Uptown Hookah

Love Uptown Hookah, the location is cool, entry is free all night and parking is cheap! I only had one incident. Got to Uptown around 9:45ish and it took at least 20mins for someone to take our order, strike one. So then is was 10:45 and still nothing. Strike two. Got the attention of some random worker to take our order yet again and after about 30mins of nothing, I got pissed. Strike three. So I demanded the manager. He came over apologizing and such offering us hookah and refills and drinks of our choice on them which was cool cause I don’t play lol. Everybody has their nights but it wasn’t THAT busy to where we had to wait 2hrs for service, sorry not sorry. But I’ll still be going cause I love this place!

The review should be negative 2. Seriously! I saw an advertisement stating that on Sundays they are open at 12 with drink, hookah and food specials. Got there at noon ready to watch the Dallas game and the place was still dirty from the night before. Disgusting!!! No food. Waiting on the caterer was told. That’s crazy. Don’t go there

Went to Uptown last Friday for a small birthday gathering. We arrived about 10:30 pm and were the first people inside. I asked the doorman if the place usually gets busy and he let me know that it does some time later, so we stuck around.
We chose a booth seat and went to the bar to order drinks and hookah. The bartender let us know he would send our hookah to the table, which he did. The hookah and drinks were good, but the service was terrible. Although the place never filled up, Our coals constantly needed to be replaced, and there was no one to assist. I saw a guy replace the coals at another table, but when I asked him for new coals he told me he was busy. The coals were so bad we weren’t able to smoke the hookah for over an hour. We also ordered food from the bartender, who was very friendly again and let us know our food would be sent over. Unfortunately, our food did not arrive for at least 45 minutes later.
I would not recommend Uptown. There are plenty of hookah places around that have better service and are attentive to their customers.

An interesting, unique hookah experience for sure, but the dingy atmosphere and hit or miss service make it unappealing.
I’ve been here a couple of times with friends just as a change of pace from other more traditional hookah places. This place is a mixture of a dance club and a hookah bar/​place. It has a bar, dance floor, and DJ booth along with seating all around.
My main gripes with Uptown Hookah are that the place is very dark and dingy. It just doesn’t feel clean. The inside just seems really divey. Also their beer selection is pretty bad, and they are typically out of a number of beers the 2 times I’ve been there.
Hookah is $ 16 for a water base, $ 22 for a well liquor base, and $ 25 for a Premium liquor base. Their flavors are good, but I don’t think they give you very much shisha for the price. I would however recommend the «Swagberry» flavor. It’s pretty good. Also they won’t give you 2 hoses, even if you have 7 people like we did.
Mixed drinks and drink prices are pretty typical of a nightclub, so I’ve got no complaints there. Food is surprisingly good. The Jalapeño Poppers I got were fresh and tasted good. So a thumbs up to the food.
The DJ was really good. Plays nothing but rap but his song selection was on point.
I’ think overall if they just made the inside look nicer it would go a long way. Right now it looks like they don’t care about how it looks.

Every time I go it’s a great time no matter if it’s packed or not. Great drinks, great hookah, and the environment is amazing. Thumbs up

Fridays are pretty cool, They have the best BBQ wings and set potato fries, it’s a hit or miss, fridays are normally live though

Great, relaxed hookah lounge/​bar in a convenient location near the Galleria. Depending on what night of the week you go, the crowd varies. Weds night is college night so if you want to avoid the younger crowd, I wouldn’t recommend going on a weds! Most other week nights are quiet. Carlos is the best bartender!!! Always makes the strongest drinks and is very cool. They also have hookahs for $ 15 and they have SO many favors to choose from! You can also ask them to mix flavors to customize something specifically to your tastes. The food is a step above bar food, and is priced reasonably. The patio is amazing on a nice HOUSTON night.

My review is for drinks and hookah only. The food was a nonissue.
This place definitely has lost some of the glamour that the photos show from 5 years ago, but it is still a great place. On a Thursday night, the well drinks were $ 3.00 and the hookah setup was only $ 15 with a $ 10 shisha refill. Two people were able to smoke for several hours on the two bowls and I am sure we left a half full pot because it was almost 11pm.
Fairly attentive, but I don’t mind going to the bar for things anyway. The coals were replaced often and burned for a long time.
I will definitely be back to this place. There were maybe 10 other customers and the music inside was very loud and not my style, but sitting outside on a breezy night was wonderful.

