Scarab Hookah Lounge

Bad service (even on a dead night). TERRIBLE ventilation. Over priced. Limited selection. Music was blasting so you can’t hear the person sitting next to you (again, even on a dead night)

I was kicked out because they thought my ID was fake. Warning: if you have an out of state ID, it may not work! Other than that seemed like a cool place for New Yorkers!

The hookah was ok. I checked in with Unilocal and got an offer for a free extra hookah, but they refused the offer. They said they don’t accept Unilocal deals!

Place is extremely overpriced in my opinion. I will compare the price of what I paid at Scarab vs Babylon. I went with a date and we had 1 hookah and one pitcher of sangria. The total came out to be $ 144. Before I forget, we got the hookah refilled once during the time we were there. So basically one hookah, one picture of sangria, and a refill of the hookah with the same flavor (BlueMist). Total should’ve been $ 85 with the pricing on the menu. The sangria was such watered down, that we asked the owner to pour an extra shot of alcohol in it for us. I guess taking that into consideration may be another $ 10. That with tax no more than $ 100, right?
Now, I took another date to Babylon once. We got one hookah, four shots, I had two beers, and no refill. The shots were some red whiskey shot, I can’t recall. The total for the night was $ 135 for the night. Basically, your $$ goes a lot further in places other than Scarab. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a person that works at Babylon or anything. You can see my reviews for other places, I’ve never given a review to Babylon.
If I absolutely want to smoke hookah somewhere in the city, Scarab should be the last choice on the menu. There’s a lot better places to go.

I strongly dislike this place. Friend and myself met a few girls.
When we moved our table together with theirs (with their permission) the manager came by to inform us we were «not allowed» to do this. I did it again since that is a bullshit rule. They kicked me out. If you want to meet people. Go ANYWHERE BUT HERE!

Overall I had a good time at Scarab. Pretty attentive staff and decent place. I give it 3 stars on account of the lack of flavor for the hookah and loud music on a slow Tuesday night. I’d come back, but it would be great if they tempered the music to crowd a bit.

The drinks are pretty good. Cool-​laid back atmosphere & chill music. Hookah selections aren’t bad either. Only issue it’s going with a large group, they make you get two drinks minimum per person. Good for like 2 – 3 ppl not really for groups.

Pros: good hookah, good baklava, good sangria, nice staff
Cons: they play like 5 songs over and over again, weird roles (like 1 drink min, 1 hookah min, etc), VERY bad ventilation system

Stumbled upon this place because it was right in front of us. Walked in to look at their menu while the lady at the front kept telling us how awesome this place is that she just decided to work there. She was very nice.
We decided to stay for the stake that we were already inside, we were the only customers at the time. The lady recommended us flavors and to add shots to the base. We went from going for the $ 15 flavors to the $ 30 flavors and adding a shot of vodka after listening to the lady. This newly hired lady sure is keeper for the boss. We were required to order a drink each like most hookah places in the area. She told us to order bottled water since we told her we were didn’t want any alcohol.
Fresh fruit skittles flavored hookah with a shot the vodka came. It was not that exciting as she mad it seem. You can see how it taste like skittles; it’s there, it’s not really. The shot of vodka was not worth it, there would have been more of a noticeable difference if the whole base was filled with vodka or at least more than a shot. There was no choice but to stay and finish.
Service is not good. I’ve never been to a hookah bar where I had to peek at the coals before they notice to change it. When we asked to get the check, all the workers were running downstairs and out of sight. The server finally came back to sit down and continued smoking his hookah. When we asked for the check, he pointed towards the lady that was sitting the table next to us to was smoking hookah. She was the boss! (–_​_​-​)
We got the check to find out that we got charged $ 4 for each bottle of Poland Spring! I like Poland Spring, but it’s not worth $ 4 a bottle! The new lady should have showed us the non-​alcoholic drinking menu. Maybe something around the same price would get me something that is not bottled water. Also the receipt already included the 18% gratitude for poor service.

