Cullen's Live

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  I came here on Wednesday night with my girlfriend and a group of friends for the trivia night.  Full disclosure: Ben W. in another review on this page was in my party.
  
  First, the positives:
  Trivia was a lot of fun and the host did a great job of engaging the crowd and keeping it moving.  This is one of the better nights of bar trivia that I've been to.  However, the trivia is run by a national company called Geeks Who Drink, so I don't think Cullen's Live can really take credit for it.  
  
  A second positive was that they also had bottles of Boulevard Tank 7 beer, which I really like. Finally, the steak night food was decent, and the mashed baked potato side was really tasty.
  
  Other than those positives above, this was a pretty miserable experience.
  
  My group of about 10 people was sitting at two separate tables next to each other since we split up into two trivia teams.  We got the same waitress, who must have been on her first day (as well as almost the entire wait staff).  It's always been my experience at other establishments that when training a new server, you assign a veteran server to work with them as a pair and to show them the ropes for the night.  You don't just throw somebody out into the wild (especially if the rest of the servers are new too).  Throughout the night, we also had small interactions with several other new waitstaff, as there seemed to be general confusion of who was doing what.
  
  She started by asking for drink orders, but she could only handle asking at most two people at a time randomly.  For example, she asked the guy to my left and the guy two people to the right, but ran off before asking me or my girlfriend.  It took over 10 minutes to even get all of the orders from our two tables.  A few people at our table ordered a Shiner (on their draft menu), but received bottles of Shiner instead.  There was a lot of confusion over starting tabs (she had no idea that you were supposed to ask a patron if they wanted to start a tab).
  
  Eventually, we told her that we were ready to order some food too, since it was steak night.  Like before, she started taking food orders randomly.  The guy to my left started and said he would indeed like a steak night special, and she wrote it down and ran off again before taking any other orders (after we had said we were ALL ready to order food).  Over the course of another 5-10 minutes, we were all eventually able to order.  However, almost immediately, one of the steaks came out to someone who ordered in the middle of our party.  We told him not to worry about waiting for ours, and he managed to slowly finish his 12oz ribeye and sides before a single other food item came out from the kitchen.  No idea how that happened (but at least they didn't leave it out on the counter to get cold, I guess).
  
  Our steaks finally came out, but of course, no silverware accompanied them.  We told the waitress and she said she was sorry and would run and get some.  Well, about three minutes passed, and she still was nowhere to be found.  A minute later she came back, but with no silverware.  We asked her again and she said she was still waiting for some.  Eventually, after staring at our steaks for over 5 minutes, the waitress brought two sets of silverware for three people... It then took another minute to get the last set.  And, since the idea you should be getting here is that this place is incompetent, it should not surprise you that they gave us all BUTTER KNIVES to cut our steak with.
  
  The steaks themselves weren't that bad, especially for $12.99.  They had a lot of fat left on them (they could've been trimmed a bit more), but they were cooked to our ordering and tasted decent.  The mashed baked potatoes side was really tasty.
  
  Throughout the night, the general trend was that any time one of us placed an order, we had to expect to wait at least 5-10 minutes to get it. In addition, our waitress had a nasty habit of coming over and talking right in the middle of a trivia question.
  
  When trivia was wrapping up and we finally asked for our checks, I was relieved to see that mine correctly had my girlfriend and my orders on it.  Unfortunately, Ben W. wasn't so lucky, and the coup de grace for this place was the manager arguing that he did in fact get a second martini when an entire table of people witnessed him only get one.  Since the waitress took his card the second time when there was still the wrong martini (and said she'd fix it), Ben's card was already swiped.  At first, the manager tried to give him a $10 gift card since it was already swiped, but eventually said that he could cancel the whole transaction when Ben was insistent on not wanting a gift card.
  
  But, don't worry.  The manager was consoling our waitress afterward (who didn't look upset at all) that this type of thing happens all the time and to get used to it.  Hmm.
  
  I will not be going back to either Cullen's Live or Cullen's Restaurant.  At least they get the honor of my first one star rating.

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  Posted on 07.04.13 Paul V.

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  Let me start  by saying that GeeksWhoDrink Trivia runs an excellent trivia night.  I enjoyed the host and the experience.
  
  That is the only positive I have to say about Cullen's Live.  For whatever reason the entire wait staff was in training or so it seemed.  Our waitress was not capable of getting more than one order at a time before running back to the computer at the bar.  This led to food and drinks coming out inconsistently if at all.
  
  I ordered a gin martini with olives.  After being asked what I ordered a second time I received a vodka martini, but at least it did have the olives.  I then switched to old fashioneds which were OK but nothing to write home about.
  
