Overall, we were happy with Frank's service for our son's first birthday party. It was a relatively large event with around 100 adults and kids.
Frank provided everything we asked for as far as food and drinks. We had 3 meats (carne asada, chicken and marinated pork), quesadillas, hot dogs, rice, beans, condiments (salsas, onions, cilantro, etc), and pineapple aquas frescas. He provided all the utensils, plates, napkins and cups. Quality of all the food was great and a lot of people had really good things to say about it (some even asked for his info).
Overall we were happy but there were a couple issues I want to point out:
1) Communication - I had to call/text/email several times to reiterate and confirm what we wanted beforehand usually with no clear confirmation back. I also sent him the address with very clear directions prior to the day of the event and he still ended up not knowing exactly where the event was, and I had to initiate by calling him to find out where he was, which leads to the second issue...
2) He arrived nearly an hour late, somewhat unapologetically. We reserved and paid for the space we were at, which was for a limited number of hours. By showing up late, this caused us to rush through the rest of the events that were scheduled in order to avoid going over our time limit. At the end, we ended up going over our time limit by at least half an hour... fortunately the community center organizer was very gracious and understanding with us. This is not something to take lightly though - when a time is given and confirmed, the vendor needs to arrive on time and anticipate the distance, traffic, and room for getting lost. It doesn't seem like this was really accounted for.
One other piece of advice/lesson learned to keep in mind, which I would strongly suggest for larger parties, is to talk to Frank beforehand about enforcing a limit of 3-4 tacos per person and to also make an announcement to guests that they should be considerate and not get back in line until *you* say that it's ok to (you should check to make sure everyone has gotten food before people who already ate get back in line for seconds). What happened with us was chaotic, as people would line up right away for seconds and thirds when a number of others hadn't even gotten any food. More of a logistics thing, but this is good for both the customer AND vendor to be aware of so as to also avoid super-long lines and hold-ups from one or two people ordering 12 tacos at once or running to get back in line ahead of those who haven't eaten. I would say the chaos was indirectly a result of the vendor running late which resulted in a lot of hungry people standing around, feeling pressured to let them eat, and us not formally making the announcement to not go back for seconds until we say so, etc. read more