Culinary Kid Catering

[redacted] this is our final response I believe I have covered my side of the story in the below e-mail and if you have received the unedited version of the e-mail correspondence from the complainant and make that available as for the public to see I believe everything is covered and explainedIf you still need copies of that correspondence please let me know and I will forward them to you as well I have nothing further to respond Sorry you had to get involved in this matter Thank you [redacted] Please check us out on Yelp.Com as well as Facebook under CK Catering / Culinary Kid Catering we would love for you to write a review on Facebook and Yelp as well so that others can get your feedback on the CK experience Our website is up and always being updated WWW.CateringSoCal.com or WWW.CulinaryKidCatering.com please check out our photos and if after your event you have some you would like to share we would love to have them [email protected] From: [redacted] < [redacted] >Date: Tuesday, September 23, 1:PMTo: [redacted] Subject: RE: CK Catering Insufficient And now, I will have you From: Culkid [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, September 23, 1:PMTo: [redacted] Cc: [redacted] ***Subject: CK Catering I too am disappointed you were given excellent service, and I wanted to share something with you after your party was over, for this I did use poor judgement I thought you would like the products and your daughter in law showed excitement about them and I apologized for that You had many family members helping with gathering of items and you were more than pleased at the time when you left or so that is what you conveyed to me The meats were in trays in the kitchen and no one asked about the leftovers so if there is anything I am of fault of is not getting someone in your party to take them I was doing the cake and putting that all together for you and only some of that was taken as well We did the best job during your party and you are not happy about the exit for that I am sorry I will not be returning the gratuity as that was given to the staff that worked hard for you and your guests I understand you will do what you want , but please before you do, think about the experience you had with your guests all the way up until just before you left In closing I wish you would have gotten the left overs and I wish I did not share the Skin care with you I wish it would have ended better Sincerely [redacted] ***

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint.  For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.
Thank you for advising me of [redacted]'s response.  He's ALMOST got it right.  We catered for 105 people.  We had 94 attend the ceremony and 84 remain for the reception.  As [redacted] stated at our meet-and-greet, he would be cooking for 5% over our headcount (105 + 5% over = food for 111 people).  With a catering plan like that and only 84 guests at our reception, it never occurred to me that the portions they would be served would be insufficient.  I was not made aware of the portion-size problem OR the fact that he approached my daughter-in-law about his side business (a SERIOUS lapse in judgment) until the day after our wedding.  It was at that time that I reached out with my concerns.
 
As for "extorting" money from him, I'm sure he views our request to return the gratuity as extortion.  What [redacted] is missing is that all we wanted from the get-go was for him to make this right.  He did not offer to remake the food that had been discarded until three messages into our email exchange.  Initially all he said was, "Thank you for taking your time to give me this feedback I will learn from this and do a better job in the future."  No offer to make it right.  No offer of remaking food.  No offer to do anything to fix what had happened.  I offered him multiple opportunities to salvage the situation, but all to no avail.  Had he just said at the very beginning, "Good heavens, I'm so upset that happened.  Let me remake what was discarded and please accept my apologies," I would have been extremely satisfied with his professionalism and thrilled at the opportunity to enjoy his food once again ([redacted] is a seriously talented chef and the food was gorgeous...I just wish we our guests had enjoyed more of it).  Between the small portions, the discarding of food, and the inappropriate contact with our daughter-in-law, commonly held customer-service protocols had been violated on multiple levels and we did not feel it inappropriate to request that our gratuity be returned.
 
I have attached our unedited email thread to this message for your information.
Regards,
[redacted]

[redacted] this is our final response I believe I have covered my side of the story in the below e-mail and if you have received the unedited version of the e-mail correspondence from the complainant  and make that available as for the public to see I believe everything is covered and explained. If you still need copies of that correspondence please let me know and I will forward them to you as well.   I have nothing further to respond.  Sorry you had to get involved in this matter. 
 
Thank you
 
[redacted]
Please check us out on Yelp.Com as well as Facebook under CK Catering / Culinary Kid Catering we would love for you to write a review on Facebook and Yelp as well so that others can get your feedback on the CK experience.  Our website is up and always being updated WWW.CateringSoCal.com or WWW.CulinaryKidCatering.com please check out our photos and if after your event you have some you would like to share we would love to have them.
949-929-2229
[email protected]
From: [redacted] <[redacted]>Date: Tuesday, September 23, 2014 1:16 PMTo: [redacted] <[email protected]>Subject: RE: CK Catering
 
Insufficient.
 
And now, I will have you.
 
From: Culkid [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, September 23, 2014 1:04 PMTo: [redacted]Cc: [redacted]Subject: CK Catering
 
I too am disappointed you were given excellent service, and I wanted to share something with you after your party was over, for this I did use poor judgement.  I thought you would like the products and your daughter in law showed excitement about them and I apologized for that.  
 
You had many family members helping with gathering of items and you were more than pleased at the time when you left or so that is what you conveyed to me.  The meats were in trays in the kitchen and no one asked about the leftovers so if there is anything I am of fault of is not getting someone in your party to take them.  I was doing the cake and putting that all together for you and only some of that was taken as well.  
 
We did the best job during your party and you are not happy about the exit for that I am sorry. 
 
I will not be returning the gratuity as that was given to the staff that worked hard for you and your guests.  I understand you will do what you want , but please before you do, think about the experience you had with your guests all the way up until just before you left.
 
In closing I wish you would have gotten the left overs and I wish I did not share the Skin care with you.  I wish it would have ended better. 
 
