Hoping for the best while preparing for the worst is a great motto to live by, as long as both actions are taken into account. However, one restaurant in Pennsylvania reportedly completely forgot about the second half and tried simply hoping its very lacking meal preparation would be suitable for hundreds of customers. This wasn’t a flash flood of people either; the restaurant knew ahead of time that a prepaid event for over 350 Muslim graduate students was going to take place, yet its owner still intentionally underdelivered, scamming the organizer out of thousands of dollars.
The organizer, who goes by hidden_throwaways on Reddit, posted their story to both r/PhiladelphiaEats and r/legaladvice. The cross-posts explained the situation and warned people not to visit a restaurant called White House Tajine. In short, the poster organized an event for the students and paid $4,500 in advance for dozens of trays of lamb shank tajine, chicken tajine, and rice for around 350 people. On the day of the event, the owner suspiciously said the manager, who mysteriously blocked OP, had made a mistake and that the order actually cost $20,000, the first of several bizarre claims.
The White House Tajine owner went on, saying, “Oh, that guy doesn’t really work for us, he just helps us out sometimes,” about the manager. Then, he claimed the organizer could still pay an extra $1,500 to save the event, but OP disagreed. After some negotiation, the owner finally said he’d remove the chicken tajine from the meal plans, with nothing else changing. Once the event started, the food arrived half an hour late, but the worst part was that the food for each group of eight people barely fed around two. When confronted, the owner claimed nothing was wrong and refused to refund any of the $4,500.
Needless to say, the event organizer is not ready to let this Pennsylvania restaurant get away with its scam. Since filing a report to the police was unsuccessful, as everyone technically was “fed,” they plan to take things to court. Dozens of commenters in both OP’s posts strongly recommend that they pursue a small claims court case, considering the $4,500 amount. “Definitely report this to the Pennsylvania AG office,” added one person.
White House Tajine Was Reportedly Unprepared and Has Taken Down Bad Reviews
The organizer has said that they and several others put out 1-star reviews, calling out White House Tajine, but they were all taken down. One person had to have their review screenshotted as evidence that “the owners were not prepared to provide the food and service the OP paid for.” The organizer also has hundreds of witnesses to testify if the case’s judge needs more convincing.
It should be noted that the alleged scammer who owns the Pennsylvania restaurant appears to have only struck down the negative reviews related to the Muslim graduate students’ event. For example, one 1-star review claimed her reservation was poorly handled, while another said the service and food were simply bad. “What a bunch of THIEVING SCUMBAGS!!!” exclaimed a Redditor. On the other hand, one 1-star review on Yelp hasn’t been taken down, warning others of the event OP posted about:
Ordered catering from here and after agreeing to the order in writing and wiring them the money, they not only brought the food late, but gave us less than a quarter of what we ordered. They were incredibly rude when we asked them about it, too.
Hopefully, the White House Tajine comes clean about its reported mistake; otherwise, it’s ruined its business’s reputation for hundreds, if not thousands, of people.
