Soul Mama Music Venue | Restaurant Arvostelua 11

Well I complained directly to them but they could be bothered to reply so here goes:
Firstly, I want to say that Legend was fantastic—a brilliant Bob Marley tribute band, and I would highly recommend seeing them again. However, I regret to inform you that my experience at Soul Mamas fell short of expectations, and I wanted to share these concerns in the hope that you can improve your service and food offering.

Booking and Communication Issues:

I booked the tickets after receiving an advertising mailing from you on the 20th of February for myself and my boyfriend. We paid £25 each, plus a booking fee, which the website indicated included a table reservation. This was great as we were looking forward to dinner, especially as the date was close to our anniversary.

On the 2nd of April, I received an email stating that I needed to pay a £15 deposit per person to secure our table. I didn't want to risk having the date ruined, so I paid. The following day, I called and spoke to Nicole, who assured me that the £30 I paid would be applied as a deposit against our final bill.

However, upon arrival at the venue, we were told that we would be seated at separate seats, which I found unacceptable. After raising the issue, we were eventually given a table for two, but I later noticed that other patrons were paying £15 for the same band and did not need to book tickets. It became clear that the £15 deposit was instead intended to pay the band, which felt misleading.

Service and Food Quality:

Once seated, we waited for an hour and a half before I flagged down a waiter to ask if we could order food and drinks. A rather rude waitress then approached us and told us we needed to change the light in order to be served. No one had informed us about this, so it was unclear to us.

After ordering drinks, it took 20 minutes before we could place our food order. When the food finally arrived, it was missing our sides, which we had clearly ordered. The sides took another 15 minutes to be delivered.

The portion sizes were small, with only five pieces of chicken in my dish. By the time the sides arrived, we had already eaten most of our meal, as we were understandably hungry and couldn't wait any longer.

Additionally, the table next to us was occupied by the Caribbean Elderly Association, a lovely group of pensioners who, unfortunately, could not afford to dine properly and were only having drinks and a packet of crisps they had brought with them. I found it rather disappointing that they were not offered any sort of discount or assistance, especially considering there were 25 of them.

Billing and Final Issues:

When the bill came, the £30 deposit was not deducted as agreed. I raised the issue, and a manager came over to review the receipts. Despite my explanation that Nicole had confirmed the £30 deposit would be applied, the manager questioned me and took down my email receipts. Eventually, they agreed to apply the discount, but it was done in a way that was confusing, with the £30 spread across multiple dishes as smaller discounts. Upon reviewing the bill the next day, I realized that the total was still missing some of the discount, and the £30 was not fully applied as promised.

Previous Experience:

This was actually my second visit to Soul Mamas, and I regret to mention that my first experience was equally disappointing. On that occasion, I had to wait at the door for 20 minutes due to a booking issue, which further detracted from my overall experience.

Conclusion:

I hope you can take this feedback constructively to improve the service and food quality at Soul Mamas. The venue and entertainment have great potential, but the service and communication issues, along with the food and billing errors, left me disappointed. I trust you will consider these points for future improvement.

The website information was a little confusing. Our booking was for 6:30 pm for the concert, but we were initially told the table was only for two hours, while the live singing didn’t start until 8:30 pm. Thankfully this was clarified once we arrived and we were able to keep the table for the whole evening, which was appreciated.

The staff were generally friendly and helpful. I had booked for five people, but the table was really set for four with an extra chair added on the end, so it felt slightly cramped.

The cocktails were nice, although I noticed the second round was served in different, thinner glasses, which felt a little inconsistent.

For food, we ordered jerk chicken and fries. The flavour was okay, but the chicken felt a bit dry and the fries didn’t seem freshly cooked, which was a little disappointing.

The entertainment was the highlight of the night. The performance was fun, well put together, and the atmosphere in the room was great. My mum really enjoyed it, which made the evening worthwhile.

Overall I’d rate the experience around 6.5/10. A fun night out with good live music, but some improvements to the food, table setup, and booking information would make the experience much better. With clearer booking information and a little more attention to the food and table layout, this could easily become a really great venue for live music nights.

I booked and paid a deposit of £60 for a table of 4 two weeks before the date. It was a special occasion; my daughter’s birthday and we travelled 1.5 hours into London especially. Once in London I received a call from the restaurant to advise that they were cancelling my booking as the venue was hired out for an event who had exclusive use. We were therefore stranded, dressed up and out of pocket for the train costs on a busy Saturday afternoon with nowhere to go. How can a restaurant accept booking when they have the venue booked out?! Apparently I was told that there were others that also had to be called. It absolutely ruined what should have been a lovely afternoon as it’s really hard (impossible in fact) to find and book a last minute restaurant in London particularly when you haven’t a clue where to start or go!
Ironically even after their call it was still possible to book a table on line!
Shocking and so disappointing
Needless to say that I would t give them a second chance for fear of them cancelling on the day! Oh and they had my money for two weeks and now I need to wait another week to get a refund!

