We cannot recommend this catering team enough! They were a dream to work with from start to finish, and the food at our wedding was incredible. Rick is so understanding and helped make our day special, making amendments where possible without it being an issue. The canapés were bursting with flavor, the roast dinner was cooked to perfection, and the desserts were simply divine. The highlight of the evening was the pizza, which our guests couldn't get enough of (though there was a bit of a queue because it was so popular!). The staff were professional, friendly, and made sure everything ran seamlessly. If you're looking for amazing food where your guests will only speak positively, and top notch service for your event, look no further!??
Andres Ruiz
Just ordered from the exton community day and food tasted awful no seasoning and to top it off some of it tasted like chemical sorta like lighter fluid
Jay Montgomery
This company does not pay its debts to vendors in a timely manner. My small farm has been waiting months for Mr. Flynn to cover his debts. WARNING TO ALL OTHERS - we are not the first to be burned.
Keiley Indivero
I would not recommend Brandon to anyone for catering, unless you want your day ruined and work with someone that has no accountability. We signed a contact with him after doing a food tasting for our wedding and should have never used him. He is not a man by his word, so don't trust him and also he clearly did not stand up to his contractual obligations. His communication is extremely poor, with one excuse after another. He also changed from " follow the smoke" to Flynn Crew BBQ so don't use that company either. He scams people and completely ruined the food aspect of our wedding. There was a point of concern due to recent review prior to our wedding in which our wedding planner reached out to him directly and he promised us there would be no issues moving forward/ concerns for our wedding. We should have pulled the plug on him then.Let me tell you some of the the issues we had with him. Never want this to happen to another couple. He was contracted to ON SITE pig roast and cooking, did not happen at all. The food was transported from PA to the fingerlakes region. This was not in the contract, everything was to be done on site. Not cooked then driven 2 hrs. Horrible, would have NEVER USED HIM if that wash is plan, but he is a lier! Ordered him additional table and set up he did not use, but I paid upfront for his set up. Got the wedding venue to allow him to set up one day early which he requested.... but kicker he never came early. His workers showed up 30 mins prior to the wedding starting! He also turned off his phone, when our wedding planner was trying to get in contact with him the morning and early afternoon because no one was onsite cooking. We concerned him a no show at that time and our wedding planner was making moves behind the scenes to figure out food while my friends came to the rescue and constructed amazing charcuterie boards for apps.Then his "workers" show up. Honestly, wish they didn't. The +$1,600 I paid for charcuterie boards as quoted "Local meats, cheeses, seasonal fruit, jams, spreads, olives, crackers, fruits & veggies".. was legit boxed crackers, pepperoni + soppressata, two types of cheese. Not to mention they laid out napkins with other weddings name on it.Food was not what was at the tasting. Meat was dry. Brandon said at the tasting the best things to do is break it down so it has more flavor and juicy, well let me tell you it was dry. Brisk over cooked. Chicken was ok. They ran out of ribs when serving people but then at time of clean up they found another rack! I mean, I can't make this disaster up. Salt potatoes had no butter. The roasted veggies were mush. The salad was quoted as "seasonal salad" and was lettuce with a couple tomatos on top.There is more issues but I think people would understand after reading above to stay away for ANY company with Brandon Flynn from PA. I write this because I don't want someone else wedding food ruined/ run into the issues we had working with him.
Mary Ramsey
Follow the Smoke, AKA Flynn Crew BBQ catered a company picnic that I coordinated on July 22nd for roughly 300 people, adults and children from 11am – 3pm. I’ve held off writing a review because I was waiting for the owner to get back to me with a resolution to the complaints I had about our event and their services that day. However, it has now been over a week and no return call was received, my calls and messages have gone unanswered. So, I’m left to assume no resolution will be provided and these massive oversights are of no importance to them. My specific issues are detailed below. I’ll try to keep it as b rief as possible. But, the moral of the story is, don’t use them to cater your event.
• The buffet was set up and ready to go for about 30-45 minutes before their staff told anyone. anyone knew. By the time we told the guests that the food was out, everyone was so hungry that all other picnic activities stopped, and everyone dashed for the buffet line at once.
• The pizza was not put out on the buffet, as our agreement stated it would be. Their staff told me they were “waiting for individual orders to be placed”, but they also never told any of the guests that they needed to place an order. Upon finding this out, I was able to make an announcement that people could get pizza, but this was about 1 hour before the picnic was ending. A massive line formed for pizza, and still hardly anyone received one, max 15 people. And the few that did, said the dough was completely uncooked, but the bottom was still burned.
