Fayetteville, NC, USA < change city >

Fayetteville   |   April, 2010   |   Reception Venue

"HORRIBLE customer service, great room. They say the perception of great things is always outweighed by the reality of their negative attributes. The same can be said about the Metropolitan Room. I am one for first impressions and I believe that they go a long way into analyzing the true qualities of someone and their ability to do their job. When my wife and I first saw the Metropolitan Room we just knew this was the perfect venue to partake of our wedding reception to share and make wonderful lifelong memories. From our very first meeting we should have foreseen that this would be a difficult task, but this was the venue of our dreams for our reception. Our dreams quickly became nightmares and the following is a description of the events. Our initial meeting was to take place with Lenora at 3 o’clock p.m. on February 13, 2010. My wife, Sameria, works and lives in Virginia. She took time to drive and make it in on time for the meeting and when we reached the Metropolitan Room, the doors were locked because Lenora wasn’t there. We called Lenora and she stated that she had “never missed an appointment in ten years” and was deeply sorry. She said she was still at home in Dunn, NC and was in route to the Metropolitan Room. We found that the service door by the ATM was open and the decorator for the Valentine’s ball, which was scheduled for later that evening, showed us around the parts of the facility she had access to. Lenora then suggested meeting at a later time that day, so we agreed that 5 o’clock p.m. would be sufficient for both parties because she was still out of town. We arrived back at the Metropolitan Room at 5 o’clock and Lenora still wasn’t present. She arrived about 30 minutes later. She was flustered and could not find the contract or get the correct date that we already reserved with the $500 fee in the month of January 2010. We sat through roughly 20 minutes of her explaining her day instead of conducting the business we came to complete. There was never an opportunity to go over the contract in depth or discuss the business at hand; because she was telling us that she had to hurry to unlock the rest of the doors and get ready for the ball that was going on that night. Since she did not have the papers together, we agreed that her emailing the papers would suffice (but she never emailed them) and we would meet at a later date. After a failed attempt to meet with Lenora and get the contract; I, Phillip Z., suggested that she fax the papers to me. She said that would be ok and because she had been so busy and not in the office it was actually better for her. I received the papers on a Friday and after going up to Virginia on the weekend to meet with my wife and go over the contract I returned to Fayetteville and attempted to meet with Lenora to return the contract. To no surprise, Lenora was unavailable to meet with me. I proceeded to meet Lenora on three different attempts in the months of February and March with no luck. So, I faxed the contract back to her and she called me stating everything on the contract looked good and we set March 17th at 12:30 p.m. aside as the date and time to meet for the remaining payment. On March 17th, I arrived at the Metropolitan Room to locked doors. I called Lenora on her cell phone and on the work number and got no answer. I was on my way back to work, because the meeting time was scheduled during my lunch hour, when I received a call from Lenora she asked if I could come back. She stated that she was out trying to get the internet back on in her office, when I asked her about our scheduled time to meet, she asked me to just slide the final payment under the door of the office, a check in the amount of $2,010.00. This is not logical, I asked her how would I receive a receipt and she replied “It’ll be alright she would record the payment.” I called my supervisor and asked for an extra 30 minutes to finish handling business. When I came back and gave the check to Lenora, she said that everything was good and she had everything she needed and said, “Ok, Mr. Z we’ll see you on April 17th.” Two other attempts were made on 28th of March when she stated she had a funeral to attend with unnecessary information (there would be over 1000 in attendance etc.) another attempt was made to meet 7th March. I finally got a message the 3rd of April to call on 5 April the meeting took place 12 April which was schedule for the 12p.m. but did not arrive until 12:30pm. So you could imagine how shocked we were when we met with her on the 12th of April and she said, “Where is the proof of your insurance?” When I discussed that line of the contract with Lenora regarding the $1,000,000 policy, Lenora assured me we were alright because the Metropolitan Room had a policy and we were covered under it. As it states in the contract, proof of insurance must be shown upon receipt of the last payment and when I met with Lenora she said she had everything she needed and all was good. This could have deterred us from having a beautiful reception, but it didn’t even after Lenora