As this was going to be my first time, I was looking forward to the whole experience. Unfortunately, I have to rate Soul Mama 1 star. I ordered half jerk and chips. By the time it came, the chips were cold and the rest of the plate lukewarm. This was Saturday night. I returned home and suffered severe stomach cramps. For the rest of the weekend, I was throwing up with everything else you get from food poisoning. I will not patronise this establishment again.

This venue is situated in a beautiful place toilets were very clean and inviting. The staff were pleasant.

We had booked our table prior to the arrival 23/11/26. The seating was noticeable crammed having to navigate through awkwardly placed tables where you had to squeeze through each table. We were seated but not told about the light system which they use for ordering. We were sat near the stage which looked organised.

I went to the bathroom came back and was told by my friend about the light systems so they had ordered drinks and food, used the light system ordered two drinks they took at least 30 mins to arrive the rest of the table had their drinks and some of the food only to watch my son wait for at least 30 mins for his rice to accompany his meal, he cancelled the rice in the end, and I have to say his chicken wings were defo overdone because mine came I looked okay…. I ordered 12 chicken wings and trio of doubles. I waited well over 90minutes for these I was thankful that I ordered 12 wings as a share I was absolutely hungry. After several attempts to get the rest of my order they final came to my horror they were cold. The server did apologise and said she would take it off the bill, she bought containers and then we were told if we take food we have pay for the cold food. Really this was getting from bad to worse there is more but really the service was absolutely terrible.

I suggest a good Manager to organise the floor because it was chaotic. The food that I did have tasted good, but servicing cold food and overcooked food tables only getting part of their orders…. Is a kitchen problem. This let Soul Mama down for me.

I will end on a positive The Neo Soul Experience was amazing. That what made my night. That’s what stopped me from walking out and never to return. The performances were well worth the wait. Notice to camera person be aware that people are trying to watch show take your pictures and move out of the way so we can see.

Anticipating my visit to Soul Mama to see Michelle Henderson, I hoped for a great experience but ended up quite let down. Being unable to handle spicy dishes, I found myself without any suitable vegan choices—the squash salad even turned out to be surprisingly spicy and not edible for me. The fact that the menu is entirely spicy was both shocking and disheartening. I sent two emails expressing my concerns, yet received no response or acknowledgement. While the atmosphere at Soul Mama is lively, the absence of non-spicy options and lack of basic customer service left me with a negative impression. Feeling valued as a customer was challenging in this situation.

I was really looking forward to visiting Soul Mama to see Michelle Henderson, but I left incredibly disappointed. As someone who cannot eat spicy food, I found no suitable vegan options — even the squash salad was unexpectedly spicy and inedible. I was told that everything on the menu is spicy, which was really surprising and disappointing.
I emailed my complaint twice afterwards and received no acknowledgement and no reply.
Soul Mama is a vibrant venue, but the lack of non-spicy options — and the lack of basic customer care — has left a very poor impression. It’s hard to feel valued as a customer.

We were a family group of four and booked to eat dinner two and a half hours prior to a show ( only 15 mins walk away).

The food was terrible and the service dangerous with so many errors.

My daughter does not drink alcohol, as she is breastfeeding and this was explained to the waiter. However despite ordering a mocktail she was served a cocktail version with alcohol, so she drank alcohol which was dangerous, and a serious error

When she realised she had drank half as it was sweet so she pointed it out to staff, and they replaced it and she received a lack luster apology.

Food arrived inefficiently served, one or two dishes at a time with gaps and then we were left waiting for cutlery after all the mains were served.

The chicken wings were so small and underwhelming ( we were thankful we had ordered 12).

The king prawn starter was supposed to be three but were actually four overcooked small king prawns not worth the £13.
The lamb main course was served swimming in oil. So much so, my sister had to spoon the oil into a glass. It tasted of so much oil she left most of her food untouched.

The chicken main dish had only three small pieces of chicken in it snd loads of potatoes and carrots, and the curry tasted like it was from a packet or tin, not freshly made or authentic.