Sincerely 
 
 
[redacted]

Good Afternoon [redacted],
Where do I begin, This event when off without a hitch, until the event was over and most all the guests had left (There were folks that had...

helped them set up a beverage area and someone taking down the centerpieces).  There was never anything discussed about them taking leftovers.  They asked about them in an e-mail the following day.  The food had sat in chaffing dishes for more then 2 hours.  I personally was taking care of the customer supplied cake that we did complimentary, while doing that the customers sides were discarded.  We had served all the guest a portion if someone asked for more it was given to them so if someone thought we were stingy all they would have had to do was ask for a little more.  The buffet was left open after everyone was served and was available to anyone who might have wanted more.  The customer order food for 105 guests, her quote to me was "I don't want anyone fighting over that last piece of chicken". (I never counted the head count as I had great trust with this customer and believed it would be correct).  She claims in this complaint that she had 84 guest show up but in an e-mail correspondence that we had  the day after the event her first number she said was there was 94, again I do not know how may that were actually there.  
 
So lets break down the pricing for this event
The menu consisted of the following: Fruit and cheese display, Hand Passed Bruschetta and Spinach stuffed Mushrooms for appetizers.  The buffet was set up with the following: Mixed Greens with Mandarin Oranges, Fresh Strawberries, Goat Cheese with Creamy Balsamic Vinaigrette Dressing.  Grilled Herb Chicken Breasts, Carving Station with Roasted New York Strip Loin with a Jack Daniels sauce, Garlic roasted Red Bliss Potatoes, Green Beans with grilled Onions and Pancetta, Assorted Rolls and Butter.  Complimentary Cake cutting with disposable plates, napkins & forks all for $28.50 per person.  
 
The customer also got rentals for this event eighteen tablecloths @ $8.00 each, Flat ware & China with a cost of $3.00 per person, Cloth Napkins $1.25 per person and a Clean up fee so that they would be sure they did not have to do that and pick up all the fake flour peddles that where used $250 charge.  All of these fees where broke down on the proposal long before hand, along with gratuity.   Total for the rentals and clean up were 25% of the bill.
 
 
After all the guest had left (Other then the ones helping clean up) I brought in a skin care product to share with the bride (Who I thought would enjoy it). Never once did I mention any kind of business (Never mentioned that this was a MULTI – LEVEL MARKETING COMPANY).  I was just sharing a product that I had that I thought she might like (We had a great relationship going or so I thought).    The brides daughter-in-law was very excited about the product and I offered to have her try it as well.  She said she loved it, while cleaning up I started to talk to her and asked for her phone number so we could talk about it at another time, she said her Mother sold it and was not interested in selling it just like using it, that was the end of the conversation.  Not sure who she is talking about as several ladies she was there when I shared it just with her and her daughter in law, her sister was also there with her and declined to try it, No others were involved.  
 
There was beef and chicken that was properly cooled and was available and I also offered to re-make the discarded sides.  The customer was not interested in the food they wanted money.  After her first e-mail I replied and apologized as I was not trying to offend anyone and she thanked me for my apology.  Three days after the event she started looking for compensations for her food being discarded and threatened to do what she has followed through with.  
 
In closing all I would say is that this customer was trying to extort money after the event by threatening to write this review and if I would have given her $680 she would not have done so, I don't think so.  We have been in business since 2005 and this is the first and only time such and incident has happened 
 
Thank you for taking the time to read this response please let me know what we need to do going forward I can assure you that there will be no further dealings with this customer from and event standpoint.
If you have any further questions please do not hesitate to call me, my number is listed below.
[redacted]
Please check us out on Yelp.Com as well as Facebook under CK Catering / Culinary Kid Catering we would love for you to write a review on Facebook and Yelp as well so that others can get your feedback on the CK experience.  Our website is up and always being updated WWW.CateringSoCal.com or WWW.CulinaryKidCatering.com please check out our photos and if after your event you have some you would like to share we would love to have them.
949-929-2229
[email protected]

Review: CK Catering.sigh.if you want to work with a brusque chef whose customer service and professionalism are entirely absent, then [redacted] at CK Catering is the chef for you.Based on the fact that CK Catering was on the preferred vendor list of our venue and the glowing Yelp reviews, we hired [redacted] and his team to cater our wedding. So much happened and we have so little space on this site, well cut right to the worst of it.THE UGLY: The morning after our wedding we had a breakfast here at our house for all our family. Our daughter-in-law informed us that at the reception [redacted] had approached her about selling his hand scrub/hand cream and even went so far as to ask for her phone number so he could chat with her about his MLM business in further detail. Read that again: OUR CATERER APPROACHED OUR GUEST ABOUT WORKING A MULTI-LEVEL MARKETING BUSINESS WITH/FOR HIM. We found out later that he had approached several of the ladies. We paid him an awful lot of money to work for us, not to work his own business. We cannot understand why [redacted] would think that approaching a guest at a party he had been hired to cater would be an appropriate course of action. THE BAD: We were not given the leftover food. We catered our reception for 105 and had 84 people attend. That is a differential of 21 people. 21 people at $43 per person totals $903.00. Thats the best part of a thousand dollars worth of food we paid for and did not receive. (By [redacted]s own admission, the leftovers had actually been discarded by someone on his team. That was a really expensive, really bad, decision at our expense.)THE BAD, PART II: Our guests enjoyed the catering but they also commented on how stingy the servers were, especially with the side dishes. When they requested more, they were denied. We had purchased a staggering amount of food for the number of guests we anticipated hosting; why on earth would our guests be refused ANYTHING?!?!There is much more, but space has run out. Just don't hire CK CateringDesired Settlement: At this point, the only settlement that would be acceptable would be a full refund.

Business

Response:

Good Afternoon [redacted],