Reviews of Scholar's Catering (Catering)

Eric Kai

Scholar Catering is very hard to deal with. They have monopolized all UBC venues. We had our wedding at Cecil Green, and the place looks stunning! However, Scholar Catering cannot take credit for that. During wedding planning, when everyone planning the wedding are extremely stressed, our representative takes 3-10 days to respond questions and we finally had to get managers involved. They are not flexible, meaning you cannot bring anything on site, not even water. I was really closed to not having any refreshment for my guests. Everything has to be purchased through them, and you are looking at about $3,500 for a 100 people event with only light snack/water. It adds an extra layer of stress to the wedding when we are forced to use them for wedding inside UBC. Worst of all, I found a charge of $150 from them that's not on our contract 6 months after I receive my deposit from them. They did not inform me before charging. I'd call this fraud, unfortunately the police I've called told me if I willingly gave them my credit card at the beginning, they are allowed to charge me whenever they see fit. It becomes my responsibility to check my credit card statement, and discuss this with Scholar Catering. I guess that means if you hire Scholar Catering once, you better watch out for your credit card statement for the rest of your life. Update: Just to be fair on my review, here is an update. I have contacted Scholar Catering’s general manager Kerensa and got transferred to the finance department where a lady told me the charge came from tasing event prior to my wedding which I thought was included with using Scholar Catering’s service. After I hung up with the finance department, Keeensa called and told me the extra charge came from the sandwiches my wedding planner ordered for planning staff on the day of the wedding. Rather than adding the charge to my existing invoice, a separate invoice was created. I agree that I should pay for the food, however getting extra charge 6 months after both sides of the contract has fulfilled their duties just shows me how unorganized Scholar Catering is.

Helen Chow

We had Scholar’s Catering provide refreshments (sandwiches, fruit, iced tea) after our wedding ceremony at Cecil Greene as we weren’t allowed to hire other vendors. It was either them or no food. My husband worked with Robert throughout the planning process and he was very professional and accommodating. These three stars are all for him. If it wasn’t for Robert there was a very good chance we would have decided to forego refreshments all together due to the expensive pricing and hidden costs. To start, they charge $8 per head for providing cutlery and napkins. This is not a hidden cost as it is clearly stated on their menus. The pricing for the actual food is not bad. We had originally planned to have a variety of platters ranging from seafood to fruit. We later discovered that that price did not include the cost of labour to prepare the food and serve it during the event. These hidden costs effectively doubled the total price. We thought we would be spared the “serving costs” as our guests could serve themselves since it was all finger food but that was just our wishful thinking. We also asked if we could have the food just delivered and we would set up and serve it ourselves, but that was not an option for large events such as weddings, even though it’s definitely an option on their website. But perhaps options change when the word wedding is attached. Even water is not free as you are charged $1-2 per head to serve that as well. In the end, we still went over budget in order to pay for a fraction of the food we had originally wanted for our guests. And this was after much negotiating. I cannot speak for their sit down lunch and dinner services as we had our reception elsewhere. It’s such a shame as I have nothing but praise for Cecil Greene but UBC restricts you to their catering service. If you’re okay with having 65% of your money go towards labour, service and cutlery charges, most of which are not clearly stated on the menus or website and you only find out after booking your venue, then Scholar’s Catering is a great choice for your wedding.

E B

Appalling service. Frank is the most unprofessional person in the catering industry I have ever worked with and has built up a bad reputation caused by rudeness and lack of customer care.