Business ProfileforSouthern Flavor Catering

Wedding reception caterer contract. Original contract drawn up April 11 for an event that planning began in August of 2022. We paid a deposit of 1/2 in the amount of approx $4500.00. Caterer had possession of our credit card number for final payment upon fulfillment of the contract for the event date of 4/29/2023. Upon violation of our contract and after one week post event had passed we were legally advise by our attorney to cancel the credit card and not pay the contract balance as we did not receive the items contracted for and what was received was two hours late. We are asking for a full refund to include the deposit we made for all goods and services. letter to my attorney: Hello *******, ***** tells me I need to go over the catering contract and let you know what all is missing. I will do so in this email. I really hate to bother you with this mess but I would like to seriously consider suing for punitive damages. It's more than just the total disregard for us and our reception, a total lack of professionalism and complete violation of our contract. They were classless, and awful; what little bit of food that did show up 2 hours late was awful and there was no way that was food prepared for 180 people because they were out of food after 20-25 people went through the line. I can't begin to tell you how many people told me that they got one spoon full of pasta and one tiny square inch of chicken on their plate and they still ran out of food. My son was 25 people back in line and they were out of the beef sliders when he got there. Honestly, by the time the food arrived, we were down to less than 100 people and they still ran out of food!! It made us look cheap and I was humiliated! As you could see from the text messages ***** forwarded, there was no tray appetizer service during the cocktail hour, 3:30-4:30, as contracted. The crab cakes were still in Gulfport and uncooked. We were contracted for 22 dozen crab cakes for a cost of $660.00. I saw maybe 2 dozen crab cakes on a tray being passed out after 6 pm, by one person with no gloves on, serving crab cakes without offering a napkin, a plate, or any utensil. The woman literally put a plain, cold, nasty crab cake in MY BARE HAND with HER BARE HAND!!!!!! I lost my mind, threw the crab cake in the trash and never saw the woman or the crab cakes again! The caterer fled the scene as she said in a text because she was embarrassed but she also left to go to her other event so there was no opportunity to even speak with her regarding the horrors of what was going on. I spent the entirety of my daughter's wedding reception trying to figure out what the heck was happening and I couldn't get any answers!! I literally missed the entire reception and I'll never get that back! That has to be worth something. I am still having anxiety attacks about it all and mostly I am just completely heartbroken! I would also like to explain that not only was the whole thing a complete embarrassment and failure to uphold our contract but this caterer is also telling people that we did not pay her one penny, which is a lie and slander! We paid her half upon the agreement of the updated contract and she had our credit card number in her possession for over a week after the wedding date had passed and before we canceled the card. We were not able, thus far, to reverse the charges for the original down payment because it was made before the reception and ***** paid the credit card to make room for the second half of the catering charge and the last minute rental of the tent and so forth. Our credit card company said they could not reverse the charge because he paid the card. I don't know the legalities of all that but it doesn't make any sense to me, however, I also do not know what my husband said to the credit card company, if anything at all, about the situation. Regardless, she has been paid much more than a penny by us and is telling people we did not pay. In fact, we paid the deposit in the office of our wedding planner, in front of our planner, her assistant and the caterer and the caterer's niece. We also have the credit card bill to prove it so this is just slander and an excuse that she is using to not pay her employees! Is slander not a offense worth suing over? She also said in a text message that she was going to refund our money but she has not, while telling people we didn't pay her anything. We provided, ourselves, all the liquor, all the wine and 6 kegs of beer via the rental of the Kombi Keg beer wagon. We provided all of the petit fours and macrons, and the gourmet ice cream. We also rented nice glass martini glasses for the Martinis and had custom cups made for the wine and for the lemonade and tea and for the beer. We spent several hundred dollars on custom cups and napkins and only the wine cups were put out. We have $500.00 worth of custom cups and napkins that were never even opened and it was catering that was supposed to put these out. The caterer was to provide the mixers for our Martini bar and for a specific list of vodka cocktails. We purchased a high quality organic vodka for the Martinis and cocktails as well as high quality organic wines. My wedding planner had to send her staff to purchase the mixers as they were not adequately provided. The caterer had the full list of the Martini's and cocktails that were to be made as well as a photo of the professional sign we had made for the Martini Bar that listed the Martini's and cocktails that people could order. We were contracted for 3 bartenders and we got 1 plus a bar back who could not make Martini's because she was not a bartender. We were charged for 3 bartenders at $15.00 per hour, for 