Onyx Lounge

1) The hookah's themselves are good, but make sure you ask for the glass ones; the cheapest ones speak for themselves, they aren't great at all at pulling flavor or getting any smoke. Pricewise, its pretty cheap, for your regular Al Fakher, starting at 11.99 (if I remember correctly).

2) The food, though in my opinion a bit overpriced, is actually really good taste-wise, and the presentation is well done.

3) It is a small location. Personally, I hate coming to Onyx late night, aka anytime when the Corner is poppin. And especially on Thursday-Saturday. I like coming to Onyx during the late afternoon or early evening, where there are people definitely in the establishment, but its easy to sit with friends, have a convo, enjoy a meal, and obviously enjoy a hookah. Late night, as mentioned before, is just a huge conglomerate of people, and you really cant enjoy a hookah at all.

4) The 1 hookah per 3 people rule I believe is really dumb, and I feel most people agree with that. At times, they are lenient if you have a group of 4, but it IS dependent on what time/how busy they are when you come in. Also, I hate how they only serve bottled water late at night. During the day/evening, its regular "free" water, but at night, its all bottled.

5) Staff; I've never really encountered any problems with them, but they are constantly busy, and with the over-capacity amount of people they let in, its sometimes hard to get a staff member, and many times its happened that they are so overwhelmed with orders that they will forget simple things for your table such as coals. The smoothness of the payment/register could definitely be improved though.

Sincerely,
Alumni of UVA, and pretty frequent visitor of Onyx, primarily because it opened my last year of attending UVA

I have found Onyx's staff to be totally rude and unhelpful.  My friend and I were not provided with a menu to choose a shisha flavor nor were we given a food menu.  Instead, we were provided with the waiter's "recommendations," without prices.  These recommendations ended up costing us upwards of $35.  I cannot believe that a bar/restaurant trying to establish itself on the Corner would fail to provide customers with even a basic menu.  I am calling the establishment tomorrow to dispute the amount they charged my credit card as I was never shown an actual itemized menu or receipt.  In fact, my roommate was gruffly asked to sign a receipt as I had to leave before we were finished due to a cold that I was suffering from.  Nobody at Onyx provided an itemized receipt and she was forced to approve the charge before the staff would return my credit card or drivers' license since I was not present.

While Onyx Lounge is not the best hookah lounge in all the land, it'll certainly suffice for the Corner, the land of mediocre bars and undiscerning students. Let's all understand what Onyx is--a place for people to drink without getting wasted and also a place for the wasted to hang out after the bars have kicked them out.

As to the bouncers, I don't mind their presence. Given that it operates as a late-late-night establishment and that it is somewhat small (and may have strict fire code limits), the lounge is probably right to employ a few bouncers. This is especially true given the gunshots fired on the Corner a few days before spring break. However, I did see the bouncers kick some people out and even arrest what appeared to be a student (it was not clear if the private security guards were also off-duty police officers). I couldn't tell if there was any cause for their actions, so I'll reserve further judgment.

The lounge is certainly more of an urban lounge rather than a traditional lounge given the decor and the music, but it makes some sense given its location on the Corner and its clientele.

As for the shisha, as one who doesn't own his own hookah and thus hasn't had the need to buy his own shisha, I don't have a great sense of the quality and potency of the flavors for each brand. I will say the strawberry in the "Fruit" section was ordinary and somewhat light on flavor. But I know that, even within brands, the strength of flavor and smoothness of smoke will vary in addition to any variation caused by how the bowl is packed and the heat of the coal.

Basically, if you don't have your own hookah or want something to do after bars close, Onyx isn't a bad choice (and, on the Corner, is the only choice).