Penn Social

"We have been in contact with Penn Social for almost 2 years inquiring about hosting an event we do across the country. First, we were told that we would have to wait until the new policy was created for promoters. Since THEY considered us promoters, we couldnt just outright pay a venue rental fee. None of the 13 venues we worked with had an issue, even the Live Nation venues we inquried about. Needless to say, they sent us their new structure. Not only did we give them information about our event, we hit the requirements they needed for us to host the event. We had a couple questions we needed answered to get the dates locked in, but our phone calls started to get ignored. Followed up a year later, we were told that the person we orginally spoke with is no longer there and that we would have to speak with the GM, Robert Hess, and was provided the number and email. We spoke with Rob and as a follow up, so he can have all the information, we sent an email. 2 weeks later, we called Rob again. We advised him who we were and asked was he able to look at the email. He did not. He asked if we are promoters and had a hard time figuring our company and name. We replied that we are, but again, that was the only option we could choose due to their structure. He states that they do not work with promoters. We advised that I was REFERRED to him! We were sent a document that has their pricing structure and he replies, " I dont know what you were sent". I forwarded him a document titled, "Penn Social Promoter Pricing Sheet" that THEIR FORMER EVENT & SALES MANAGER, Jacalyn, sent me, further confirming he didnt read the email. He advised, him being the GM, that he would talk to some people to see what he could do. At this point, we understood what we were trying to work with. We sent an email voicing our fustration of the lack of communication and customer service given by Penn Social and staff and advised that we would be reaching out to the owner of the establisment. We recieved a response from Rob saying "Hi, No further contact is needed." For a business, that promotes they are available to book events, to position a GM who does not do simple due diligence, such as reading an email, needs a immediate restructuring of their sales process. This was the most unprofessional experience we have came across in the DC area. We will make sure we get local press to shine light on this issue unless we recieve an apology and made right with a person who cares about their business and reputation, until then we would not recommend this place to host your event. Edit: Our reponse and our communication was never aggressive. Even if we wanted to be passive agressive, this venue is 30 minutes away. We made sure not to visit this venue to assure we were not being aggressive. We have been polite and very patient for over 2 years and we NEVER recieved a NO to host our event, we were told to wait. All corespondence will show that. The GM did not check any references and nor did he read our emails after given ample time to do so. We are more than happy to attach every correspondence between our 2 companies. We pride ourselves in providing great experiences to our community and maintain our high standards of professionlism. You did not do your job, and we simply called you out for it. We advised that we would be taking this situation up to the owner, and you didnt like that. You THEN decided to deny our event. You could have denied our event sooner and this experience wouldnt even have happened, but your team told us to wait...twice. But again, we are more than happy to share any correspondence with any individual who would like additional information. This place is behind us, but to say we were aggressive is something we will not take lightly."

"My company had a holiday party there and the food looked good but the flavors were not good. The service was good but the atmosphere was a little off. However it is large enough to accommodate larger groups. They definitely check IDs so don't play games with them and the staff was polite. Also it was clean"

"This spot is great to hang out! I’ve gone several times to play some ping pong and have some drinks. The ambient is nice and the Mango frozen margarita is ridiculous, give it a try, it’s amazing!"

"The food was some of the worst food I’ve ever had. This was our first time in D.C and we had high hopes. The nachos were almost like a joke. There was zero love in that food. We were also told we couldn’t get any happy hour prices and it was still 30 minutes until happy hour was supposed to be over. There were some nice games and great tvs with the games on but that was all that was good."

"This place is absolutely amazing. The location is great, the place is massive like an iceberg, upstairs looks big but it's just the tip, downstairs is where the fun is. If you're a sports fan you have 360 degrees of giant screens showing all major professional sports. Staff are amazing. They make you feel at home. I'll be returning. Many times"