Some of the attendees of a Mother’s Day event hosted by True Elegance restaurant in Bulawayo on Tuesday besieged the restaurant demanding refunds.
This was after the attendees complained of poor service at the event held at Euphorie Events in Killarney which attracted over 500 women.
About 10 women descended on the restaurant demanding their money back arguing that they were shortchanged by the organisers.
Each guest paid US$60 to attend the event.
The restaurant CEO Patscencia Vundla had promised to compensate the women by offering them a buffet meal.
When a CITE news crew arrived at the restaurant they found the agitated women engaging one of the managers who identified himself as Bheki.
“My child paid US$60 for me to attend a Mother’s day event by True Elegance, the food I got, the chicken and beef was all rotten, the drinks were just hot, we were just not happy with the way we were treated after paying US$60,” said Ndlovu.
Another attendee, Portia Ndlovu, said they were promised a photoshoot which was also poorly managed and they are yet to receive the pictures.
“I came here for a refund following the poor service I got last week, my child paid for three people, and the service we received was just poor, as it is I am still having a problem with my stomach.
“We didn’t even see the pictures from the photoshoot, we even went for interviews but we didn’t even see the videos,” said Ndlovu.
The women also said they were not interested in the buffet meal offered by the restaurant.
“Our coming here is not to fight but to find a way forward so that we come again next year, not even next year, we are looking forward to Father’s Day coming soon, she should solve it with us first so that our children can pay for their fathers as well,” she said.
“We want to put this issue to rest so that she won’t close down her business as well because people are no longer paying for her events.”
Mrs Sibanda who also attended the event said she did not even receive her surprise gift which had been arranged for her.
A representative from True Elegance said they don’t have a refund policy.
“We don’t have a refund policy and we didn’t even speak about refunds; we are saying we will offer people food, we put a message requesting the mothers to come and eat to compensate for the mistake that happened,” said Bheki.
“We didn’t anticipate the crisis, compensating with the food is not something we had planned but we saw the mistake that happened at the event, even if the mistake was the photo shoot, we were going to do the same thing and call for people to come to for a photoshoot.”
