Mikey Ts FIRST TR!!! Hakkasan Sunday 5/19

[MikeyTantalo]

So... this is a warning... I am not a writer... I do not have a biased opinion... YOU PROBABLY WILL BE OFFENDED BY THIS IF YOU WORK THERE!


NOW... that that is out of the way...


I approach the door at approximately 9:55 PM.... NOT A SOUL in the table line... Guest list line roughly 75 deep... Not impressing me right off the bat..(takes a sip of Monster Zero) My crew and I finally get together... 5 or 6 guys including myself.. Joel Wurster... and 2 beverage directors/managers of Caesars... for a birthday, main guy is OBSESSED with Dada Life.. and promised a small table in main room.. up.. down.. didnt matter... SO! The process of the tables goes as follows:
Walk up to table line...
Doorman: " Do you have a table??"
Joel:" Yes we do, There are 9 of us"
Doorman1:"ok enter."

We walk into bull pen 1...

walk passed Podium... nothing..

Proceed to back of Bull pen...

Doorman2: "do you have a table? what is name?"
Joel:" ::says name:: There are 9 of us."
Doorman2:Proceed to next bull pen."

Interjection: WHAT THE HELL WAS THE USE OF THE FIRST BULL PEN?!?! Bad door set up so far... I look over to the right... Centerfuge bar (best pre game spot ever) had been roped off.. The only way to actually get to the bar was to go THROUGH the Poker room.. and go in on the other side!

Back to the process.....

DOORMAN3:" what is the name on table??"
Joel:" ::says name:: 5m 4f in party...."
Doorman3: "let me get the slip...

FINALLY after this we get ID'd.....

20 min total.. we get to the elevators... I counted 12 people in the elevator before our table runner and party entered... it was quite uncomfortable.... We were taken to the wrong floor.. took the steps down 1 level... Pretty unprofessional... NOW! we walk into a room... Hip-Hop playing.. we are directed to a table... HMM... (This CAN NOT be the main room!) I look around.. the decor reminded me of my cage fighting days... VERY dark.. but hey.. its different.. 24" LED wall around the ENTIRE ROOM.. VERY COOL!!! The tables are nice granite... the couches, the SOFTEST leather I have felt.... (NOW, this is a bad thing... girls and their heels will puncture this stuff EASILY within the month..... but hey... not my problem they are comfy...) EACH table... has a cord that charges your phones... 1020394 different adapters makes sure you have it ALL covered...

The comp bottle was Kettle One, quite the change in pace from some of the other comp bottles I have gotten in my day... The waitress.. tho very pretty.. not very vigilant.... We had seen a waitress from the table next to us more so than our own.... NOW for a quick scan..... Bar on one side of the room.. DJ in the middle.. elevated places to dance... WAIT A MINUTE... wheres the other bar?! You have to be kidding me... you have to fight the crowd.. and get to the other side of the room just to get a drink?! eeh bad design.. but I can live with this....

SO... we get bored... and after not getting what was promised we text our "host" who is very well known in this town.. I know him personally... and respected him very much until this night.

Birthday boy to host:" Hey buddy you put us in the hip hop room... can we get into the main room?? Mezz level?? anywhere where we can see dada????""

Response: " Uhm its the billboard awards dude.. we are packed.. I can not move you..."

30 minutes go by...

Response:" OK I can move you for an additional $2,000"

WOW.. Now after being promised I feel as if I were kicked in the stomach..... SO It is now 12:15am... I walk down the 2 flights of stairs to the main room...... Not one dance floor table sat..... and only 1/3 of the room had been sat... This is no fluff in Numbers.. You all know me on here.. and one of the Original guys of this site... This is no exaggeration... after this.. I walk around... The DJ booth and LED wall.. probably the sickest and most HD screen I have ever seen.... VERY impressed.... I look to the right.. and see a bar... again bad placement... one it gets busy.. too many on lookers will be crowding the area to get to... (similar to Surrenders... but worse) I look to the left.. and off to the distance.. I see another bar... PERFECT PLACEMENT!!!!! and then another bar in the back I had to actually look for to find... odd.. and weird.. Why hide a bar???? I go to the MEZZ level.. 1/2 sat.. this is pushing 1am.... (most clubs completely seat their main areas by 12:45-1am.. and don't you sit there and tell me the clubs way too big or has way more tables... that's horse CRAP!) AGAIN! 1 bar on the entire level.. bad... not sure why... and if there was another bar... I sure as hell didn't see it....

DADA comes on.. kills it.... I notice something... as I look down... I see there are tiny paths to get to the dance floor causing bottle necks... bad..... I could not see a flow to the place... really I couldn't... But again.. Everyone will swarm this place due to the fact that it is new...


HERE'S A SPOILER.... If XS and Marquee had a litter of babies.. the runt of it would be Hakkasan... Dance floor smaller than both of the clubs... cool main room design... Already making the locals mad... HA.. I would rather go to XS or Marquee where I walk in.. and am greeted by everyone.. and not glanced at and not even smiled towards...


So there it is...


All of it...

HOPE YOU ENJOYED!

[MikeyTantalo]

Can't wait to see these responses!