I like this place, although I wouldn’t give it 5 stars. Rating breakdown:
1. good atmosphere,
2. good music
3. good hookah
4. expensive drinks/​shots/​beer
5. watered down shots
6. small
7. often crowded
8. great hostesses

To counteract the bad reviews, I didn’t have any problems with this place.
We came on ⁴⁄₂₀ and there were some incidents next to us where people were putting weed into their hookahs. Those people were forced to pay their bill and ejected. Not an unreasonable thing to do.
I would say that mostly there are cultural misunderstandings between patrons and the management here, and this causes most of the tension. For those coming to get transported away from the hustle and bustle of 2^nd Ave into the land of bellydancing, smoking, and tea drinking… I have no problem with it.
One thing I did notice was that many of the normal hookah selections were not available as it was a peak hour on a peak day and they would only allow you to buy some of the more premium shisha options. I guess if you were out to get them, this would be ‘false advertising’, but it didn’t really bother us as we were splitting it amongst 4 – 5 people.

We ended up stumbling into here after finding out the wait for PDT was two hours. I had never heard of the place before so I had no expectations.
The hookah was fine, nothing special. Some of the servers were friendly and tried to teach us how to blow smoke rings. Other servers were less than friendly. The owner was a little rude. When I checked in on Unilocal it said that we would get an additional free hookah with purchase. So after getting the first hookah I brought this up and he rudely informed me that they do not honor Unilocal deals any longer. Well if that’s the case they should change it on Unilocal.And they should have given us the free hookah for that matter since I had already checked in. Bad customer service on his part.
Also, the drinks here are very weak. They use liquor with a much lower alcoholic content than other places.

All of these ½ star reviews are a little misleading. It’s def a smaller and more intimate feel than Khyber Pass, which I’m not discrediting for anything at all.
The music can be loud but on the weekends, i like it, im not 75, it gets me revved up n ready to smoke some more hookah.
Very attentive servers, drinks are fine, all the beers are $ 6.
I just took my 4-​stars to 3 because i thought about the cramped 2-​seater tables, with uncomfortable stumps for seats. A group of 4 is good because you’ll get a table so it won’t be so bad.
I had the mango and mint mix, $ 20. It was alright, i’ve had better but it wasnt bad

Dear Scarab Lounge,
It would be considerate, considering the heat of New York City during the summer, to install an AC or two, especially considering the smoke everywhere. Or even just some form of ventiliation.
OK, that being said, the hokkah was decent. It wasn’t «ZOMG OUT OF THIS WORLD I’M TOTALLY GOING BACK», clearly, because it’s getting one star… but it wasn’t dreadful.
However, the drinks we ordered were. Also, they claim their hookahs were only «2 people to a hookah». Excuse me? They give you a fine sized hookah and claim only two people two a hookah? Ridiculous. Their staff checks up on you every 30 seconds, but I feel like it is to check that you’re really using two people to a hookah.
Quite honestly, I think this place is just trying to rob us. I’m not planning on going back. There are plenty of decent places in the city, and next time, I’ll spend my money on a place that can splurge for some air conditioners.

All these other reviews with low stars and annoying comments about their hospitality being overbearing is all nonsense. I came to Scarab Hookah lounge with 6 of my coworkers after work on a sunday night and we had a great time.
The place was clean and the service was wonderful. We had three hookahs at the table which was perfect for the amount of people we had and got 4 buckets of beer with are tab being about 160 which was reasonable, $ 30 each was fine with us all.
The service was so good that we didn’t have to ask for anything and what made me respect this place even more was when they heard one of the guys in the group was having a birthday they sent over a dessert with out us even asking. Working in the hospitality industry myself when i see things like that i can honestly say this is a great place too be. They were friendly and showed that they wanted to make our night a good one and they did.
I will be going again for sure and i hope all of you will also go because its worth it.

