A Family Affair Catering LLC

We hired Chef Darryl and A Family Affair to help us host 28 people for a large formal family dinner. In years past we’d done so alone, and it was too much work for us. We specifically wanted help with providing the 28 place-settings, glassware, tables, seats, and with the clean-up, though we did also order two food dishes. We cooked the bulk of the dinner ourselves.

Darryl and his assistant showed up late to set up and prepare, with only 60 minutes before 28 guests were to arrive, which already had us nervous. Then, as if we were in a prank YouTube video, a series of disasters unfolded that is best itemized one at a time…

1. The tables provided were in very bad shape, with some corners frayed and sticking up at 30-degree angle, like something picked up off the street. The tablecloth they brought was for a large round table and so draped a good foot on the ground. The chairs we ordered, as Darryl explained, were not available so they brought cheap plastic chairs that were unstable.

2. The “dinner” plates were small 7-inch SQUARE plates, like something you’d see at a hotel buffet to discourage people from taking too much food. Ridiculously small and in no way part of the formal dinner setup promised to us. I had to rush to get every possible plate we owned so as not to have to use the ridiculous tiny square ones, exactly what we did NOT want to do and why we hired a caterer. Darryl told me these were “standard dinner plates,” many examples of gaslighting us that night.

3. The silverware was from at least 3 or 4 different sets, some rusty, some dirty and covered with cobwebs and insect droppings. The “soup spoons” were bizarre; some were teaspoons, some were soup ladles (sideways spoons), some were large like serving spoons. The forks were from several different sets. Again, we had to rush to find every possible spoon we owned and had stored and set them out ourselves in a panic to get rid of the mixed mess they set out. I had to run around cleaning every piece they put out.

4. The rest of their place-settings and bowls were filthy on arrival, and had we not put our son and his girlfriend to work washing the food stains and insect droppings off the dishes it would have been a real disaster. Again, terrible stress for us. My son and his girlfriend saved us by washing 28 sets of the caterer’s dishes in 20 minutes and setting them out on the tables. The place settings were all mix and match, but at least the cobwebs and dirt were gone. Darryl and his assistant were busy cleaning the cobwebs from their heating trays. We were rushing to find replacement plates and spoons and glasses, etc.

5. Darryl arrived without any wine glasses, after promising formal dinners settings for 28 people. He told us wine glasses aren’t part of a formal dinner setting, and that we didn’t specifically order them. We had to run around gathering as many potential wine glasses as we could but just didn’t have enough.

6. Darryl forgot to bring napkins. So, we had to scramble yet again to try to find cloth napkins (or something that would work as a napkin) for 28 people so as not to have to use paper towels at our formal dinner. We really felt like we were in a prank video, it was too much to believe that all these screw-ups were happening back-to-back.

7. The chicken, which for the most part was very good, had a couple raw pieces that my wife had to remove from the serving trays. We didn’t have any guests mention it, and the food was otherwise well prepared, but some pieces were raw that we removed.

There were some good things, which are worth mentioning. Darryl’s assistant Linda was excellent; her constant apologies to us and her attempts to fix problems as they came up was what kept us from being overwhelmed by the disaster of it all.

I did ask for a partial refund and that’s when Darryl stopped replying to our emails and stonewalled us. It could not have been a worse experience.