• Their team didn’t bring napkins. And, they didn’t notice until I brought it to their attention…after about 50 or so people went through the buffet line and started asking me for napkins. We used whatever rolls of paper towels we had on hand, but ultimately sent a member of their staff to buy them.
• The beverages and ice were a total disaster. I only saw 2 VERY SMALL carafe’s of iced tea and lemonade. There was supposed to be 3; sweet & unsweet tea, and lemonade. Also, these carafe’s weren’t labeled, and were wedged into the buffet table with all the food. The GIANT jugs of water, that apparently people had to try and pour for themselves, were shoved underneath the buffet table and were completely lukewarm, not at all kept on ice. Also, where was the ice? I didn’t see ice from their team anywhere. Thankfully I brought 4 small bags myself in the morning to get our soda’s chilling before their team arrived, but no ice was put out or given to me to use for the drinks at all.
• The desserts completely ran out by 1pm, and the biscuits for the strawberry shortcake were ALL burnt. And, they were flipped over in the serving dish so as to hide the burnt end, only to be discovered when each person picked up their serving. Also, the desserts that were baked into pans (sheet cake & brownies) weren’t cut up or put out in individual servings. We had to cut our own pieces and scoop them out of the baking pan ourselves.
• The food on the main buffet kept running out creating a giant log jam for people with some guests getting served large chunks of fat for their entire serving, as that was the last piece left in the pan… and the servers still dished it out.
On a more positive note, everyone seemed to enjoy the BBQ buffet - the pork, mac & cheese, cole slaw and salads were all delicious!
I asked the owner to make an adjustment/credit to the overall total bill to account for the pizza, dessert, and ice that we were charged for. As less than 20 people got pizza and those that did were inedible. The shortcakes were all burned, rendering them inedible. And there was no ice at all, even after requesting and paying for extra. These requests have gone unanswered.
DeMarco's Bartending & Waitstaff, LLC
ALERT!!ALERT!!ALERT!!ALERT!!
Venues / Wedding Planners / Brides / Grooms / Wedding Peeps
I have been struggling on whether to post this message but continue to feel it would be better to inform you then let it go.
Please be aware of a caterer named Flynn Crew BBQ out of Swoyersville, PA formally know as Follow the Smoke.
I was hired to provide waitstaff services by Brandon for a wedding a couple of weeks ago and wanted to show and inform you of their services and actions. They are the most unsanitary and unprepared company that I have ever worked with. I highly suggest you take this into consideration if they are part of anyone’s events.
On top of that, they left the property before the wedding was over and did not pay us for services we provided to them and will not return phone calls or emails
Flynn Crew BBQ
Follow The Smoke
Keira Gallagher
I feel the need to post this to warn other couples - while i doubt they will answer your inquiry anyway, please do not book and pay a deposit to this caterer. They took deposits from 2 couples I planned weddings for both in September 2023 and stopped communicating in June. I had to find a new caterer for a Saturday September wedding in under 2 months and neither received deposits back. They both sent cancellation emails to follow the smoke that went unanswered. Totally unprofessional and unacceptable.
Sean Wood
There was no positive experience. This company did not uphold their end of the contract with us. Communication is a huge part of fulfilling a contract and that did not happen. I gave time after time again to respond and try to make things right. I gave a date which to respond by after weeks of 0 calls or texts or emails back. No reply to that, and no reply when I said we will be moving on from your services due to communication negligence. I sent multiple requests for my deposit back with, again, not even an answer or anything. You cannot leave people in the dark for as long as you did with our event literally being a month and a half away. You failed your end of the deal and we want our deposit back. I cannot give 0 stars otherwise I would.
Olivia Percoco
I'm only giving two stars because the food IS amazing and servers/ bar tender were great. Follow the Smoke catered our wedding and it was the most STRESSFUL part of planning our big day. THE most disorganized business. If you are cool with your vendor playing fast-and-loose with your menu and details for a 100 person event, then go ahead and book them. Otherwise, pay a little more and go somewhere else. We were clear from the beginning we needed 2 vegan meals, and communicated some other changes to the invoice as we got closer to the event. About 1/3 of those changes made it to the invoice, making it impossible to track what we had agreed to in conversation and what we were paying for. SO frustrating. Then I started sending lengthy messages to ensure a paper trail and guess what....those messages were not read in their entirety or responded to. So on top of essentially managing a catering business 2 weeks prior to my wedding day, we still didn't get everything we discussed.I really, really wanted to like this business because their values are amazing (sourcing local meats, sourcing in-season) and I DO want this business to succeed but Brandon truly needs to hire someone to manage the business so he can focus on his skillset--cooking great barbecue. I hope this string of recent bad reviews changes something for them :(
Angela Phillips
Hands down some of the best Jamaican food I’ve had and I am very picky. Flavor galore!! This is a good truck so not a full service restaurant so it’s a pick up and go. I saw plenty of reviews about the customer service but my experience was good. The young lady was very nice and she did a great job of keeping the line moving.Back to the food. This is authentic j*** chicken, it’s smoked and the flavors are perfect mix of hot & sweet spice. The rice & peas were delicious as well. Next time I’m going to try the oxtails.I highly recommend giving this place a try.