When we called the staff member to alert her to this dish issues. She was told the chicken is portioned like that and when a replacement main dish was requested, told that as my daughter had placed the spoon in the dish ( trying to search for any chicken) she would have to pay for it, so they could make her something else but she would need to pay for both dishes!!

The manager was requested and he resolved it by bringing some more chicken.

Five-ten mins after this conversation the waitress returned and asked how it was resolved and said she wasn't sure if I was OK with how she had spoken before. I explained that it landed very badly and suggested she perhaps shouldn't speak like that to any other customer in future.

The two salmon mains were OK, nothing to wrote home about

We asked for the bill in plenty of time, 15 mins in advance of needing to leave. The bill took over 15 mins to arrive, we had to chase it up twice, despite restaurant being half empty.

After that there was further ten minutes of faffing by what seemed like a group of staff at the bar, after we discovered they added to our bill two extra prawn dishes ( £8.50 and £8.50) which we had not ordered or received and had actually charged for the alcoholic cocktail they had served in major error!! ( £12)

The service charge was removed on request.

Bill was £161 without service charge , but food and experience was not worth this.

Needless to say we were late for our show at Sadlers Wells East.

Would never eat here again. Suggest avoid as food and service terrible.

Restaurant visited 29 Nov, and emailed on 4 Dec. Despite promise on acknowledgement email they have failed to contact me and I am still waiting for a response.

I feel it is necessary to formally register my deep dissatisfaction with the so called “premium” seating at Soul Mamas, for which we paid a total of £91.26 for two tickets.
The ticket description explicitly promised “very good view seats” and “queue jump,” yet neither of these was provided.

The seating arrangement consists of long, banquet style tables positioned at right angles to the stage an inherently impractical layout for anyone expecting a clear line of sight.

My wife and I were placed at the far end of one of these tables, requiring us to look past four other guests seated on our table & VIP guests in front, simply to see the performance. To describe these seats as “premium” is, quite frankly, misleading.

Prior to purchasing our tickets, we visited the venue specifically to clarify the seating plan. Management informed us that the small tables for two, situated near the front of the stage (though not front row), were classified as premium. This information directly influenced our decision to buy premium tickets.

However, on the night, we were abruptly told that those tables were actually VIP contradicting the guidance previously given and leaving us assigned to significantly inferior seats.

The long tables seating ten offer a notably poor vantage point for anyone positioned toward the furthest end of the table and in no way justify a price of £91.26 under the banner of a “premium experience.” At best, these seats should be considered standard; at worst, they verge on obstructed view seating.

To be absolutely clear, Omar and his band delivered an outstanding performance. The only factor that detracted from the evening was the unacceptable sightline an issue created entirely by the venue, not by the artist. The bar staff, to their credit, were polite and efficient.

Management must be considerably more transparent about what customers are paying for. Marketing these seats as premium is not merely inaccurate, it comes across as intentionally misleading.

Charging £91.26 for such a compromised view is, in my view, wholly indefensible.

Great atmosphere and entertainment.

Service was ridiculously slow although the staff were nice and friendly. We waited for over 20 minutes for a cutlery (at this time it wasn't busy) - We had to ask multiple staff members and ended up pinching one from another table after 10 minutes and by then the food was cold. By the time they eventually came with the cutlery our starters were over.
We didn't complain was we didn't want it to ruin our celebration, but it did really annoy me.

Cocktails was more mocktails - didn't taste like it had any alcohol, it was a nice mocktail.

I would go again and do recommend this place if you want a chilled yet fun vibe - just make sure you warm up your vocal cords because the music is on point!!

Soul Mama is an amazing place to go to. We hired them for our company birthday anniversary, and they truly exceeded our expectations.

At first, we were a little concerned, as some of their event staff had moved on, and we worried there might be a loss of communication. However, the team picked everything up quickly and smoothly, making the whole experience seamless. Even down to the change of dates due to the strikes, as our event was originally scheduled for the 5th of September.

They managed to cater for around 40 to 45 people, providing welcome drinks, prosecco, wine, a DJ, a photo booth, starters, and mains. Everything was organised beautifully and ran without a hitch.

The staff were incredibly friendly, and the food was fantastic. I didn’t get the chance to fully enjoy my lamb neck as I stepped away for a short break and returned to find my plate cleared. The team kindly replaced it with jerk chicken, which was lovely, but from the small taste I had of the lamb neck, I can say it was absolutely divine. I’ll definitely be returning to order it properly next time.

My personal favourite, though, was the Arepa, it was absolutely banging. Highly recommend, and I’ll be ordering that many more times again.

We will definitely consider this place again in the future, whether for company events, friends, or family.