Rad Foods Montana Private Chefs and Catering — Local services in Bozeman

Long story short: Chef Austin faked his own death to get out of cooking for our wedding, then proceeded to sell barbecue the very next day. What follows is the long story long.

Chef Austin said in a previous review response, "I have been doing this for over 7 years and have never once (until becoming ill) let a guest or a client down." Well, "let down" is an understatement for our experience. Our event was a few years ago, but I'd like to share our experience to share just how much RAD Foods and Chef Austin let us down.

We booked Chef Austin for our 2023 backyard wedding 9 months in advance. We were coming from out of state and wanted a great vegetarian meal, and Austin assured us he was our guy. The communication was never great, but he told us he had been traveling during his off season and was slow to get back to clients at the time, so we moved forward. We signed a contract, paid in full in two installments, and trusted Austin to take over from there. We gave him a lot of artistic freedom over the menu and were excited to see what he came up with. About 3 weeks before our wedding, I contacted Austin about not receiving the menus, and he told us that he had sent them and would send them again in case of a glitch. We never received the menus, nor heard from him again.

The day before our wedding, we got a frantic email from Chef Austin's assistant, saying that he and his girlfriend had gone to Idaho to buy a car and hadn't returned, and she feared he had died. Of course, we were panicked! We spent the night before our wedding looking at news reports to see if he had died. We had to cancel our plans for the night and alert our family, who immediately started planning a homemade meal after coming from out of state (and out of country for some). The email said they had to cancel "quite a few clients," which if true, is wild to me that at $5,000, we weren't the priority.

I need to emphasize here that Chef Austin's team never actually canceled and said they'd "keep us posted", so we spent the day in fear that he would show up. All communication we received was focused on how harrowing the possibility of his death was, which we would have sympathized with, if not for the fact that Chef Austin had spent the day before and day of posting from his Yellow House Barbecue instagram (linked on his Rad Foods page) that he was preparing to host a barbecue pop-up, also in Bozeman, on the day after our wedding. Seems like his team would be aware that he was setting up for a popup, right? 🤔 Some of our friends went to the Yellow House popup the next day and confirmed, with video footage, that Chef Austin was alive and well and selling barbecue on the day after our event, all while lying to us about his own disappearance/possible death.

Our wedding was lovely, no thanks to Chef Austin, but at great stress to us and our family members. We did get a full refund (with NO mention of what happened!) a few days later, which is the most positive thing I can say about the whole experience. This was a truly terrible experience and I cannot recommend that anyone book Chef Austin.

Chef Austin has a lot of excuses in his responses to the last two negative reviews, but none of those excuses hold up in our case. We paid in full, we had a contract, and had extensively tried to contact him and give him chances. He lied egregiously about his well-being while actively working in the same city, and never followed up, took responsibility,...

Having read the glowing reviews, I was sincerely looking forward to working with Austin and RAD Catering for a 3 day event with 21 high end guests. I booked 10 months in advance and yet found the communication went from bad to worse. I should have trusted my gut and cancelled but by the time communication got so bad, it was too late to book someone else of quality.

Days before the event, I had recieved no menu, no choices, and he was not returning calls or texts, which was terrifying to say the least. On the day of the event, he simply did not show up, nor did he call or text to offer any apologies or explanation. I was left to scramble, call in favors and our intended high end event went to deli sandwiches for lunch and u bake pizza's and salad for dinner in the blink of an eye. Thankfully all the guests were understanding and sympathetic. This was the worst catering experience I have ever had and I will NEVER recommend this catering/chef service to my worst enemy. Give them a big pass and...

Where do I even begin? Austin was the cherry on top of my Bachelor party. We had a 14 person Airbnb tucked away in Bozeman. While we were playing football, frisbee and spikeball, Austin and his team made us an amazing open fire dinner. He curated the menu a couple weeks prior with my favorite dishes and restaurants I've dined at and I will tell you he blew all of my expectations out of the water.

Coming from Las Vegas, NV, a place where a lot of people visit for proper dining and nightlife, the service and food Austin provided was an unbelievable experience for our entire group. I've eaten at Bazaar meats by Jose Andres, several James Beard restaurants and consider myself a bit of a foodie and this experience with R&D was top notch. I would definitely book the open fire dinner if weather permits in the summer. It made an amazing trip...