  At the end of the night we asked for our checks and mine had a couple of additions that I had not ordered, understandable with a new waitstaff.  I spoke to our waitress and asked her to remove the two fugitive items, chips and salsa and an extra martini I hadn't received.  She came back a second time and the check was still wrong; it still had two charges for martinis.  I again asked her to correct it and she told me I would need to speak to the manager.  The manager came over and with extreme disrespect told me that I had in fact ordered two martinis and he knew it because he made them.  I was livid....I had ordered two martinis but due to the inexperience of the serving staff I had not received the second one.  I can't believe the nerve of a manager to call someone out like that especially in front of a table of witnesses who knew I hadn't gotten that second drink.  He did finally concede and brought me a correct bill with no offer of compensation or apology for poor service.
  
  Needless to say there was not a large tip nor am I planning on returning.  If this is how they treat customers here I'd recommend spending the considerable amount of money it costs to have a drink here somewhere else.

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  Posted on 07.03.13 Ben W.

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  Went here for a 50th birthday party on a Saturday night. We arrived and entered the club. Our entry fee was paid for by the birthday girl husband so I do not know how much the regular price is but I am glad I did not have to pay. The music before the band was way too loud. Hard to have a conversation. The band was a jazz band which was nit bad but had two saxophone, a trumpet/coronet and a trombone with all with mics in front of them. They horns was way too loud. Bar price was ok $12.95 for a glass of wine and beer. If I am back, it would be a very special cause..

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  Posted on 05.27.13 Keith M.

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  My fiancé an I have Ben working with Sara Jane for months planning out wedding. She has been very helpful and available for any questions or requests. We are marrying on adage in Cullen's Live during the day on a Saturday. The club and main dining are closed on Satirdays until 4 or 5 pm, so we have the place to ourselves! The reception will be in the ball room. I am very excited and feel confident that Sara Jane and Cullen's will provide the wedding of my dreams

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  Posted on 09.26.12 Allison L.

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  As we pull into the parking lot we noticed a big crowd, walked through the front door to the outer bar and game room and got a good feeling about this place. It was decorated well and there was a decent crowd bustling around.  We could hear the band playing in the back and decided that if it was this cool out here we should pay the $5 cover to get into the back room and really have fun. We got our bracelets and walked through the door......to now what I now affectionatly call the "Cave of Horrors". As you walk in your flanked by shady security personnel in baggy uniforms leaning on the walls with their feet up giving me a dirty look and oogling my girlfriend right in front of me. Next comes the assault on your sense of smell as the carpeted area that has obviously been soaked in booze and dirt apparently only to be cleaned once a year reaches up and slaps you in the face. I would probably throw my shoes away if i saw this floor in the light, good call on their part turning the lights off.  As you walk to the bar parting the sea of creepy old dudes sipping rum and cokes with their greasy slick back hairdo's and chest hair coming out of their Tommy Bahama silk shirts stareing at you, to the bar where one bartender is running her ass off as three others lean against the back counter and crack jokes, don't be in a hurry for a drink because you'll need to stand here for at least 15-20 minutes to get service. Don't fret, as you stand forever at the bar you can't be assaulted be the mediocre band blasting away, there is a guy with a sound board there to control the feedback and echo but apparently that board is just for looks, he sure as hell doesn't know how to manage the sound of the music. The dance floor is where the true horrors live, I've never witnessed so many scantly dressed, tacky looking grandmothers try and grind each other and whatever Tommy Bahamas are on the floor. I did witness another younger guy bravely try to dance a little bit with his girl before he was assaulted by wrinkles, saggy breasts and skanky bridesmaid dresses. Making an exit to the patio to finish our beers was kind of like walking into a company AA meeting as a large group of people had circled up their chairs and no one was saying a word, aside from a few hammered older ladies who had snagged themselves some old guys who were slamming tequila shots and chain smoking. We have a good laugh at the twilight zone we have walked into and decide to slam our beers and run for the hills. As we repeat the 20 minute wait at the bar to close out, screaming at the bartender who is only guessing at my name as I scream in her face and the micorphones feed back, I almost have to push the old creepers off my girlfriend with a stick , as i stand there holding her hand. Please if you are reading this, call your grandmother and ask her to not dance to "Drop it like its hot" in public. We make our way through the crowd and got our departing dirty look from the security thugs as we escape.  We share a look on the other side of the exit trying to figure out if we had blacked out and shared a horrible dream.  However we must say we never had such a good laugh as we left a place driving down the road.

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  Posted on 08.26.12 Chris S.

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