Maru Karaoke Lounge

The food is pricey but expected for midtown. It's basic but great in between drinking. They have a decent drink selection. They have decent pricing on kareoke rooms usually but group;
4 guest $58 per hour
4-8 $160+ with special pricing may change.
You might have to buy a bottle which usually comes with a choice for platters chips and dip/fruit platter.
The service is accounting for kareoke guest. There's a small dance hall middle of the room which can make maneuvering from karaoke rooms to the restrooms behind the dj stage.
The music can be loud in the dance hall and usually it's remixes, top 100 current/popular music. I think there's an iTunes playlist mix that dis use in midtown small venues. I'm hearing the same artist.
If you have Apollo ID there's special pricing on items and status points for exclusive venue perks.

Came here for the Karaoke and left unable to recommend the place to anyone in the future. I really felt like a fish out of water here - meaning that as a white middle aged guy this obviously wasn't the place for me. I think you have to be a twenty or thirty something Korean to fit within Maru's operational demographic.

First of all - the karaoke rooms are all set up in Korean and unless you can read Korean you will need to ask for assistance on how to operate the controller. Second, the song selection is severely lacking for someone of my age group. You want to rock out to Billy Idol's White Wedding which is a perfect karaoke song? Well you are completely out of luck because it isn't in their catalog. There are still plenty of songs to choose from, but most are more recent artists. I imagine if you are into K-pop (which I'm not) you'll be perfectly happy.

Next, the price for the Karaoke room is ridiculous. It was $ 60 bucks an hour + mandatory bottle service of $ 225.00 or additional $ 30 if you want champagne. That's per hour!!! So it's really insane.

Did I have a good time? Yeah - but that's because I was determined not to let the inflated price and complete lack of musical selection to destroy my time. But can I recommend this place? Definitely not. I've been to other karaoke houses that don't cost anywhere near as much and have far superior song selections and operate in English.

With all of the above said - there was a club section to this place where it looked like people (all looked to be Korean) were having a great time. But I was there for the Karaoke so that's what this review is about.

So, no I don't recommend Maru - and no, I won't be back.

I was unfortunately disappointed with my experience at this nightclub. While I would suggest it for karaoke, as soon as the night club scene starts to get going, it definitely changes tone quite a bit.

While I appreciated the karaoke experience at this club, my overall experience was less great. The club was incredibly overcrowded - far beyond capacity - and it was difficult to enjoy myself when I was constantly being elbowed and jostled by other patrons.

I think it could be helpful if the club to limit the number of people allowed in at any given time, as it would make for a much more enjoyable and safe experience.

Additionally, I found the atmosphere to be difficult - it felt more like a cramped apartment at some than a night club. The bouncers were quite aggressive and would get upset at questions about where the bathrooms were saying that's not their job.

I think with some improvements to the space and a focus on maintaining a safe capacity, this club could be a much better destination for a night out. For now, though, I would recommend perhaps Mission or Marquee as alternatives

Came on a Saturday night with a group of girls early around 10:30pm (no cover fee for women at that time) and the place was empty with throwback pop/hiphop songs from the 2000s-2010s. 1.5 hours later - it became packed with now some throwback kpop songs thrown into the mix (2ne1 and then Gangnam style). Great songs to dance, sing, vibe to if you're into throwbacks.

The vibes here are overall nice however the dance floor space is unexpectedly very small. People will push and shove for the bar (small area to the left) and the bathroom (from what I saw, there's only 1 bathroom stall for women). Because the establishment is so small and packed, it gets hot fast too so coat checking is a probs a good idea if you're wearing a warm outer layer for these fall/winter months.

Also note that tables are only available for seating if you order a bottle.

I went with a group of people for my friends birthday on 6/21/24. Ladies were free. I'm going to assume that they were racist, because they charged the one asian guy in our group $20 for the cover fee, and the rest of the guys who were a mix of black and hispanic were asked to pay $40. My partner who is Hispanic knew that the cover charge was expected to be $20, because thats what they charged our asian guy friend, but upon meeting the bouncer, they completely switched up and demanded $40.
On top of that, the place was dead with barely any people at 12 am, the dj had trash music with terrible transitions between songs. It is unreasonable to charge people that much for club that was not even good, and it is racist to charge people more because they don't appear asian. As an asian myself, I would never ever recommend this place to anyone.

For the club:

This establishment is extremely rude and racist. Came with a small group of 6 people. They charge cover for guys and one of the people in our group thought our friend ahead of him had paid. The bouncers were really handsy and grabbed our friend and threw him out without letting him pay or explain himself. They then attempted to charge us mandatory coat check at the club but we saw others wearing their coats. When we asked why they said "this is the price you pay for the company you keep". We believe our friend was targeted since he was a male and not East Asian, as this establishment is known to do. Horrible experience!!!

Imagine making a reservation and when you show up early for your reservation, they wait until after 2 rounds of drinks while you wait to tell you they can't accommodate your reservation cause they're booked.

What was the point of the reservation? Why ask me to make one?

Management was less than unsatisfactory in resolving the issue. Drinks are weak. Food is much better next door.

Can't even trust this place to hold an electronic reservation not sure what I would trust them with.

Good riddance.

Wish I can add videos!
This place is LIT
Def great music and a mix of everything
Make sure you get a table because it is VERY crowded and its a younger vibe (ppl were pretty trashed)
Their bottle service is awesome because you get food as well
The servers helping us were soooo nice and made the experience

Now the reason i gave it a 3 and not a 5 is because the bouncer (hefty large man with glasses) was EXTREMELY rude to my friend which was simply asking a question. He screamed at her and refused to apologize or acknowledge he did anything wrong.
For this reason unfortunately we will not be going back.

Way too overpriced. They say they give us 30 more minutes but didn't tell us we were getting charged. They took 15 minutes to check out ID and that was still accounted towards the hour. Online says 2 hour karaoke but in person they say it's only an hour. The charge was unfair but whatever

Not a fan of this place. If you have friends who live in NYC, they'll probably all tell you the same.
This place attracts everyone and anyone.. from a range of underage college students to 40 year old men suited up at a table.

They also charge $20 cover for guys all the time (not worth!) I will say though, their music is usually pretty good, with throwback 2000's, top hits, hip hop, etc.