Amber P.
wrote:
Dealing with this caterer was an absolute nightmare. I had requested the invoice a month prior to our wedding, called a couple times in between and left a message as reminders. Finally, I recieved the invoice..6 days before our wedding at almost 9000.00. We had a 196 headcount including vegetarians and children. Everything was charged as al carte and per head. Of course I started looking for other options for catering on such short notice, because 9k isn't something we felt comfortable paying. Luckily, our venue offered catering, where we could get plated ribeye or margarita chicken with 2 sides, 1 veggie, salad, and dinner rolls for just shy of 4k. I talked about this with Sheryl from Baumans and she agreed to put a package together for us. Against my better judgment I went with them seeing as their a small business and you should support your local business owners. It gets worse...for the next 4 days we were back and forth with the proposed bill. I wanted to take the Vegetarian Lasagna off the bill because we had plenty of options for the vegetarians to eat. She takes it off the bill, and replaces it with "Vegetarian meal, no meat" for 15 heads at 130.00..even though she had already added the 15 ppl to all the sides they could eat other than the meat. It made no sense, there was no specific vegetarian meal, and now it's less expensive to have vegetarian Lasagna and have a actual dinner for them than to not have it. So I specifically wrote out I wanted the 1st proposed bill, specifically wrote out what I wanted on the food line and paid the 50% deposit they requested. Needless to say, wedding day is here, I'm going through the food line, and there's no vegetarian Lasagna! The caesar salad looked like canned spinach, and tasted nothing like any caesar salad I've ever had. I will say everything else tasted fantastic, our guests were very satisfied with the meat and fixins. Here's why I'm rating them 2 stars. My reception had started, I had my personal attendant go grab the check I had in an envelope for Kal Bauman and give it to him, well, Mr. Kal Bauman in front of my guests comes up behind me and says, "My wife warned me you were gonna do this. Why are you shorting me $123!?" Not only am I extremely confused because I paid exactly 50% of our bill just 2 days ago, but I'm so embarrassed that guests are standing all around me. He must've noticed because he pulled me outside, where guests were also congregating. I explained to him that I specifically told his wife what I expected on the food line, and yet we were missing the vegetarian meal, and that I also paid exactly 50% of the invoice just 2 days ago and that was the total on the check the invoice said was due. At this point he started saying we lied about our headcount because he put out 250 plates and they're gone. My guest stepped in and said "I'm pretty sure people got up for 2nds and took a new plate, because that's common safety and sanitation practice." I told Kal there's no way we were over, seeing as I could think about 10 ppl off the top of my head that didn't show up. His reponse, " I guess we'll never know" Needless to say, he got a new check that night for an additional 123.00 he chewed me out for it and called me a liar in front of my guests. Didn't want to see the proof I had of the total I owed. Wouldn't let me go grab my husband. Just not tactful. He handled it very poorly. Their food is fantastic, but beyond that their communication is awful and their customer service is horrendous.