KZN Caterers causes embarrassment

We hired KZN Caterers to cater for a function for 62 Guests on Saturday 01 September 2018. We were requested to provide details of what time we would like our guests to eat to enable the caterers to plan their logistics and have the meal ready on time. We were informed that the caterers will arrive at our home at 11 am to ensure that the meal was ready to serve at 4 pm which was the time we informed our guests that will arrive at 1 pm. I made my first call to Rob the new owner at 11:53 am informing him that his staff has not arrived as yet. Rob got back to me and informed me that his staff is on their way and will arrive shortly. I received another call from Rob at 12:56 informing me that his staff was held up in a traffic jam on the N2 and will arrive shortly. I had guests arriving from 1 pm some of my guests called to apologise for being late sighting the hold up on the N2 as their reason for being late. The same guests that was caught in the traffic eventually arrived from 1:20 to 1:30 . At 1:55 pm i phoned Rob and informed him that his staff had still not arrived despite my guests arriving only 20 to 30 minutes late. Rob informed me that he will get back to me, the vehicle finally arrived at 2:20 with the catering equipment. The driver apologised and said he had numerous deliveries and collections to make and had to go to some airfield and was therefore late. I noticed that the lamb was in black bags with part of it sticking out in the hot sun on the back of the trailer with the spit braai and other catering equipment. The other food was off loaded from the back of the SUV. To say the least i was not impressed with their late arrival, method of transportation of the food and their staffs appearance as well as the fact that i had to leave my guests for around 20 minutes to attend to the offloading of their vehicle. It was obviously to late for me to make alternate arrangements and i had no option but to accept the circumstances. Rob the new owner arrived at my home about two hours later and offered his apologies blaming his being new to the business and brought me a bottle of whisky as a gift and part of the apology. I informed Rob that i am bitterly disappointed and that my guests were specifically informed that we will eat at 4 pm which was now impossible which was very embarrassing. We were informed by his staff that the food will be ready to serve at around 5:30 pm and eventually only got served at 6:30. Whilst standing close to the serving area we noticed a pungent sour smell, upon inspection we found that the cauliflower had gone off due to its being exposed to heat the whole day. We were disappointed that his staff knowingly placed this food out for our guests to consume and instructed them to immediately remove it from the serving table. A while later i noticed that guests were still dishing up food and that the garlic roll tray was empty, this despite the fact that many guests had no being served, some had already left to get some food as their children was hungry before our food was ready and some guests not being able to make it on the day which left us way under the 62 people we paid for. Upon inquiry we found that there was indeed more garlic bread hidden in their trays and that once again they knowingly left this tray empty despite the fact that the bread was available. We immediately instructed them to place the bread for serving to enable our guests to get some kind of a meal that represents what we paid for. Their driver arrived at around 7:30 pm informing us that he is here to remove his staff and equipment, as all of our guests had no yet served the malva pudding and other food we requested that they leave the remainder of the food before departing. The food was carried through to our kitchen. Their driver then walked through our house to exit the at bar area, he was also previously in this area demanding my immediate attention. About 5 minutes later he appeared at the bar area with one of the young female assistants, he was stopped at the door by my Son which asked him his purpose for entering, he explained that he was taking the assistant to the kitchen, my son informed him that he has no business being inside the house and should rather pack their belongings and leave. We also found his chef in our kitchen washing their serving trays despite their being no arrangements in this regard, we informed her that she has no permission to use our kitchen and requested that she immediately take her trays and not enter the kitchen again. I was very embarrassed and had to apologised to all our guests for the food that was late, gone stale and really not up to any standard.

I received a mail from Rob on the Sunday profusely apologising and offering a R 5 000 refund. I contacted Rob on Monday and informed him of our utter dissatisfaction with the service and the food, i also explained to him that i did not get any potatoes, onions or sausages that is depicted in Menu 3 option and as discussed with Riaan. In addition i informed him that no amount of apology or refund will allow me the opportunity to make it up to our guests. I requested that he gets back to me regarding the sausages, potatoes and onions and later received a copy of the invoice mentioning option 3 which clearly differs from the picture used for menu option 1 and then menu option 2, the invoice however does not stipulate the contents of the spit which i discussed with Riaan.

I rep**** to the mail informing him that we clearly misunderstood the menus and the invoice and with good reason as mentioned above, in addition i supp**** him with my bank details which he requested when offering the refund. To date i have received no response or refund.

I would not recommend any part of their services or food to anyone, neither myself or any of my guests will ever make use of their services.

I trust that you will find this publication of interest and hope that it saves someone from the same embarrassment we had to endure.