Chef Tonne

I bought 2 vouchers from Groupon and placed an order for delivery. I sent 3 emails along with 2 phone calls over 17 days before Chef Tonne confirmed a delivery date in 2.5 weeks. The delivery date came and went with no food. I was depending on the delivery to get us through dinner for that week. At that point, I gave up and filed a complaint through Groupon to get a refund. Very disappointed and would not rely on this company in the future.

For a lack of a better adjective, I’m «glad» to know I’m not alone. I think David J’s first sentence — «It’s been a crazy ride with Chef Tonne» — is quite accurate. Unfortunately, my ride with Chef isn’t over yet. :(
I went to Living Social tonight to request a refund. Here’s what I’ve told them. I have emails to back all of this up:
A friend of mine purchased a certificate for $ 99 through Living Social for a week’s worth of prepared meals from a Chef Tonne as a new baby gift for our family. Long story short, this certificate has yet to be honored. I read Unilocal reviews for Chef Tonne tonight, and it looks as if I’m not the only one who feels scammed. Long story below…
I call the 800 number on the certificate to schedule my meals. The unfriendly lady who answered the phone more or less chastised me for calling instead of going to Chef Tonne’s website, which was not the direction on the certificate. But I went online and sent the required email on a Wednesday for meals to be delivered the following Sunday. (Their website stated that orders needed to be in by Thursday at noon for that Sunday’s delivery.) I immediately received an email back that stated it was too late to sign up… That’s all it said. When I inquired as to why and noted that I was within the deadline, I was told that meals/​ingredients might run out before the deadline. That wasn’t on the website, but okay… Moving on. I emailed back, still that Wednesday, with a new date. I never received another response from Chef Tonne.
That date came and went. No email. No phone call. No food. Still giving them the benefit of the doubt — perhaps my email went unread or something due to all of our communication that day — I waited a month or so to email my information again. This time, I received an invoice almost immediately. I was being charged taxes and delivery fees. In my mind, that’s what the Living Social certificate was for — 7 days of meals delivered. But, still giving them the benefit of the doubt — maybe there was fine print on the original deal I didn’t read — I paid the extra $ 40-​something, got a receipt, and everything was set… So I thought.
Fast forward several weeks, the Wednesday before my meals should be delivered. I was on vacation and received a curt email telling me I needed to pay my invoice by noon the following day to get my meals. I didn’t have access to my receipt on vacation, but Friday evening, after I got home, I forwarded the receipt to them to let them know I already had paid. I received no apologies from them — am I getting across that their customer service is terrible — but there was an email I was CCed in from Chef Tonne letting a Tamika know I should be on the list because I had paid. A few minutes after that I got an email for delivery confirmation.
According to that delivery confirmation, my meals should have been delivered today, Sunday, between 3 and 8 pm. It’s 10:00, and my meals are still not here. No phone call. No email. No food. I’ve been home since 1:00 and would not have missed them.
Soooo…I’ve email Chef Tonne tonight asking what’s the deal & waiting for Living Social to get back to me. I have higher hopes for Living Social.

I wish it were possible to give a 0 star. Bleh. «Beef» was so tough and bland that I tossed it in the trash and told my kids they didn’t have to try it. Chicken was rubbery. Everything else was just as bad. Out of the 7 meals I purchased, $ 150 all in, only one was edible. I cannot warn you with «buyer beware» enough. Food was pricey, service was poor and the quality was worse than the freezer section of the grocery. The pics from the website absolutely MUST be microsoft clip art or something. It looked NOTHING like the pictures when delivered. AT ALL. Take my word for it, you’ll fare FAR better at the frozen aisle. Ish! :(

Very dissapointing. I used a living social coupon for $ 100, plus they charged me $ 30 of gratutity on top of that. Total rip off. The food arrived and is not enough for 2 people. Looks like left overs. No labeling. The company is not friendly and difficult to deal with. When I bought my living social coupon there were not any reviews yet. I wish there had been, I could have saved myself $ 130.

I bought a groupon — had trouble with the links, the numbers and the ordering, then, finally got it – it arrived. Let’s just put it this way — for the $, you can go to Whole Foods or Central Market and get their to-​go dinners for 2 for less money and they taste a million times better.
Food is very mediocre. Veggies taste frozen — in fact, I’d bet dollars to donuts that they are.
Save your money.