The pictures on Unilocal of this establishment are very misleading. It is more like a club than a hookah bar, where the atmosphere should be relaxing. My friends and I entered with the music blaring had to pay $ 5 to park and the inside looks dilapidated. The drinks were expensive. Two cranberry vodkas were about $ 17, which was ridiculous. Maybe at one point Uptown Hookah looked like the pictures on Unilocal but not last night.

Perfect place if you’re looking for a chill place to drink and smoke hookah (i think they even have food) I went on a friday and there was a dj playing mostly hip hop. The bartender was awesome. helped us pick out a delicious hookah. My boyfriend and I sat in the back room and watched the basketball game. There is also a patio if you’re feeling wild! I recommend the purple haze hookah. The crowd was nice… not packed at all. just the way we like it!

Friday nite is THE NITE TO GO if you love a dope Reggae band./ I had every bit of fun.
Also the Hookah is off the chain. Just a very chill environment (:
Be prepared to pay for parking — whyyyyy tho!!!):

(On a Saturday) Honestly the service was horrible, the chicken and fries came out cold, and the hookah was ok but no one checked on us nor did they fix the charcoal. I really only liked the dj and the music. Granted there was only one waitress I seen and she did her best but the drinks came out slow, i dont know if it was da bartender or what. Something positive, I guess it was reasonable priced. Maybe I’ll try another night i dont know yet

Uptown can be a hit or miss. One of the best places to go for hookah, drinks && a live DJ.
About the Hookahs: they carry Haze (best shisha ever!!) and fantasia brand. All the hookahs are ONE hose, so if you are looking for the multiparty hookahs this is not the place. The prices are great compared to other hookah spots!
Drinks: the prices are average for this area of town. No happy hour on the weekend, but awesome specials on the weekdays. Bottoms up right? By far some of the greatest bartenders I’ve met. Friendly && strong ass drinks! Turn up!
Food: well it’s bar food. The chicken wings a bomb! && they serve chicken and waffles.

Okay this club is live or whatever especially on Wednesday other than that it’s cool. Good drinks and a good time if you want to have a live night I suggest this club only on Wednesday

Service: horrible. two waitresses I’ve had are nice, but you see them every blue moon.
Atmosphere: loud 24/​7, not a good place to come and chat with friends.
Hookah: the worst! Their bowls are barely full, and after two rounds of coals (which suck) they force you to buy another bowl, even of there’s more shisha (flavor).
Parking: sucks. If you get there early enough, it’s free. Otherwise, $ 10 for parking, $ 5 for parking on dirt gravel in the back.
This place went way down and I’ll probably never go back.

Service is HORRIBLE!!!
I came here around 10 pm on a Saturday and I have to say this is some of the worst service I have ever received. We sat at a table with a holes and burn marks all over the seats and waited for at least 20 mins for someone to notice us. The wait was in vain because finally I had to get up and ask someone for a waitress to come to our table. I was told it would be a few minutes after another 10 mins I got up a second time and asked another waitress finally I was handed a wrinkled laminated menu with no explanation of what flavors were. I’m sure you’re wondering why I hadn’t left at this point and the answer is I wanted to at least get my $ 7 worth of parking and no the $ 7 isn’t valet it’s self park. After finally receiving the hookah I had to continue to get up and hunt someone down for coal.
When the waitress would finally come back around she would only have two coals on the entire tray and only refill the one table who asked with no concern for her other patrons. Most hookah locations have someone whose job is specifically to walk around and make sure everyone has enough coal. Instead this place has two bus boys who just stand around looking into space. When it came time to order drinks she would bring watered down drinks in cheap disposable plastic cups. I can truly say if you expect anything that resembles service avoid this place like the plague. I will never come back and I have no clue why people continue to give this place their money. It’s clear they don’t care about customers instead the managers would rather stand around drinking and smoking hookah while the waitresses walk around in booty shorts twerking. Another thing is I seriously doubt the hookahs are properly cleaned because the base is taped to the shaft which makes it virtually impossible for them to clean out the old water and disinfect it. The only good part was the dj and I’m sure you could find equally good music somewhere else

Terrible terrible terrible.
How does an establishment charge $ 10 a person for cover on a Friday night when the place is empty, and then charge $ 5 to park your own car ?!? Drinks are also extremely over priced… I would highly suggest going elsewhere for hookah.
This place is too money hungry.