[Chuck]

Sounds rough...I heard from another well respected forum host that they got denied entry all together on an industry night for wearing Jordans. From how it sounds, they weren't discrete at all about it either...sounds like it was a bit humiliating. Not sure why you'd treat locals/industry people with such disregard. Especially when reviews to date have been less than stellar. Pretty sure it was that same night too.

Glad I didn't waste my time here last week...nothing ruins a night more than bad service. XS was great that night

[not a vet but no rookie]

The more and more I hear about Hak the less likely I am to spend significant change/time to check it out over XS...oh well

[ocam]

The famous MikeyT - I remember reading a lot of your posts a couple years back while I was still lurking.

Thanks for the report - seems like some of the problems are structural, rather than of the "teething" variety. If the bars are badly placed and there are bottlenecks, that's not something they can fix...

I'd still like to check it out though, but not sure if I want to risk ponying up the $ for a table if the treatment is rough.

[Jhaulotte]

Thanks for the report Mikey! I still want to check it out on the next trip, but we will be doing it with presales

[Rswa99a]

Thanks for the report! Makes me think twice on dropping table money at Hakk...GA should do it for our trip.

[Moezilla]

My personal experience:
I also noticed the weird lag/corralling like cattle when walking in with a table Thursday night. I was blown away that there was no one in the GL/Tables line when I first walked up, but then I realized it was because they were all herded into a clump over by Centrifuge. I did the walk through the poker area to the Centrifuge entrance (PS you can totally walk straight through, and out the other side, right into the Hakk corral unnoticed), and the presale line looked slammed. For the table, they had ~10 of us in a corral that was about 2 people wide, so we had to climb over each other to get carded and stamped. It seemed really unorganized and messy.

Once we were up on the mezz, I thought it was really cool. Maybe I'm easily impressed, but the Chinese dragons for bottle service, the dancers, the LED wall...mesmerizing. The bar up there was never super busy, so there was no problem for people to get their drinks. I totally dug being up above the chaos on the floor just watching it all go down.

Second point of view:
I had a couple guy friends who went Friday and Saturday night. They didn't have presale tickets, or anything set up. They found the right guy to tip (some of them told them to F off), gave him the cost of presale + $20 each, and were immediately walked right past the LONG ass presale line. They probably got in faster than we did with that table Thursday night.

I'd think its worth checking out.

[nighthawk06si]

yay Mikey T is back!! welcome back!

[dnix]

Complaining about location on a COMPED table? lol Im surprised you would share that. Seems to lessen the rest of the report, but maybe thats just me. Thanks for the report though.

[Chuck]

Complaining about location on a COMPED table? lol Im surprised you would share that. Seems to lessen the rest of the report, but maybe thats just me. Thanks for the report though.

I figured there was a min or at least bottles bought on top of the comp...if not, then yeah I'd be happy with a comp bottle in the Ling-Ling room the night of the Billboard Awards with Dada Life spinning. Can understand the disapointment though when you expect one location and are given another with no heads up.

[dnix]

Complaining about location on a COMPED table? lol Im surprised you would share that. Seems to lessen the rest of the report, but maybe thats just me. Thanks for the report though.

I figured there was a min or at least bottles bought on top of the comp...if not, then yeah I'd be happy with a comp bottle in the Ling-Ling room the night of the Billboard Awards with Dada Life spinning. Can understand the disapointment though when you expect one location and are given another with no heads up.

You could be right. Maybe it was B1G1, but thats not how I read it, and with it being locals/industry, Id be willing to bet it was a no min with a comp. But hey, Ive made an ass of myself before.

[Freakzilla69]

I agree on the poor design. Unless you have a dance floor table forget about seeing anything on the 1st floor cause everyone is standing along the dance floor tables. Your best bet is the 2nd level tables. You can see everything from the tables there. Getting to the main dance floor was almost impossible. They need more access to the dance floor. We got lucky and found a guy with a dance floor table that we made friends with and got to stand on their booth the entire night. Other than that the place is awesome and Tiesto fucking killed it. Tons of energy. They really need to limit the amount of people in the place though. There was a time you couldn't even walk anywhere. Not a fun way to spend a sat night. We had a great time however.

[MikeyTantalo]

Complaining about location on a COMPED table? lol Im surprised you would share that. Seems to lessen the rest of the report, but maybe thats just me. Thanks for the report though.

WOW... on 2 levels...

1..... I come back and this is the respect I get??? NOW that I am not a host.. I can let loose.. What is your deal with me? What have I ever done to you to deserve such disrespect?? All I ever did was help the many and many people of this site and all I got from you was... "well there's this other guy here and wow that other guy did an amazing job.." DNIX... your a bad sport dude.. not sure why your like this towards me.. but it's not right....

2... There is a HUGE difference from you getting a comp bottle.. and myself along with a few of the more respected vegas veterans.. and when you are promised one thing and given another.. yes.. something to gripe about... ALSO... if the room is not sat... you move your people to make the main room full.. let them finish and re-seat the table... CLUB MANAGEMENT 101... so before attempting to belittle me... make sure I DON'T know what I am talking about...

Thank you...

I will happily take my temporary ban now....

[MikeyTantalo]

I also. would like to point out our tab was well over 500 (before tax and grat).. We are not cheap locals... We spend money.. and tip better than what I suggested YEARS ago on this site...