6 hours each plus tips, and were charged $270.00 for mixers but our wedding planner had to send one of her employees to purchase mixers out of her own pocket. We also purchased over $350.00 worth of custom ice cream cups because the caterer was to supply regular chocolate and vanilla ice cream with an assortment of toppings to be served in addition to the gourmet ice cream we purchased. One of the contracted bartenders was supposed to leave the bar and serve the ice cream but that was not possible as there was only one bartender and thus, there was no one to serve the ice cream. My wedding planner gave out some of the gourmet ice cream and had to leave to go tackle another emergency and the ice cream just sat out and melted! The chocolate and vanilla with toppings never arrived and our custom ice cream cups were never used! There were supposed to be 3 grazing tables for a cost of $525.00! There was 1 grazing table. I have a copy of the detailed email regarding the list of items to be included on the grazing tables and a very specific list of items that should NOT be included because we have 3 grand children with severe food allergies. I can provide that for you but it is lengthy so I don't want to take up that much space here. Our requests were totally disregarded and the items that they were told not to include were all included. The caterer sent the bartender to Walmart the day of our event to purchase items for the grazing tables and we have a text thread of that along with the list of items for him to pick up! He had no idea of our requests and the caterer clearly did not care about what we wanted! There was supposed to be a kids grazing table set apart from the adult grazing table specifically because of the allergies. I even offered to go and buy all the food for the kids table myself if need be. There was no kids table at all but they were sure serving my adults cold, over cooked chicken nuggets and cold dried out macaroni and cheese! The kids never got any chicken nuggets or mac and cheese because they probably had enough of those items to feed 8 people and they were served in the adult line and not on a grazing table! The kids had to leave early and go get food because they were starving! ****** had to leave early because she needed to take her medication with food and there was NO FOOD at the contracted time of 4:30! Crab cakes, Gumbo shooters and chicken and watermelon skewers were supposed to be served via tray service during cocktail hour. Did not happen! There were supposed to be, as mentioned above, 22 dozen crab cakes served at 3:30pm for a cost of $660.00. We got maybe 2 dozen crab cakes after 6pm. 4 gallons of Gumbo to be served in shooter cups served during cocktail hour at $380.00. That also did not happen. There was cold. bland gumbo in small shot glasses served in the food line after 6pm. No way there was 4 gallons. The chicken and watermelon skewers were also a tray service item that never happened but there were about 2-3 dozen of them set out on a grazing table after 6pm. They looked and tasted like something from a gas station and were literally cold, days old, twice fried chicken and a chunk of watermelon so small it was not immediately obvious that it was watermelon. They were cold, hard, dried out and embarrassingly awful! We paid for 20 dozen at $360.00, and if there were three dozen there that's a generous estimate! There were supposed to be 4 chef's to cook on site. 2 at the pasta station and 2 for the fry station to make the sliders, chicken and beef, and truffle fries. There was one person posing as a chef, cooking over a single dirty looking frying pan; so 1 chef total and we paid for 4 chefs for 4 hours each at $25.00 per hour for a cost of $200.00... the 1 chef was there less than 2 hours... We paid $450.00 for beef mini sliders that were depleted after 20-25 people went through the line. They were NOT cooked on site as contracted and they were not hot. We paid $450.00 for curried chicken sliders that never arrived!!! We paid $950.00 for Comeback Shrimp that the caterer was trying to cook at the Blind Tiger at 6:44pm as evidenced by the text thread you were sent! We never got the comeback shrimp! We paid $450.00 for Truffle Fries that we never received!! The fryer that the caterer provided was filthy and broken and thus, zero truffle fries! We were charged $720.00 for 6 servers for 6 hours... There were maybe 3-4 servers for less than 2 hours! We were charged for equipment rental for the fryers and onsite cooking at the pasta station of which there was one person cooking and my planner had to go purchase fuel for the one tiny burner that they cooked on with one fry pan. The one fryer that they showed up with was filthy and broken so it was not used and there were no truffle fries! In my opinion we did not get the promised equipment that we were charged $250.00 for. Then there was a service charge fee for FUEL... my planner got the fuel for the one burner; kitchen labor...what labor there was no food! other fees and expendables during buffet service all for a for a total of $1578.92! The caterer included the vanilla and chocolate ice cream and toppings into this fee and we never got the ice cream! I also have an email showing where we added a Caesar Salad to the catering order and agreed for it to be added to the bill and of course, that never showed up either. At least we had not paid for it yet. And, there was no on site caterer to manage anything! I hope that this helps you to see why I am so upset. Please tell me we can sue and put these people out of business! I have reached out to the better business bureau and they have advised me to file a formal complaint but I wanted to run it past you first.