JC’s Place

This place is ridiculously over priced. They make you believe that everything is all inclusive and then charge you more for what they call extras. The «Lady» told us we could be there between certain hours to set up and then changed it at the last minute, and charged us by the hour. The linens were dirty, the tables we falling apart as well as the chairs. She was totally unprofessional and refused to meet us face to face. She handled all conversations over the phone. If I could give it less than 1 star I would.

I was lucky enough to join them on the Valentines dinner and dancing. The remodel is amazing! So elegant and timeless. There’s new chandeliers, new paint, new flooring and more. The event staff was great that night and made sure all guest were happy! I look forward to attending any event in the future there!

I would highly recommend this downtown event venue to anyone considering hosting a large scale event or wedding. The venue has recently hired new managers, and although it is true that the venue’s past has been a bit rocky, that was certainly not the case for the Valentine’s Event we attended this past weekend at JC’s Place. The inside of the venue has been totally transformed into a stunning, elegant and sophisticated ballroom, with a large mezzanine level, bar area, large kitchen and dance floor. The managers took into account even the smallest details when setting up for this event: fresh flowers in the restrooms, a harpist playing in the mezzanine during the wine tasting portion of the evening and lovely, fabric covered panels decorating the walls of the venue. The chandeliers and draping are breath-​taking, and the brand new bar is fantastic: a bartender’s dream. The new managers have truly poured their heart and soul into this huge undertaking, as evidenced by the amazing results. As a venue owner myself I can appreciate the inordinate amount of hard work that has been put into this transformation. I would not hesitate for one moment to refer any of my brides, who desire an indoor venue, to JC’s Place. Sincerely, Michele Dorner

Valentines dinner, beautiful place, great for any event. Love it!!! Dinner was amazing very romantic!

All I can say is wow what a transformation. This place is amazing. New pant, New chandeliers and Under awesome new management. You need to see it to believe it.

I love all the new changes. The place is amazing. Valentine’s Day event was beautiful. Me and my husband my mother and father, and sister and brother in went. The staff was very friendly. I would tell everyone if u need a place to rent for your special day this is the place !!!

JCs place is a spacious and beautiful venue in town. We recently held my daughter’s wedding here in January 2016. Matthew and his team came through with everything our contract specified. The day was very magical. Thank you JC’s place for having integrity in your business dealings with us.
We loved the valet service especially. Our guests thought this service was a great inclusion since downtown parking can be difficult. The security guard opening the door for our guests was a nice touch too. The heat system could use some work, but once our guests arrived it was a non-​issue.

We booked this venue for our wedding with great optimism. The wedding coordinator at the time was friendly, knowledgeable, and caring. Months later, we attempted to contact the venue multiple times via phone, email, text and stopping by regarding our engagement photo session. Two months passed and we couldn’t get a hold of ANYONE.
Through connections, we managed to identify the owner and his office location offsite for the venue itself. We expressed how unprofessional and bizarre it is to not be able to get a hold of a business, including its manager or owner. He expressed no sympathy or apology and asked what it was we were attempting to get a hold of them for. We discussed the opportunity of shooting our engagement photos on the roof top and capture the unique downtown Bakersfield scene. He agreed but asked we not post ANY photos anywhere due to the fact that they don’t have the proper licenses and permits. This came as a shock to us since our wedding contract specifically specified access to the rooftop. We told him we would work with that request for the engagement session and confirmed the date and time. We had a bad feeling about the venue after not being able to get a hold of anyone for months. After the owner stated this, we knew something wasn’t right. Fast forward to the day of the engagement session. NO ONE SHOWED UP to open up the venue. After additional attempts at emailing, calling (voicemail full for months so I can’t even leave a voicemail!), nothing, no contact, nothing.
I sent one last email requesting another meeting with the owner to express our frustration, disappointment, and lack of follow though. The new manager, for the first time in months, called me back. I asked him to set up a meeting with himself, the owner, and my fiancée and I to discuss our contract. He promised to «take care of us» and didn’t call us back at all. After waiting on his call back for over a week, we decided unfortunately, we had to go speak to the owner directly ourselves again. After 2 visits, we found him again in his office, asked for a few moments of his time, and expressed our frustration and lack of customer service, communication, and follow through. Due to the rooftop access not being an option at all due to their lack of permits and licenses, there was no other option than for the contract to be cancelled and have double our deposit returned to us, per their contract. The owner informed us we would have our deposit by Monday.
I returned to the venue on Monday as agreed to receive our deposit back and no one was there. The owner’s employee from his offsite office called me and told me nastily I would only be receiving my initial deposit due to the fact that WE cancelled and not them! I still cannot believe her nerve or the nerve of the owner to agree in our face and then turn around and change the terms. Even worse, after attempting to cash their check at THEIR bank, I was informed by the manager they would not cash my check due to INSUFFICIENT FUNDS! We ONCE AGAIN returned to their office for the 4^th time and informed them of their botched check. They made a phone call to the bank, asked the bank to «make it work» and sent us back to the bank! We had no choice but to continue down the rabbit hole of nightmare. Upon returning to bank, they hastily cashed our deposit check and finally our nightmare is over. I’ve NEVER come across a business that cares less about their clients than this place. I should share that I am grateful we walked away from this place before THEY cancelled on us. Apparently, through other clients, friends, and their own past employees, this place DOUBLE BOOKS you, then cancels YOU or the other client just a week or two before the event leaving you high and dry! The guy that owns this place doesn’t care one iota about you. They don’t pay vendors what is owed either, all around crooks!
I really hope this place’s clients read this, prepare themselves for a laundry list of disappointments, and realize they’re in for a rocky ride.

