Ridgewells Catering Sucks
Just when we thought the plan was coming together, some deceitful bastards see an opportunity for price-gouging. Read our tale of woe in dealing with Ridgewells Catering at Metroblogging DC.
Just when we thought the plan was coming together, some deceitful bastards see an opportunity for price-gouging. Read our tale of woe in dealing with Ridgewells Catering at Metroblogging DC.
November 3rd, 2005 at 5:02 pm
Eep! My company loves them. Well, people at my company can AFFORD to love them.
Sorry you’re hitting a hurdle so early. But you’ve got a lot of time to find someplace a thousand times better.
Screw ‘em.
November 3rd, 2005 at 6:28 pm
Holy crap! That’s insane pricing. I hope you can find a new venue that is more flexible on caterers.
November 4th, 2005 at 5:06 pm
Jeebus. If you all really do want the barbeque thing, Dixie Bones caters and I’m fairly certain it ain’t $50-$75 a person. Good luck finding a place, do the parks in VA have such assanine catering policies?
November 23rd, 2005 at 11:13 pm
You probably wouldn’t remember me, but I also moved from Pittsburgh to DC (well, between DC and Baltimore) and am also getting married. We have a great wedding planner, and have been through a lot. Let me know if you’d ever want to chat.
December 28th, 2005 at 2:24 pm
Man, thanks for posting this — we were looking at Glen Echo too and hoping to do something
casual with the food. Ridgewells was *not* what we had in mind, but we thought maybe we
could work with them. At those prices though… I mean, c’mon, we’d like to have a honeymoon!
Thanks for the cautionary tale!
October 9th, 2007 at 7:37 pm
Hi,
As a previous employee (20 years), I know what Ridgwells can do too clients..start low ball and then at the end they add tons of fee’s.. Many of my co-works left Ridgwells becasue managment felt it was very important that managment drive high end cars to show that they where a high end company..Guess who pays for those expensive cars?? Of course the consumers.. Beware of Susan, she is a snake in the grass and so is the VP Jose he isnt to far behind… So be careful consumers…they will rip you off blind…
March 20th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
Well I will be honest with you I have used Ridgewells before and I say you get what you pay for. They are the best and everything that I have ever eaten is incredible. Kind of like one of those situations where you try to compare a steak from tgi fridays to morton’s. Friday’s steak tastes good but there is just something special about the morton’s steak that kind of makes you want more. Some can’t afford Morton’s and are just happy with Friday’s and that is fine, but in my experience Ridgewells never fails.
March 20th, 2008 at 4:21 pm
I’m sure the food is delicious… if it’s so worth the price, why not just give me a realistic estimate at the beginning?
April 3rd, 2008 at 4:25 pm
Well to be honest I have no clue, because obviously there are two sides to every story and I don’t know their side. My gut tells me what they originally quoted you was probably something on a limited level and then when you asked for a firm quote with more parameters it probably increased their price. Again I have no clue because all I know is ur side of the story.
April 3rd, 2008 at 5:12 pm
Well, then you would be incorrect because that’s not how it happened at all, unless the person we were dealing with secretly added a bunch of stuff in to the other quote that we didn’t ask for at all. We were quite clear on what the original ballpark figure would and would not include, and were comfortable with that, and asked for a quote that would include only the things previously discussed, and yet the price mysteriously doubled. We are not morons- we understand enough of event planning to be clear on that kind of information.
When confronted about the clear discrepancy, the Ridgewells rep did not have an explanation. The only thing that had changed (to our knowledge) was that we had put down the deposit at Glen Echo. So, whatever, we had a delicious lunch at our favorite restaurant instead, and people were still talking about the food months later. Bye, Ridgewells!
April 5th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
Ridgewells does this with customers. They overcharge for everything from staffing to food. Their food is good, but nothing you cannot get from another caterer. You pay for the purple truck, not the quality.