Every once in a while a business offers such a negative experience it's worth warning others to steer clear. Buckle up, this'll be a long one, but might be fun to read / useful for you and your family.
444 wholeheartedly and deservingly earned this negative review. Our family tubes the Comal every year, and has been for 40+ years. We're Texans, and respectfully love the river and New Braunfels. I only say this to dispel the idea that we're some sort of drunks from out of state, who can't mind their manners.
While tubing we all stopped at the bar & restaurant at the chute, my wife and I had a good time last there last year when it was just us for our anniversary trip. The music was too loud for grandma... and maybe for the younger kids in our group too. No harm, no foul, we packed up and politely moved on. We knew there were stairs and a sign for another place just after the short chute / rapids. We stopped in, started up the stairs, noticed the sign said "444" and from the looks of the buildings / tables / umbrellas / patio probably had a restaurant and bar. It was lunchtime, and we'd just started on the river, none of us had a drink yet... so we were looking for food and margaritas. We walked up the stairs (being careful with Grandma and the kids), set our tubes by a table on the patio and began walking towards the larger of the two buildings.
Out of the other building, through an open window a lady shouts at us, "Did y'all come up from the stairs?" We turned to look and my wife said, "Yes, we're looking for food and drinks." And we all turned and walked towards the window as the lady says, "No, we don't have a restaurant." Grandma responded saying, "Oh ok, we thought there might've been a restaurant, I thought there was one here before?" The lady snapped back at her, "There's no restaurant." in a way that communicated clearly "f- off". And at this point my thought was, I'm not sure what sort of riff-raff they've had to deal with in the past, but Grandma is not the one. Apparently, I wasn't the only one with that similar thought, because our sister-in-law steps in and says... "you might want to watch your customer service talking that way to a Grandma." The lady, now with a fully amped-up tone, says "Well you can't go back to the river now, you have to exit at the street". This is where I chimed in and asked, "Did you say we can't go back to the river now?" And she turns up her tone again, with some added fun body language saying "This is private property, didn't you read the signs!" I asked "What signs?", I honestly saw a sign on the hill advertising the place of business and that's it and I told her that plainly. She said, "there's four or five of them!" I guess we missed "four or five" signs on the way up the stairs that say, private property / keep out.
Could you imagine pulling off the highway with your family to stop at what looks like a nice restaurant, with a sign out front and outdoor seating (obviously private property, it's not a city park ). Only to walk in, be shouted to from across the room through a sliding window, told it's NOT a restaurant AND then told you can't go back to the highway. No, you have to leave out our backdoor into the alleyway.
At this point, I asked to speak to a manager. I know it's "Karen-like", but this situation deserved trying to get someone reasonable to speak with. The lady said, "I'M the manager!" Now, I'm not sure that's true... but if it is... as a business owner I'd want to know who, why and how this review got posted. I said, "Ok, well I'll be leaving a review for y'all." She snaps back, "You're not one of our customers!" And I of course I replied, "We could've been, but now we never will." I asked her for her name, she unsurprisingly refused and then ignored us completely. So the owners know, she has a bridge piercing on her nose. It's actually kinda cool, I wish she'd remained cool.
The only redeeming part of this ridiculous exchange was... as we were leaving out the "backdoor to the alleyway" a young man, not more than eighteen years old saw how disappointed and visually agitated we all were and asked what the lady said to us. I told him plainly, and he was honestly apologetic with a much kinder tone and body language. I thanked him for that, and said "I appreciate it" with a smile and we all tucked-tail and walked out to the street like we were instructed. Where we had to walk several blocks back in 100 degree heat to where we started, with Grandma, kids and tubes in tow. Not exactly ideal, to put it nicely.
As we got back in the river and floated by the place later, I made a point to look for the "four or five" signs. I saw the big sign again and then... I did notice a sign at the beginning of the stairs. It was connected to a chain that was not up, but hanging behind the fence post sideways, unnoticeable and unreadable as it was mostly blocked from view. You gotta be kidding me. read more