Ruth's House Event Rentals

What follows is a summary of our experience with Ruths House Event Rentals. Rentals were for a wedding at the Hibernian in Charleston, SC. This review is divided into the following sections: Major Issues, Other Problems, and Ruths House Responses. Major Issues: 1. Late delivery. All Rentals were scheduled for delivery at 10:00 AM, the morning of the event. Instead, multiple deliveries arrived from approximately noon until 2:30. 2. Unsafe and dilapidated gold Chiavari chairs. Two chairs broke on elderly guests during dinner. All of the Chiavari chairs were missing gold paint. Many were missing wood, from small pieces to chunks. 3. Gold eating utensils appeared unfit for use. All utensils arrived badly tarnished, and some unusable, except for 50 new knives. Many utensils had large black “rust like” spots that could not be removed. The utensils arrived in a bag that look as if it had been stored in animal feces. Other Problems: 4. Dirty chair cushions. Varying degrees of dirt, some unusable. 5. Cushions arrived with different attachment mechanisms providing an inconsistent look, some were ties, others Velcro. 6. Dirty and incorrect size tablecloths: Some not all. 7. White napkins were ordered. We received some soiled napkins; varying color napkins (white, cream, and light pink); and two different fabric napkins (silk, and cotton). Ruths House Response: 8. Ruths House delivery driver suggested that we spray paint the gold Chiavari chairs. (Note: the wedding was only hours away and all the chairs required painting.) 9. Leslie, our contact, was both unhelpful and unwilling to listen when she was contacted throughout the day. She insisted that deliveries would arrive any minute, but they did not. She insisted that what had been delivered was new, yet refused our request to inspect the deliveries for herself. It required escalation to her manager to get the unusable knives replaced. 10. Ruths House owner, Marcus, refuses to take any responsibility or ownership for any of the items above, and appears to blame us! Responses from his emails are copied and pasted here: “We beg to differ that due to a time  crunch  that you could not have rejected the items if they were not to you satisfaction upon delivery and your in person examination of the items especially to the extent of the dissatisfaction you have described.” “As a small business, we have to be vigilant and not let our customers cheat us either because our employees have families to feed, lights to keep on and roofs to keep over their families heads.”