Scholar Catering, UBC monopolized Catering service
Scholar catering is the only catering service you can hire when you rent a venue in UBC. Even though their food quality is above average, the cost is a bit on the high side. I hired them for my wedding but the extra stress they gave me makes it almost not worth it to host my wedding at the UBC’s beautiful location.
Scholar Catering, formerly known as Wescadia Catering, is a very difficult catering service to deal with. They have monopolized all UBC venues so you have no choice but to hire them for your wedding, or business conference inside UBC.
Poor response time:
We had our wedding at Cecil Green, and the place looks stunning! However, Scholar Catering cannot take credit for the view. During wedding planning, when everyone planning the wedding are extremely stressed and under a tight timeline, our representative took 3-10 days to respond questions and we finally had to get managers involved.
Monopolized catering service may not work with your wedding theme:
They do not allow you to bring outside food or drinks to the premise you’ve rented. Not the cute cupcake that goes really well with your wedding theme; not the Earnest ice cream food truck you want your friends and relatives to enjoy; not even water. I had made the decision to host a wedding without snacks or beverages out of sheer frustration from dealing with Scholar Catering until I realize how many guests were flying in for my wedding.
Get ready to pay for whatever amount they ask for:
The catering service cost about $3,000 for my 60 people event providing light snack/water. To be honest, We would have no choice but to hire them even if they asked for $9,000. Nobody would host a beautiful wedding at Cecil Green Park House without providing snacks for their guests.
We have ordered:
- Fresh Fruit & Wild Berry Platter
- Vegetarian Antipasto Platter
- Chilled Seafood Display
- Charcuterie Board
- Dark Chocolate Caramel Marshmallow Pops
- Cakepops
- Coffee
- Non-Alcoholic Punch
As you can see, we ordered a variety of food types for our guests. Despite Scholar Catering’s unprofessionalism, the seafood platter was above average. The cupcakes and cake pops do not really fit in with our wedding theme, but it’ll do. However, they are definitely not worth the $50 per guest price tag.
Be ready for extra charge 6 months after receiving your deposit back:
The worst part of dealing with Scholar Catering is that I found a charge of $150 on my credit card 6 months after my wedding. I was not contacted by Scholar Catering prior to this charge, so I thought they leaked my credit card information. It took me couple hours of confusion and multiple channels to find out from Scholar Catering’s general manager Kerensa Wotton that the charge came from the sandwiches my wedding planner ordered for planning staff on the day of the wedding.
Up until now, it remains a mystery to me how the sandwich charge wasn’t added to my original invoice. However, customers should not be the victim of their internal chaos. Especially, they should not use my credit card without my consent just because they had it on file. I am no longer disputing this charge through my credit card company, however having to spend time figuring out extra charges for contracts terminated 6 months ago is not acceptable. It just shows me how unorganized Scholar Catering is.
Final Advice:
Regardless of Scholar Catering or Wescadia Catering, having to deal with a monopolized catering service is the worst part of my wedding experience. I’d advise anyone thinking about booking UBC venue to keep this in mind.
