CoupleO'foodies N.
Yelp
The one star is only because the space is beautiful. The owner, Karen and her assistant Lindsey are HORRIBLE. Absolutely no business sense, decency or customer service skills. I was actually YELLED at over the phone. It all began when we booked the venue for our wedding. We put a deposit down. (Just note, there is no negotiation on the contract, first warning sign). Due to some unforeseen events we had to cancel our event (with several months notice to Karen). Since the contract stated we would not get our deposit back we were hoping that through graciousness Karen would at least let us reschedule and negotiate on the new date's rate. We knew we wanted to reschedule, but didn't know when at that time. We asked if it would be ok to contact her in a month or two and discuss rescheduling. She said, "We'll see. We are always completely booked." Cut to about 2 months later, we were ready to reschedule. We emailed, called, even stopped by and rang the bell, no answer. For months this went on. Calling, emailing, almost everyday! No response. We were out a lot of money and still not married and still wanting to get married at 632. What was the problem? It made no sense. We were willing to pay for another date. My husband is a business man, in sales no less, he knows how businesses run. We have $, you have a venue, let's make it happen. Silence from 632. After about 6 months went by and we finally get an email answered out of the blue. At this point we are looking at other venues and everyone else is jumping over the moon to get us to book! Lindsey emails to say that we can come back to take a look at the place. We go, pick a new date (by the way, every Saturday from May to September was OPEN, another bad sign) ... and then she casually mentions that they just got their liquor license so they now have to provide all the alcohol. WHAT?! This is what they were waiting for?! They waited to get back to us until the license went through so they could get another $5000 from us for TERRIBLE liquor. The beverage packages were worse then in-flight alcohol. We originally picked the place so we could do our own alcohol. Our families barely drink and our friends that do are 1 or 2 drink kind of people. My father collects rare liquors and was going to gift it to us for the wedding as a very special taste testing kind of thing. There was no negotiation on this. So we considered still booking and buying their liquor package because we loved the space so much, but I requested that they at least provide better alcohol and we would be willing to pay a fair price for it. They were charging a per person fee for the beverage package so I put a list together of the brands we wanted to serve our guests and the amount of $ we were willing to pay. Since they don't provide anything but the actual liquor, I did not feel it was fair to pay $50 per person to them and another $30 per person for the catering rentals. (632 does not provide ice, glasses, bar ware, servers, service of any kind... literally only the alcohol. The catering company charges for all the other stuff additionally). It just seemed so crazy to me to be paying what seemed to be double. (The catering company would only charge $45 per person for alcohol AND all the other stuff ) I didn't think I was questioning/negotiating anything that any other normal person wouldn't question. Lindsey called to chew me out, yell at me and tell me how they have hated dealing with us for "2 years now" (even though it wasn't even 1 year since first speaking with them). She told me "don't tell us how to do our job and what kinds of liquor we should have and how much we should charge" WHAT?! I'm paying for it and I want a certain atmosphere for my guests.... why shouldn't I have the kind of alcohol I want at a fair price and everyone can be happy? I don't want to pay more than a caterer charges for alcohol PLUS service, servers, bar ware, ice, glasses, etc. That's just logical! After that phone conversation, there was absolutely no way I would ever give them another dime. We had our wedding at the Dream Downtown Hotel. It was absolutely amazing and the service was impeccable and the food was delicious. Top shelf alcohol until your heart's content. Not one thing went wrong and not one headache. 632 Hudson is beautiful, but not worth the headache or the cost. They are completely disrespectful and totally illogical. There's so much more to this story, but I've written too much already! Have your special day/event at a special place with people who deserve your business and are happy to be of service!