I came to a half-​empty Scarab around 10pm on Friday to join two couples who were enjoying after dinner drinks and hookahs.
«Am I being mugged?» I joked with the two staffers who were literally ON TOP of me as I walked to the table. With my coat still on, they asked for my drink order and kept pressing me until I finally got something.
One positive here, is that the service was good… in fact overbearingly good. They sat like hawks removing empty bottles and checking up on our hookah about every three minutes, to the point that it was borderline annoying. At one point, they actually reached for our last (unopened) beer and accompanying bottle opener, to which I told them to just leave us alone until we ask for something else… kthanks.
After receiving the check (gratuity automatically added for our party of five), we all chipped in cash and literally the second that black padded envelop hit the table, surely enough, someone was there to grab it. What amused me is that they actually had the nerve to break out a pocket flashlight, shine it on the table, and count it, bill for bill, right in front of us.
I commented on the table-​side cash counting on my way out (I mean, that’s something you’d see at a bank or casino…) and they responded that several customers short them, so they’ve made it common practice.
In spite of our so-​so experience, I have some sympathy for this place. From reading the mixed reviews, I think many of their practices were implemented because of a select few that ruined it for the rest. You could tell they meant well, but honestly, they should ease up a little and not treat every customer like their least common denominator.

Décor: ¹⁄₅
–Khyber Pass is more mellow
–The Music is ridiculously loud.
Service: ¹⁄₅
–We were having issues with their Hookahs the whole night
–A minimum of 1 hookah per 2 people? Our group had 7 and had to get 3 hookahs: Two from the «Regular» and one «$ 25 Special»
Hookah: ¹⁄₅
–The hookahs were very heavy and burnt like no other. I can see why the ratings are so poor.
Save yourself a hookah experience, go to Khyber Pass instead.

This place is as bad as it’ll ever get in Manhattan. It’s disgraceful the way they run their business.
My friends and I walked in, dressed rather well after a long evening, and were seated at an empty table. When we were ready to order, I can only assume the staff decided to see if they could milk us a bit.
We ordered the hookah, but because there were four of us they insisted that we need to order two. «But two of us aren’t having any.» They didn’t quite care; for us to sit there in a nearly empty lounge we had to pay to buy more than what we could consume.
To include ice, we were informed, would cost extra. Ice. ICE! We asked for waters and the waitress brought us bottled water. We said tap would be fine, but she insists there’s a minimum on drinks. We were already ordering two hookahs at this point, and she wants to milk us for drinks at a hookah lounge? The next table clearly had cups of tap water on the table and no sign of any other beverages.
My friend just had enough and told the waitress to cancel all orders. We got up and walked out; end of story.
You simply can’t run a business the way these people do at the Scarab Lounge. It’s insulting and generally very disappointing. From reading the other reviews, it looks like people have their own uniquely ridiculous experience with it.
It’s times like these that make me wish Unilocal had a ‘no star’ option. Don’t waste your time and money at this place. Don’t even waste another thought on this place. Just close this page and browse elsewhere.
Unbelievable.

Crooks!!! They saved my credit information and charged my card two weeks later despite not going anywhere near that place.
AVOID.

So… normally I’d give a lot more credit to a place like this. Great staff that is accommodating and knowledgeable (meaning that she explained what the sahlab drink was and checked in to make sure that I enjoyed it) — a nice atmosphere with interesting décor. But… a few pitfalls, probably not to be held to them.
Music was pretty loud meaning that my friend and I couldn’t really talk much. Coals burned out… quickly and frequently without being changed often. When we requested them to be changed the second time, took them about 20 minutes to finally come round. I will admit that the fresh fruit was amazing and definitely satisfying but without coals… Anyhow, drinks as aforementioned were good but also mandatory per person however they can be non-​alcoholic.
This place also draws a younger crowd… which makes it even harder to talk what with the loud music which eventually required us to leave. It happens.