Save yourself time and money and look the other way!!! What was experienced during our first and last event here at Verdi was absolutely horrible. A week prior to our event was when Hurricane Hilary was all over the news and that's when I reached out to the manager who confidently assured that they are well equipped for the tropical rainstorm that is to come on 8/20. A day before our event of 125 people, I had guests reaching out worried about what could possibly happen and that's when I asked the manager, Masha, what would happen if we were to postpone. I was told we would lose our deposit and she made sure to reassure me again, that they were fine during the heavy rains earlier this year, so she had no doubt that it would've affected the restaurant in any way as the so called 'roof' is completely covered.
I checked in again about 3 hours before our event on Sunday and she said it was completely dry. At 4, when we walked into the restaurant, we were caught by surprise to see the floors had puddles of water all around. During that time, my mother in law, my mom, and myself reached out to the manager about the situation. The manager said she would try to get someone to put a tarp up, but wasn't able - this should have been done prior the event in preparation for what was all over the news - hurricane turning into a heavy rainfall.
She then called the owner who is out of the country who thought the best resolution would be for us to have the option to postpone our event with no deposit held. Mind you, at this time, more than half of our guests are seated waiting for the party to begin, all of the decor has been set, and all of the vendors are present. After this, he settled for 1,000$ flat discount (off of a 20k+ event) and while the manager and waitress were passing this information on, they threatened that if we didn't settle for this, the hot entrées would not be served to our guests. I was furious. But I looked into the restaurant and saw that our guests were witnessing what was going on and noticed that we were already an hour into our event and weren't getting anywhere to reach a happy median of a resolution. So, I decided to drop it and apologize to my guests and share my love for their dedication and make most of the situation instead.
The minimal towels on the floors would not be taking care of the fact that multiple tables had rain dripping onto their hair, their shoulders, their plates, cups, napkins, food, EVERYTHING. At around 6:30 (2 and a half hours after our event began), I went to the kids food table to find that the pasta was never brought out and the pizza looked DISGUSTING. I walked back to look for Masha, I asked if she had seen what the pizza looked like and asked for her to come and take a look. She confidently said she's aware of what their pizza looks like. I asked her another time to walk with me so i could show her what I'm seeing for myself. She finally did and on the spot, she offered to order Dominoes. YES, 1000% yes. That's what a manager should do is acknowledge and take ownership of what the truth is and fix it on the spot. Why should I, the host, have to worry about things being in order, why should I have trust issues in what was discussed and what was in our contract?
And then later, I found out that the kids at the event before ours was served the same exact food items we had, except ours was without juice, but they paid 7$ less per kid than what we did. 45$ per kid for fries, chicken nuggets, funny looking 'pizza' and then pasta that didn't show up until 2.5 hours later that the host had to check in on? What a rip off. Things still aren't making sense, right? The valet guys told me they would let the manager know the final number of cars that they had and though their policy is '1 car per person if the host takes care of the bill' the least they could have done was not make a profit in the valet category because we clearly had at least 30 guests who didn't show, and families who carpooled together.
The floors were still soaked throughout the night, there were buckets that were filling up with raindrops, kids running in and out dipping their feet in water, women taking their heels off afraid to slip in the water, but I am forever grateful for the love I felt in my surroundings who put up with that to celebrate the christening of our children. Though people did start leaving much much earlier than they would have if these were not the given circumstances. Change your policy when there are major rain conditions all over the news, Verdi. THIS COULD HAVE BEEN PREVENTED WHEN I ASKED TO POSTPONE. Stop looking at your customers as dollar signs and think about how you could make things right for your guests even IF the rain was out of your hands. It happened, and it happened at YOUR restaurant, so take ownership and do the right thing. read more