made her racists remarks. Stating she hates doing business with “You people!” and getting irate and yelling at people in our decorating party for her mistakes. April 15 Lenora called and harassed my wife regarding supplying a table chart when this was discussed on the April 12th meeting which Lenora explained to me how we can use the vault, where the coders are placed, and we discussed that we’re only serving campaign for the toast. Lighting was discussed briefly. The relief of all parties was Fred the table mover. April 16th we met briefly when we were to set up for the reception on 17th of April. We finalized times for guest to enter 3hrs used Friday and 5 used on Saturday. Lastly, when I tried to contact Lenora about receiving the security deposit back, she was lackluster about returning our calls as well. We first called Lenora about the security deposit a week before the 30 days were up following the wedding and that is when she told us that after 30 days following our event the security deposit refund would be mailed to us. After a couple of weeks of hearing nothing, I called back again. On Wednesday May 19, 2010 Lenora rushed us off the phone saying she was out of town and would call us back as soon as possible. Two weeks passed no returned call. I called back on May 28, 2010 and this experience was just saddening. I called at 11:13 a.m. and Lenora answered. I told her my name and I’m calling about our refund. She asked, “Who’s calling?” I stated my name again and she replied, “I can’t hear you”. I checked my phone and saw that I had 4 bars of service, I said “Hello, Mrs. Lenora!?” She said, “Can’t hear you” I heard a click, she hung up on me. I waited another two minutes and called back again and she didn’t answer. I left a message with my name, number and the reason I was calling. Once again, we heard no response. When my uncle called Lenora, because she no longer answered my calls, she finally set up appointment to meet with me. When I arrived at the Metropolitan Room on Monday June 7, 2010 Lenora was unavailable because she was meeting with someone else. When we finally sat down and talked, I was shocked at how rude she was. She wanted me to come up to her office so we can talk about how “hostile” our event ended. I just listened to her rant on about how she went the extra mile, but she was so disrespectful and hardly punctual. She also kept falsely accusing members of our wedding party with closing the vault door. The night of our reception, when the security guard closed the door by accident, I believe. She was ranting on about how we didn’t have access to the vault and we should have been securing the door. First, isn’t that why we paid for security and where were they at during our reception? Other than turning family members who were from out of town away, the security guards were nowhere to be found and when they were around, my guests told me they were rude. I also saw on the computer screen, while she was printing the waiver out for me to sign, that a couple, who had an event in May, got their refund check back in less than 30 days. I just wonder why my family and I had to go through so much turmoil and stress to have our reception. We tried to go the extra mile to make sure that we did everything we said we would in the contract. While I was walking around, the outside of the building, on the PUBLIC sidewalk, Lenora came out and said “Do I have to call the cops!?” I looked at her and said, “Excuse me?” and she ran back inside and told the security guard to call the cops. I believe this was outrageous! I was doing nothing more than taking pictures from outside of the building, because she locked the doors and didn’t allow us to go back inside. I just wanted to have evidence that we left the Metropolitan Room in excellent condition. Regretfully, Mr. & Mrs. Z"

Fayetteville   |   May, 2007   |   Reception

"The Metropolitan Room was a very new venue when we came across it. What's great about it is that it has a seven story parking garage right next to it so there is no worries about parking. Not only does it offer a unique ballroom with ceiling to floor windows, an old bank vault that serves as the bar and a marble foyer for a lovely cocktail hour, but the top floor of the parking garage overlooks downtown Fayetteville perfectly at sunset so it is an option for a reception location or ceremony location. There are restrooms and the contract will include security. The venue does not have a caterer and was supposed to be getting an oven and fridge since our wedding. The venue fell under new management after we signed our contract but the new manager worked very well with us. However, we do not suggest using him as a bartender as we did; you will have to hire out your own. We were also allowed to come in the day before to start decorating since it was not booked the day before. Go ahead and pay the cleaning fee. The venue also has both rectangular and round tables and great chairs. We loved it and enjoyed it and would not have had our reception anywhere else."

Fayetteville   |   May, 2010   |   Reception

3101 Raeford Rd Fayetteville NC   |   April, 2010   |   Reception