This food festival was boiling hot but still ended up half baked!
Attendees of a Fort Greene fest promising an African feast last weekend are demanding a refund on tickets that cost up to $150 after they say hardly any vendors showed up, the entertainment was lousy and late, lines were long, and temperatures inside the venue were unbearable.
“Not only were the options, entertainment, and interaction lacking but it was … hotter than Africa in there!” Kimberly Merejo wrote on the event’s Facebook page — one of dozens and dozens who inundated the page with their complaints. “Seriously, I want my money back.”
The New York City African Food Festival advertised more than 25 vendors dishing out some of the finest cuisines from the birthplace of humanity in the Navy Yard’s Duggal Greenhouse with tickets starting at $30.
The organizer says he had signed up 30 vendors a month ago, but admits fewer than half actually served food across the two-day festival — angry commenters described between three to six stalls at any given time — which he blamed on the peddlers failing to get their food handler’s license, insurance, or other necessary permits ahead of the celebration.
“There’s a challenge with African food vendors being up to code and knowing how all these things are done because the Health Department has requirements with events like this,” said Ishmael Osekre.
But at least one would-be vendor claimed that’s because Osekre didn’t send stall-holders information on what they’d need until Thursday night despite her repeat requests for the details earlier.
The ticked off trader, spice and coffee merchant Michelle Celestin, posted her allegations on the Facebook page along with screen shots of e-mails between her and the organizers that appear to back them up, and now she is also demanding a refund on the $500 she says she paid in advance for a table.
Some guests paid $150 for a special ticket that was supposed to include an eight-course dinner cooked by Senegalese celebrity chef Pierre Thiam, but Osekre says the cook was late and didn’t have time to make anything.
Thiam, however, also blamed the organizers, claiming he was told just hours before the event that he wouldn’t have access to a kitchen or ingredients he was promised, and that the venue’s food service permit didn’t cover planned seafood dishes. He says he scrambled to buy some produce and improvise a new menu, but had to stop when the event ended.
“The whole experience was surreal,” Thiam wrote in an apology on his Facebook page. “How could the organizers charge people so much money without ensuring a proper setup?”
Osekre claims he didn’t make any money from the event and may give refunds to anyone who shelled out for Thiam’s meal.
As for the temperature, Osekre claims the forecast for the weekend’s heat wave came too late for him to contract an outside firm to bring in extra cooling equipment, which Greenhouse management claim they had recommended he do from the start.
Still, at least one of the few vendors who actually served food said he didn’t mind the problems and thought the food fete was an all-around good time.
“It was a bit unorganized and there were a few surprises,” said Kibur Sahlu, who headed an Ethiopian wine and cocktail stand at the festival. “But besides the organization, I think the event was pretty good.”
And Osekre said he is still hoping to bring the festival back next year, when he will try to do a better job.
“There’s been a lot of feedback and we know if we listen, we can correct a lot of the wrongs and do it better,” he said.
