Noah B.
Yelp
Highly recommend coming here for dinner, as I have had many excellent experiences.
However, DO NOT hold an event here. We were excited to come for our "drinks in Ann Arbor" event the night before our wedding. The restaurant reserves an area for you, which is nice, but they use that to constrict you. If you are bringing a group just for drinks, you will not come anywhere near the minimum. If you do not have as many people show up as you expect, they will not adjust the minimum to account for that.
When checking in as to how much we had spent toward the minimum throughout the night, we were given inconsistent numbers.
We were allowed to count HopCat shirt purchases toward the minimum. To be fair, the shirts have a great design and are really soft. However, we were not allowed to count gift card purchases toward the minimum, which was incredibly frustrating.
We ended up supplementing the shirts with roughly 50 ciders to go, which they "seal," and about 20 cocktails to go. What they don't tell you is that the ciders will only keep for about two days. We of course found this out when we called to inquire several weeks later, having consumed none of the ciders.
After negotiating and trying to solve the problem for half an hour, I had to step away because they were causing me too much stress and I was about to start crying. This was the night before my wedding. Some of the staff seemed empathetic, while others were much more distant.
If you are having a significant life event, you cannot entrust HopCat to handle it. They will not be flexible, they will not work with you to find mutually agreeable solutions to problems, and they will cause you undue stress. If you're looking for a fun night at a bar with some great food with a couple friends (highly recommend their burgers), then this is the place to go.
I had many great memories here, but I can assure you that we will not be stepping through those doors anytime soon. A profound disappointment, and a disheartening end to my relationship with the establishment.