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| - My father-in-law's 65th birthday was this past Saturday and the family wanted to make it extra special by renting a lake house for the whole weekend to celebrate. Because it was such a special occasion, I wanted to get a professionally decorated cake and decided with Maddy's Fatty's due to the ratings on Yelp and the pictures on their website. Unfortunately, I was extremely disappointed with the cake and will never use them again.
Leading up to the birthday weekend, one of the owners, Enza worked with me on a cake design that would fit my budget ($100 for only 13 people). The process went fine and I decided on a breakfast themed cake because it's my father-in-law's favorite meal. I sent an email with a few sample pictures of breakfast themed cakes but also a picture of the actual breakfast dish (it's called the grand slam from Denny's - he gets it every year on his birthday). During one of our discussions I asked "what will the cake look like?" They said "just like the picture." Well, when I went to pick up the cake with a friend, we were appalled. The cake did not look professionally made at all. It looked like something I could've made or worse a kid with a Play-Doh set. My friend thought the "egg yolks" were carrots and the "pancakes" ham. The sausage was the worst which looked like poop - there's no other way to describe it! The checkerboard tablecloth was sloppy and the red was bleeding all over the white. Here's what really upset me - I told them to write "happy 65th birthday gilbert" or something along those lines - they told me they'd write it on the cakeboard since there's no real estate left on the cake. They totally left it off! The young lady who was helping me offered to "fix" the cake but I asked if she knew how, she told me she wasn't a cake decorator and that she'd try...um what??? I asked her specifically if she had any piping skills and she said no...as much as I appreciated her offer it only would've made it worse. The professional decorators were gone for the day and we didn't have the time to wait around for someone to show up who knew how to fix it.
The young lady was able to get Maddy, the other owner, on the phone. She was friendly on the phone and asked what was wrong with the cake, etc. I explained my dissatisfaction. She offered to rectify the situation and told me to give the phone back to the young lady - before I did that I asked her how she was going to rectify the issue. She said she would give a partial refund. When I asked her how much, she said 10% ($10)! I balked and told her she must be joking and she proceeded to tell me that it's all subjective...um no! Not this cake. Not when the sausage looks like pieces of poop, not when the colors are running all over the cake, etc. What's scary is she said she made the cake and continued to stand behind it. I would have more respect for her as the owner had she owned up to the fact that she put no effort into making my cake and that it was unacceptable. But no she continued to tell me it's all subjective and so that's when I told her that even her own employee agreed with me. She asked me to give the phone back to the young lady - they both had a long conversation in the back. Eventually, Maddy got back on the phone and offered me a 30% refund, 1/2 dozen cupcakes and asked if there was anything else. I asked and she agreed to throw in #6 and #5 candles. At the end of the day, I didn't want the birthday to be completely ruined because of an argument over a cake and so left it at that although I did tell them to remove the poop sausage.
The cake itself tasted good but they got the flavors wrong and this was after they called to double check on the frosting flavor!!! I told them a Boston cream cake - yellow cake with chocolate frosting and a custard filling. The frosting was vanilla.
Today, Enza called to follow up which I appreciated. I explained my disappointment that I didn't get a professionally decorated cake like I'd expected and she apologized more than once and acknowledged that I'd emphasized the importance of the cake. She offered to rectify the situation but unfortunately, it's a moot point given that the occasion is over. I did say that the only way to rectify was to give additional money back but instead offered a discount on a future cake to try and get back in my good graces. I thanked her for the offer but told her the whole experience left a bad taste in my mouth.
I wish they would've done the right thing by telling me that they were too swamped to produce a quality cake or that they reconsidered and that the amount of work didn't fit in my budget so that we could come up with a plan B. I like supporting small businesses but unfortunately cannot which is a shame because I have a lot of family in that area to spread the word.
PS. Beware. Yelp filters out reviews through an automated software. Had I seen the other 42 "not recommended" reviews, I would've chosen differently.
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