Jessica Montgomery simply wanted a quart of bourbon chicken stew.
When the order was mixed up, she expected a refund. But what she found on her account was a “fuck you” from delivery service HoosierFoods.com.
To be absolutely clear: “It says F-U-C-K to me,” on the receipt, she said.
She posted a screen shot of the receipt to the Bloomington Moms Facebook group and to the page for HoosierFoods.com.
“I’m totally shocked and disgusted,” she wrote.
HoosierFoods.com promptly deleted the photo from its Facebook page. The Bloomington Moms got mad.
It started Oct. 2 at 5:15 p.m. Montgomery ordered dinner from Dats, a Cajun restaurant on Grant Street. The go-between delivery service HoosierFoods.com would deliver her food for a $2 fee.
With a hungry, picky preschooler to feed, Montgomery waited more than an hour for her order. When the food arrived after the order had been mixed up, it was cold.
“And it’s not something you can reheat,” Montgomery said.
While her daughter gnawed on cold bread, Montgomery called HoosierFoods.com.
She said owner Chris Wells apologized and agreed to a full refund.
Last night, before she went to bed, she checked her account. She still didn’t have the refund. And, there, on the receipt, was an odd notation: "Cody Took the Wrong Order First." Under that, a $20 deduction next to the words “fuck you.”
“It was 1 a.m.,” Montgomery said. “I thought, no way he wrote that.”
She posted the screenshot of the receipt to Facebook and phone calls flooded in to Dats.
“It wasn’t anything we did,” said Dats owner, Bob Crowley. He apologized anyway. “Jessica is a regular customer. We love her dearly. We try to bend over backward to make our customers happy.”
Montgomery loves Dats back. She places the blame squarely on the delivery service.
When contacted Thursday, a man who identified himself as the owner refused to give his name. He called the incident “unfortunate” but did not apologize.
The owner’s name is Chris Wells, according to Indiana public records. He said the note was not intended for Montgomery. It was directed toward the delivery driver. He wouldn’t say who wrote it, but it wasn’t him. And Montgomery was never supposed to see it.
He went on to say the publicity is taking food out of the mouths of his children. He invoked mountains and molehills and said that Montgomery was never charged for the meal.
“That’s not true,” Montgomery said Thursday, adding that she’s still waiting for a refund.
The response from HoosierFoods.com has made her even angrier. “He could’ve just called and apologized,” she said. “He’s making it worse.”
Montgomery said her family orders Dats a couple times a month. Her 3-year-old daughter is a picky eater, and the chicken and rice meal is a favorite.
When it arrived cold, their daughter kept asking for the Dats meal.
“It’s gross,” Montgomery told her.
She opened a can of Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup for her daughter — sodium be damned — and ate Frosted Mini Wheats with her husband.
