Complaint Review: Midtown BBQ and Brew

The owner of this restaurant, Tony, is a rip-off slimebag. Do NOT. I repeat. Do NOT rent the upstairs of this place out. Unless you're prepared to lose your money and be taken advantage of.

I had met the owner , Tony, about a year ago. I'm a fetish model, and he told me he was interested in throwing fetish-oriented parties in the large lounge area above the bar. He was interested in having me work with him and help promote parties. Recently, I was planning a party for foot fetish people, and was having trouble finding a location. I contacted Tony about renting the upstairs.

I emailed him, and he told me we could have the room at NO CHARGE, which I thought was great. 

After a few backs and forth over email, he THEN tells me, the room requires a $500 deposit, which I would get back IF my attendees spent that much in alcohol and food.  

He said we would have a satellite bar just for that room and that once the receipts were tallied, I would get that money that was spent that night back that night, at the end of the night.

I was a little wary of giving them that much money. I wanted to make sure they weren't going to try to claim they sold less than they actually DID, so I asked him if he had a way I could review the receipts. He said they use some system called Aloha, and all our sales would be on one keyring-I just needed to make sure my people only ordered from that bar.

I said, ok, fine. Brought him a deposit to reserve the large third floor area, which has a DJ booth, dance area, etc.

The day of the party, Tony texts me in the afternoon to tell me, some drunk guy had left a lit cigarette in the bathroom and it caused a fire on the 3rd floor. He said he could refund my money and cancel the party. Well, it was quite a bit TOO LATE for that. I already had 25 or so people coming, and models who were committed and had canceled other plans to come.

He said he'd give us the 2nd floor, which was quite a bit smaller, since it is next to the 2nd floor bar, where a band was playing.  I said fine. Well, when I showed up, the 2nd floor was WAY too small to put a DJ in, as I had planned to do on the 3rd floor. Not to mention, people from the 2nd floor bar kept coming into my party to use the only restroom that was on that floor. Also, the room smelled like smoke from the previous night's fire.

During the party, I remember being concerned that the bartender wasn't giving anyone any receipts.  Also, my boyfriend ordered ribs and a few beers, and was only charged $7.  In fact, quite a few people at the party were telling me, they were surprised at how little they were being charged for what they were getting. However, my guests were all ordering tons of food and alcohol, so I wasn't too worried about making the deposit back.

By the end of the night, the manager called me over to settle up. Oddly enough, and to my surprise, she had a HANDWRITTEN tally of what people had SUPPOSEDLY ordered. She told me, my guests had only ordered $185 worth of food and alcohol. I was shocked, but it was 2am and I was too beat to argue about it. I decided to email Tony the next day.

I told him I was concerned about the low amount of money I got back. I only got back $185 from my original $500 deposit. I told him this didn't seem right, as my guests had ordered a TON of food and alcohol.  He wrote back "Yeah, I was EXTREMELY disappointed about your receipts."

I told him I was going to survey ALL of my guests and find out exactly how much they had spent.

In asking my guests what they spent, I found out that SEVERAL of them had received comps, either comped food or alcohol. I emailed Tony to ask, how was I supposed to get my money back, when the bartender was comping people left and right?

instead of vowing to get to the bottom of this, as any LEGITIMATE ETHICAL business owner who gives a cr*p about customer service would, he replies"I'm a little sick of your allegations. Only your boyfriend was comped. Your guests were cheap, and bad tippers." Well, that was a total LIE.  First off, I SAW the bartender's tip jar. It was full. She was making BANK.

it WASN'T just my boyfriend; it was practically every guest I spoke with. A few of them said they were surprised to get free food or drinks but thought it was part of the benefits of the party. 

So, apparently this guy is running a racket whereby, his bartender comps your guests at YOUR expense.  The food and drink costs him very little, but he gets to KEEP your deposit.  Everything is tallied BY HAND, and no one gets receipts.

I asked every single one of my guests not only how much they spent, but I also asked whether they were comped. I also asked how much they tipped the bartender.

I have no problem getting signed affadavits from my friends and suing this jerk, so that he doesn't pull this cr*p with anyone else.

Part of me is wondering if that fire might not have been DELIBERATELY set, probably by someone who was pissed off at being ripped off!