Robin Howe is a great chef that produces excellent quality food, however as a business owner he is extremely unprofessional and difficult to deal with. We contracted Robin due to his experience with working in our venue, which had a less than ideal kitchen.
He works off of email based correspondence only, with no invoicing structure. I constantly had to follow up with him, usually at least twice to get a response. There were a number of details discussed that were missed on the day of the wedding:
- pizza was to be platted and served as the late night stack and was instead put out in greasy pizza boxes on our vintage furniture
- children's meals were to be macaroni and cheese and he served them a green leaf salad with pickled beets and warm goat cheese - every 3 year olds dream!
- our parents were served their meals last instead of first, which was highlighted to him and his head waitress multiple times
- our wedding cake was made of cheese wheels which was to be cut up - instead he stuck a knife in it and told people to help themselves
- he gave me a hard time right before the wedding started when I asked him for the elevator key to go and pick up my 93 year old grandmother who could not climb the stairs
- the real gem was that Robin was supposed to be at our venue to remove the glassware rentals the next day at 10am. I missed brunch with my family waiting for his arrival. No response to either emails or phone calls. I finally got a hold of him at 5pm on Sunday evening and he told me that he was busy doing another event and did not have time to deal with me. The stress this caused me on my first day of my honeymoon is unforgiveable.
We spent over $10,000 with Robin for a dinner of 68 people, not including the cost of alcohol. The amount of follow ups, details that were missed and overall general difficult attitude make me deeply regretted contracting Robin for our wedding.
Robin is best to stay in the kitchen and hire someone with the proper customer service and people skills to run his business. read more