This is a scam. I originally purchased my voucher with Living Social in February, which included instructions for redemption of the voucher over the phone. The next week, we called and scheduled delivery, but no one ever showed up. Not a call, message or anything.
A couple of months later, I wanted to go ahead and attempt delivery again. I checked the voucher, this time they had brand new redemption instructions. This time you had to email in some information and they emailed back an invoice for tax, delivery and gratuity.
My voucher was for just under $ 100. The invoice they sent me was almost $ 50! Furthermore, that wasn’t their policy the first go-​round. The company obviously thought that they weren’t making enough through the voucher deals, and just started arbitrarily adding amounts to the transaction to recover as much revenue as possible. They added a $ 15 delivery charge (never mentioned in the voucher) and a $ 22.35 gratuity — on a $ 98 transaction!!! Who am I tipping for their great service? The guy responding to my email?
When I brought up the lunacy of paying $ 50 in tax, delivery and gratuity on a $ 100 voucher — the guy noticed I was an attorney in my signature, and mocked me saying, and I quote «READ the fine print COUNSELOR!!! Haha.» Nevermind that the terms and conditions said nothing of a delivery fee AND that a $ 22.35 gratuity is absurd on its face.
The guy responding by email also repeatedly called me a liar, telling me that their policy has always been to receive orders by email. Unfortunately for him, I still have a copy of the original voucher PDF.
I’m going back to Living Social and getting a refund. These guys are shady and abusive to their customers. And from the looks of the other reviews, it looks like the food is pretty terrible as well.
A shame — there is a service called Bill and Ted’s Excellent Catering in Austin that is a similar concept… and it’s FANTASTIC. Dallas could really use something decent. These shysters though… probably won’t last until the living social vouchers expire.
I would say its a shame but these guys deserve it. No way you treat customers like this and play funny games with the policies and stay in business for long.

Bought 7 meals for 2 on living social. Company was unprofessional in communication, riddled with problems regarding delivery and order. Finally received order which was incorrect and made several attempts to contact chef tonne after with no response. Would never ever recommend. I’m the idiot since I didn’t vet them before ordering as I assumed living social did it for me. A simple google search shows an f grade from the better business bureau.

Be warned, in fine print, they proclaim substitions can be made… Not a single item posted on their online menu arrived. Every single item was substituted with what looked like left overs. Nothing was labeled or identifiable. Their response…
«We are very sorry about the lack of labeling, please read the link listed below
We reserve to the right to make substitutions due to market
variations of food cost.
thank you for your purchase and have a great day!»
This business is a sham! If you want t o be misled and don’t mind eating the surprise of the day for a week’s worth of meals… Buy the Groupon or LivingSocial deal… If you’re like me and believe what is advertised, don’t take the risk of purchasing!

The food was gross, very over-​priced, and very small portion sized. I do not recommend this company.

Its been a crazy ride with Chef Tonne.
I originally purchased a Groupon for appetizers and we were so excited to use it and try the food as the description and web site looked great. I called and emailed and received a quick response to schedule a date for delivery of 9 separate rounds of appetizers and each round had 18 portions. The Groupon stated that substitutions were allowed but once I asked I was told there would be a fee. Obviously not horrible but the Groupon and the fine print never mentioned a fee for substitutions. The invoice I received and had to pay (as expected for taxes and gratuity) stated each round had a portion size of 12. I stated the Groupon stated 18 and the customer service started to decline from this point. The person emailing me grudgingly stated they would agree to the language in the Groupon (wow, thanks since it was their offer). The date and time was set and we were excited. We scheduled a 6pm delivery on a Friday and with so many appetizers coming we decided to have a party and invite some friends and make a night of it.
The delivery was scheduled for 6pm and the doorbell rang at 5:59pm! Perfect! I tipped the driver and she said it was a crazy day and said enjoy and walked off. I brought the box into the kitchen and started unloading the many serving containers and that is when it went down hill. Not only did I only receive 8 rounds of appetizers and not 9 the 8 rounds were not all the rounds that were stated in the Groupon. I called the business and after immediately stating my name I was told «oh Mr. J — , I am so sorry but we had a driver in an accident and my original order was on some street and they had to make some special order for me.» I was concerned because one of the apps we were excited for didn’t make it, another app just had 2 servings of the same one and they made several substitutions that did not work. One significant one was they switched out salmon for shrimp and many of our guests could not eat shrimp. Instead of 2 rounds of desserts there was only one. The person I spoke to said she was sorry and I could pick out a week worth of free dinner for 2 and they would provide it at no cost to me. I was just supposed to contact them when I was ready for my selection. The appetizers were in 2 groups. One group of 4 or 5 appetizers were so so but 2 – 3 were very good. So at this point in time we were pretty excited about the weeks worth of dinners.
I contacted the person again and scheduled a delivery via email. I received my confirmation email within a few hours. The next day I received another confirmation email stating I would need to give the driver $ 18 for gratuity/​delivery and then also confirmed the wrong date. I emailed the person and provided a little more information and was emailed back and the person apologized.
Today was the delivery date for the dinners. I assumed my order was going to go well. It did not. Four of the seven entrees were delivered correctly. One entrée was not even included but replaced with what looks to be just spaghetti sauce but no pasta was included. The best two meals for the week were not included but replaced with something else. So we are not impressed and the portions are quite small for two for about half the entrees. I hope they taste great but the descriptions look a lot better than a few of the meals. It is a free weeks worth of dinners and I appreciate the gesture to try to make things right but unfortunately it landed short.