Glowbal Restaurant Venue Review
An upscale restaurant on the corner of West Georgia & Richards Street, the Glowbal offers a great dining experience on two floors as well as rooms for your private events. The venue is tucked in beside the TELUS building and can be a bit difficult to find amidst all the glass and chrome of the buildings.
As a DJ, I found getting into the venue for events a little difficult. Parking is under the TELUS building and is quite expensive. I paid $20.33 from 6 PM to 11 PM (5 hours). There was a special event on while I was there and I could not pay past 11 PM even though I was going to be DJ-ing at the Glowbal until 1 AM. I did try to add time at 11 PM using the HangTag app but it would not work. I finally had to ask one of the guests to go down to the parking lot with my credit card and add a few more hours for an additional $10.20…very inconvenient.
I also might add that the glass elevator from the parking lot to the street level shuts off at 6 PM. You can come up from the parking lot but not go down. At the end of the evening, you must go over to the TELUS building and buzz the security guard who will then key the elevator so you can get back down to your parked vehicle.
The restaurant itself does not have an elevator to the second floor. Vendors have to park in an alleyway and wait for a staff member to come and get them, then take them and their equipment to the second floor via the service elevator. It comes out in the kitchen area and is a tight squeeze to get equipment through to the event rooms. If there are any mobility challenged persons on your guest list, this venue may not be suitable for your function. There is only one bathroom on the second floor with the main bathrooms being three stairwells down below the main floor.
Most of my observations may not be a concern for you, but once upstairs on the second floor where the event rooms are located, things are much smoother. They have a few event rooms and the gold room, where I was located, was capable of holding about forty guests with an appetizer layout. There was room for a dance area as well. If you were going to have a sit-down dinner, less guest space would be available. There are no built in-ceiling speakers or microphone for any speeches or projector and screen for presentations. However, the room is small and it is possible to really not require these items. It is air-conditioned but they tend to leave the large side window open in the summer so I am not sure how warm it would be in the gold room during a summer heatwave. This is a similar issue I noticed at the Washing Grill Restaurant.
The staff is awesome. They are very attentive and helpful. One of the staff made sure I and the guests had what they needed and they checked often. One of the staff helped me getting equipment into the venue and out again at the end of the evening at 1:30. This was much appreciated as the ally way at night had some dubious characters going back and forth…possibly looking for an opportunity.
The Glowbal restaurant is a very nice venue with excellent services and staff. Parking and access for your vendors or mobility challenged guests is more difficult than usual but not so for regular guests. Because of this, I give the restaurant 3.9 out of 5 stars as an event venue.
Did you find this review helpful? Read more about my DJ adventures at the Floata Seafood Restaurant.