Hatam Restaurant

It was a hot, beautiful day in Pasadena. I had just sent the bride and groom down the aisle for a Persian/Armenian ceremony conducted by a Buddhist monk. Fun stuff. I really wanted to watch this ceremony, but other things were pressing: The caterer was no where to be found.

The family had confirmed a 4pm time earlier in the week. I had confirmed the day before the wedding. The wait staff of Castle Green confirmed that day. We all had 4pm as the start time. It was now 5pm and the ceremony would be done soon. We had alcohol (always a good thing), but no food. This was a disaster in the making.

The ceremony finished, and I was on my 5th phone call to the caterer. Half an hour earlier they claimed they were at the 110 and the 5 Freeways. We knew they were lying because they would have arrived in under that time.

The Cocktail Hour started. I attempted to divert the bride and groom and send them to the rooftop location for photos. Unfortunately, it didn't work. The bride found out the caterer hadn't arrived and she began to unravel. The mother of the groom spoke in angry tones on the phone to the owner of the restaurant for the third time. Still, the food did not arrive.

I created options to get other food, but the family wasn't interested. They wanted the food that was ordered, payed for and was supposedly on its way.

The Cocktail "Hour" stretched into a hour and a half. Finally the van carrying the food pulled up. We were jubilant. I've never seen servers get so excited. I grabbed my assistants, and we helped the catering and the servers get the food to where it needed to go.

Then we had a new surprise.

The food that arrived was only the food for the Cocktail Hour. The food for dinner was still at the restaurant...in ANAHEIM!!!

Again the phone calls started. At this point we had a round robin system. I would call, then the mother of the groom, then the head of the servers for Castle Green.

The food did arrive, but we were forced to push everything back by almost 2 hours. The wedding had a curfew of midnight, and the food mishap cut into the celebration and dance time, which was very important to the newlyweds.

As for the food itself, it was good, but was served luke-warm. Terrible. Even if it had been the best food in the world, I would never refer this restaurant to any of my brides.