The building itself is pretty great, but not without its problems. Large, wide open ballroom with a neutral color scheme that can be decorated to fit any style of event — from low key and cheap and to high class and ritzy. When it’s all done up the place is absolutely gorgeous and I have no complaints on this end of things whatsoever. However, there’s more to a venue than just being pretty.
Something you may not notice is that the only lighting they have is harsh fluorescent. If you’re just having a trade show or something like that then it probably doesn’t matter, but if your event is a little more intimate (like a wedding reception) then you’re going to have to pay a separate vendor to come install different lighting that can be dimmed or shaded. Just plan on adding at least $ 1,000.00 to your bill if this is the case. This is only for the ballroom. The loft has virtually zero lighting and requires even more money to have lighted. Compared to more established venues that have been around longer, most of the ones I visited already had all the lighting one would need. JC’s Place may be a little cheaper than them on the surface, but when you add in the cost of additional lighting it can actually be more expensive.
There are a few other minor annoyances. There’s no filtered water dispenser in the kitchen, tap water only. If you’re having an event where you’re serving a lot of water or punch you’ll need to buy all the water you need and carry the water bottles into the kitchen, then have somebody one by one open them up and pour them into the drink dispenser or whatever you have available. Again, other venues in town have filtered water dispensers so this is something to consider when booking this place. Carrying 60 separate 1 gallon bottles of water into the kitchen, especially if you can’t find a parking space up close, isn’t fun. Then there’s the weird issue of the ice dispenser not being in the kitchen, but in the back of the building in the hallway. You’re probably used to having EVERYTHING you need in one kitchen — well, almost. While they do have a very large fridge, there’s only one of them. When you’re booking a venue that can hold 125 people and you need to chill 50 bottles of champagne and also keep the cakes, salad, and various other things cold you’ll realize that one fridge clearly isn’t enough. I had to put some of the champagne in the ice machine, others I put in some ice chests I brought. Yet again, more hassle that I’d rather not have to deal with. Also, thinking about taking some rooftop photos? Well, grandma can’t come. The elevator doesn’t go up to the roof so you have to take several flights of stairs to get there. For me it was no problem at all, but if you have a family member that’s disabled or elderly it may be a deal breaker.
Lastly, I’ll leave out names but I’d like to talk about the person you’ll be dealing with when booking this place. For the sake of ease we’ll call him R. R is by far the worst part of this venue. Expect him to be at least 15 minutes late to every meeting you schedule with him — obviously extremely unprofessional. Also, every time you meet with him he WILL try to raise the price on things already specified in your contract, or try to convince you that you haven’t paid for things which you already did. Between me booking the event and the actual event I met with him six separate times, and each time he did this. First he told me that security was built into the cost of the venue, then I almost signed the contract when I saw that he added security in for another $ 400. Almost didn’t see it in time! He apologized and took it out, but the next time I met with him a month later he played dumb and again asked for the $ 400 for security. Then I’d make payments on the place and he’d tell me I still had more left to pay off than I actually did. You have to be REALLY careful when dealing with R because if you let him he WILL rip you off. You have to know EXACTLY what your contract says and you have to know EXACTLY what you have paid for. Usually when you sign contracts you don’t sit down and read the whole thing before signing it, right? Well, do that in this case. You might be making a several hundred dollar mistake. Lastly, it took almost an entire month to get my security deposit back, despite him promising me that it was in the mail already only to admit later that it never had been mailed at all. He’s not a jerk or anything. He’s very nice and friendly, almost unprofessionally so. But behind his jokes and friendly banter he’ll be trying to scheme ways to get more money out of you than you planned on paying. Maybe I’m misjudging him. Maybe he’s honestly not doing it intentionally. Well at best he’s extremely disorganized, constantly unprofessional, and completely inept. At worst he’s crooked, a liar, and cheat. Either way, not somebody I’d like to do business with in the future.
With work this place could be five stars. Right now? Three at most.

I recently went to this place for a wedding and it was the worst experience for a wedding reception, while the ceremony was going on all you can hear was a loud A\C unit motor running. very bad!

This was a great event; for Bakersfield’s first bacon fest it was awesome. I can imagine the next few to be even better if it was this good for the first time. If you’re a beer drinker you would have wanted to give this a five star rating, I’m not a beer drinker, but it was good enough for me to still have a good time (I drank the whiskey and beer anyway lol). The only things I could say they could have done better with was the VIP area, it wasn’t wort it, it was a sh! t hole (so glad we didn’t get it) the rest of the areas were way better. Also having more fans on or crank it up higher cause after a few drinks and some dancing it got hot. Other than that not bad, there were different bacon foods, fun dress up photo booths, live music upstairs, DJ downstairs, mechanical bull rides, LOTS of different beers (we had cards where they were suppose to mark if we had a drink or food but nobody cared, EVERYONE was feelin the festivities). Like I said good event, looking forward to it next year if they have it.