despite already marking one of my friends with black X's, she continued to write over them, making the X's even larger with a permanent marker. She was incredibly unprofessional and seemed to be on a power trip. We had requested that she inform our waiter that we wouldn't be ordering any alcoholic beverages since we were all under 21, but she ignored this request. She didn't even ask to see my ID or verify my age, instead threatening to embarrass us and kick us out if we washed the X's off.

This unpleasant encounter was just the beginning. We were dressed nicely for a friend's birthday dinner, but these large, ugly permanent X's on our hands made us feel out of place. We are not a group of people who break the law or try to illegally order drinks; we just wanted to enjoy the view and have a nice dinner.

Upon finally entering, we weren't greeted by a waiter until we had to get up and see why another couple who arrived after us was able to place an order before we were. We were then told it was "self-serve." Despite this, we placed our order, but the server didn't write anything down and ultimately got the orders wrong. She even tried to offer a cheaper option to my friend, who is strictly vegan, despite her clear instructions on how she wanted her pizza made.

The food was mediocre at best and overpriced for no reason. It tasted like high school cafeteria pizza. To make matters worse, we saw a roach scurrying across our seating area, and the underlying discriminatory tones from the staff were not appreciated. When we tried to validate our parking ticket, a worker offered to "help save us that $11," as if we didn't have the money.

This experience was terrible, and if you are a person of color, I would never recommend coming to this place. While I understand the need to mark X's on hands if it were a club, this is a rooftop bar. The staff member went to great lengths to mark us, only for the server to ask if we wanted a margarita despite our big black X's.

0/10 would...

Very nice bar with an amazing view, horrible service. I went on a Monday night and ordered a beer. They were not busy at all, maybe 7 people total in the bar and it still took 15 minutes to get a single beer. The beer was in a can and the rim of the can was disgusting and covered in dirt. I had to clean it off to poor it. I slowly sipped my beer and the waitress checked on me a few times. After I finished I asked for a different beer. Shortly after I ordered, a large group of what seemed to be regulars from the local college arrived, and after that I didn’t exist anymore. I never got my beer and the waitress never checked on me again. I watched her serve table after table of people who showed up after me for 25 minutes. Finally I got up and went to the bar where the male bartender completely ignored me, didn’t acknowledge me or even make eye contact. After ten minutes I moved to the other side of the bar where the female bartender completely ignored me for another ten minutes. I watched both bartenders serve people who walked up to the bar after me and check on everyone else for twenty minutes before finally noticing me. When the bartender finally brought me the check he, of course, brought a non itemized check and tried to get me to pay for the second beer I never received but had ordered 45 minutes prior.

I do not recommend anyone go to this bar ever unless you’re coming in with a regular. It’s like they don’t know they’re ON TOP OF A HOTEL and need to occasionally serve people...

The view was awesome! The menu was relatively inexpensive and everything tasted great. The service, however, left a lot to be desired. We seated ourselves, which was no problem, and initially were well tended to. We got a cheese board and two drinks between my partner and I to start and were served quickly. It was after that where things began to fall apart. Once we were about halfway through the cheeseboard we agreed to go for more drinks, but for the next ~20 min., we hadn’t had a single server visit us. We waited a little longer until it got to the point where I decided to go up to our server who was on their phone by the bar! Albeit she was more than happy to take my order and we had more drinks in no time, you shouldn’t, as service staff, be as neglectful as they were towards customers. To be distracted by your phone within plain view of everyone in the restaurant WHILE having a table to serve is unacceptable. That’s not to say our server didn’t treat us with the utmost respect and kindness the entire time, but it almost seemed like all that was overshadowed by the inadequate service we had experienced. We agreed we’d be willing to give this place another shot at some point, but this first experience wasn’t what I...