OK, so I am not a smoker. I smoke one (or two) cigars a year when on Vacation just for fun, but generally I can’t stand smoke. I had never tried smoking from a Hookah, so you could imagine my surprise with the realization that Hookah smoke is completely clean (meaning it doesn’t have the after taste cigars and cigarettes have)!! Woo hoo!
Don’t be fooled, you will still choke if you inhale it wrong, but it’s pretty fun.
We went to this place on a Saturday night and it was EMPTY. There were probably another 10 people in the whole entire place. The parking is $ 5 and it’s not even Valet. I wasn’t too thrilled that we had to pay $ 5 to park the car in a unpaved lot.
My friend ordered the Hookah and it took them about 10 – 15 minutes to prepare it for us. We actually played a pool game while they got it ready. I, of course, was winning the game but didn’t want my friend to feel bad that a girl beat him… so I let him win. Yes, I am very compassionate.
The place is just an OK establishment, looks a little worn out. We sat outdoors and it was actually a very nice night. I think it was an overall great first time Hookah experience and will definitely do it again. We smoked the mint flavored only, but I hear they have a lot of great choices!

We were trying to find a hookah joint to go smoke after dinner and we decided to go to Uptown Hookah based on driving distance alone. What a mistake that was. I knew we were not gonna have a good time when I was charged $ 5 for parking (more like a gravel pit), and the lot was pretty much empty. Huh?
The unfriendly bouncer gave us the side-​eye before letting us in. Once inside there were about 3 people there that were not employees. On a Friday night that’s pretty sad. The vibe was similar to a crappy strip club (anybody saw that movie «The Players Club»?) After looking at the price list and the condition of the place, we decided to just get the hell out of there.

I am amending my review based on my most recent experience at Uptown Hookah on July 18, 2009. I visit Uptown Hookah fairly regularly but on this night I was bringing some people from out of town for their first hookah experience. I figured Uptown would not be crowded, it would be relaxed and a good first experience for my family.
We attempted to park the two vehicles in the empty parking lot. After we parked and bgan walking toward the door, a guy approached us about paying $ 5.00 per vehicle. It’s not the money but I refuse to pay to park any place where I am coming to patron their business. I’m coming to spend money at your business and you want to charge me to park!!! WTF That is the biggest pet peeve of mine. And whats funny is that, there is a Sams Boat (over flow parking lot) behind Uptown where they charge $ 3.00 per vehicle and is only 10 feet away. But there was no way I was going to pay $ 5.00 per vehicle.
I go in to talk to a manager and there is NOONE in there. The place is completely empty other than the manager who is sitting at the bar talking to the bartender. The manager tells me that they always charge and I tell him he is a lie because I come there regularly.
There was two other occassions that I have had this problem with Uptown. On one ocassion, I told the parking lot attendant that I was not going to pay and that I would take it up with the manager. He told me, dont worry about it, but had the nerve to say, «Well if people dont even want to pay $ 5.00 to park they probably arent going to spend any money in the business anyways».
The second time, I was going to meet a friend there on a Sunday night. He arrived before me and was told he had to park. Of course I told him not to and to wait for me. When I got there I told the parking attendant that I was not asking him to valet my vehicle and that I wasnt going to pay him anything. I told him that I was tired of them always trying to haggle money on the parking for an establishment that rarely has a crowd anyways.
Well, with my family with me, it was a complete embarrassment. I left and will never go back. I can smoke narghili from Café Europe, Ya Ya Marys, Ranoush, or a few other hookah bars for free. It’s obvious we only go for the hookah as there is usually no crowd. Next they will be charging a cover at the door
We ended up at Café Europe that night, and though it was a little more expensive, the accomodations were great. Id rather pay more money somewhere else than pay to park in the parking lot of a business I am bringing people and money to.