This is the most mismanaged group I have ever dealt with. I was a military reunion planner for 10 years. It was a 5 day reunion so I dealt with many vendors. This was by far the worst. I was unable to contact them via phone, text or email. Wrong numbers, no one monitoring emails & all I got were excuses. The only time I got their attention was 3 days before my event when I emailed them and in the subject line I put " Pending Litigation". I booked the "Food Truck" as advertised on Google for my mom's 90th birthday. I got a truck pulling a smoker. I ordered pulled pork, chicken fingers and ribs as my 3 meat choices. Guess what; no ribs and dry pork. This is a breach of contract. I refuse toake final payment until adjustments are made. The couple that actually came to cook/serve were great! Very apologetic. They showed me the texts they received on my menu; no ribs. When I called Brandon on the day of the party he did not return MY call but texted the couple to have them tell me he would be in touch with me. Still haven't heard from Brandon, only received final bill with no adjustmentI would recommend the couple I dealt with. I asked for their information. If anyone wants the names & phone number PM me oi li live in Waverly,PA . Brandon. He's no business man. NEVER AGAIN WILL I USE FLYNN CATERING!!!
Bria Age
DO NOT USE THIS CATERER! As you can see by their most recent negative reviews they are not answering any sort of calls or messages. Thank God I was able to find another caterer less than 3 months before my wedding.
Kerri Albertson
Do not use this caterer. He took my son’s money for his wedding. 7 weeks before wedding no answer from them about wedding. No calls, no thing. Son has to find new caterer.
ronald tezzano
On website stated that they were open In Simpson but they were not there
Bria Cruz-Age
DO NOT USE THIS CATERER! As you can see by their most recent negative reviews they are not answering any sort of calls or messages. Thank God I was able to find another caterer less than 3 months before my wedding.
We cannot recommend this catering team enough! They were a dream to work with from start to finish, and the food at our wedding was incredible. Rick is so understanding and helped make our day special, making amendments where possible without it being an issue. The canapés were bursting with flavor, the roast dinner was cooked to perfection, and the desserts were simply divine. The highlight of the evening was the pizza, which our guests couldn't get enough of (though there was a bit of a queue because it was so popular!). The staff were professional, friendly, and made sure everything ran seamlessly. If you're looking for amazing food where your guests will only speak positively, and top notch service for your event, look no further!??
Just ordered from the exton community day and food tasted awful no seasoning and to top it off some of it tasted like chemical sorta like lighter fluid
This company does not pay its debts to vendors in a timely manner. My small farm has been waiting months for Mr. Flynn to cover his debts. WARNING TO ALL OTHERS - we are not the first to be burned.
I would not recommend Brandon to anyone for catering, unless you want your day ruined and work with someone that has no accountability. We signed a contact with him after doing a food tasting for our wedding and should have never used him. He is not a man by his word, so don't trust him and also he clearly did not stand up to his contractual obligations. His communication is extremely poor, with one excuse after another. He also changed from " follow the smoke" to Flynn Crew BBQ so don't use that company either. He scams people and completely ruined the food aspect of our wedding. There was a point of concern due to recent review prior to our wedding in which our wedding planner reached out to him directly and he promised us there would be no issues moving forward/ concerns for our wedding. We should have pulled the plug on him then.Let me tell you some of the the issues we had with him. Never want this to happen to another couple. He was contracted to ON SITE pig roast and cooking, did not happen at all. The food was transported from PA to the fingerlakes region. This was not in the contract, everything was to be done on site. Not cooked then driven 2 hrs. Horrible, would have NEVER USED HIM if that wash is plan, but he is a lier! Ordered him additional table and set up he did not use, but I paid upfront for his set up. Got the wedding venue to allow him to set up one day early which he requested.... but kicker he never came early. His workers showed up 30 mins prior to the wedding starting! He also turned off his phone, when our wedding planner was trying to get in contact with him the morning and early afternoon because no one was onsite cooking. We concerned him a no show at that time and our wedding planner was making moves behind the scenes to figure out food while my friends came to the rescue and constructed amazing charcuterie boards for apps.Then his "workers" show up. Honestly, wish they didn't. The +$1,600 I paid for charcuterie boards as quoted "Local meats, cheeses, seasonal fruit, jams, spreads, olives, crackers, fruits & veggies".. was legit boxed crackers, pepperoni + soppressata, two types of cheese. Not to mention they laid out napkins with other weddings name on it.Food was not what was at the tasting. Meat was dry. Brandon said at the tasting the best things to do is break it down so it has more flavor and juicy, well let me tell you it was dry. Brisk over cooked. Chicken was ok. They ran out of ribs when serving people but then at time of clean up they found another rack! I mean, I can't make this disaster up. Salt potatoes had no butter. The roasted veggies were mush. The salad was quoted as "seasonal salad" and was lettuce with a couple tomatos on top.There is more issues but I think people would understand after reading above to stay away for ANY company with Brandon Flynn from PA. I write this because I don't want someone else wedding food ruined/ run into the issues we had working with him.
Follow the Smoke, AKA Flynn Crew BBQ catered a company picnic that I coordinated on July 22nd for roughly 300 people, adults and children from 11am – 3pm. I’ve held off writing a review because I was waiting for the owner to get back to me with a resolution to the complaints I had about our event and their services that day. However, it has now been over a week and no return call was received, my calls and messages have gone unanswered. So, I’m left to assume no resolution will be provided and these massive oversights are of no importance to them. My specific issues are detailed below. I’ll try to keep it as b rief as possible. But, the moral of the story is, don’t use them to cater your event. • The buffet was set up and ready to go for about 30-45 minutes before their staff told anyone. anyone knew. By the time we told the guests that the food was out, everyone was so hungry that all other picnic activities stopped, and everyone dashed for the buffet line at once. • The pizza was not put out on the buffet, as our agreement stated it would be. Their staff told me they were “waiting for individual orders to be placed”, but they also never told any of the guests that they needed to place an order. Upon finding this out, I was able to make an announcement that people could get pizza, but this was about 1 hour before the picnic was ending. A massive line formed for pizza, and still hardly anyone received one, max 15 people. And the few that did, said the dough was completely uncooked, but the bottom was still burned. • Their team didn’t bring napkins. And, they didn’t notice until I brought it to their attention…after about 50 or so people went through the buffet line and started asking me for napkins. We used whatever rolls of paper towels we had on hand, but ultimately sent a member of their staff to buy them. • The beverages and ice were a total disaster. I only saw 2 VERY SMALL carafe’s of iced tea and lemonade. There was supposed to be 3; sweet & unsweet tea, and lemonade. Also, these carafe’s weren’t labeled, and were wedged into the buffet table with all the food. The GIANT jugs of water, that apparently people had to try and pour for themselves, were shoved underneath the buffet table and were completely lukewarm, not at all kept on ice. Also, where was the ice? I didn’t see ice from their team anywhere. Thankfully I brought 4 small bags myself in the morning to get our soda’s chilling before their team arrived, but no ice was put out or given to me to use for the drinks at all. • The desserts completely ran out by 1pm, and the biscuits for the strawberry shortcake were ALL burnt. And, they were flipped over in the serving dish so as to hide the burnt end, only to be discovered when each person picked up their serving. Also, the desserts that were baked into pans (sheet cake & brownies) weren’t cut up or put out in individual servings. We had to cut our own pieces and scoop them out of the baking pan ourselves. • The food on the main buffet kept running out creating a giant log jam for people with some guests getting served large chunks of fat for their entire serving, as that was the last piece left in the pan… and the servers still dished it out. On a more positive note, everyone seemed to enjoy the BBQ buffet - the pork, mac & cheese, cole slaw and salads were all delicious! I asked the owner to make an adjustment/credit to the overall total bill to account for the pizza, dessert, and ice that we were charged for. As less than 20 people got pizza and those that did were inedible. The shortcakes were all burned, rendering them inedible. And there was no ice at all, even after requesting and paying for extra. These requests have gone unanswered.
ALERT!!ALERT!!ALERT!!ALERT!! Venues / Wedding Planners / Brides / Grooms / Wedding Peeps I have been struggling on whether to post this message but continue to feel it would be better to inform you then let it go. Please be aware of a caterer named Flynn Crew BBQ out of Swoyersville, PA formally know as Follow the Smoke. I was hired to provide waitstaff services by Brandon for a wedding a couple of weeks ago and wanted to show and inform you of their services and actions. They are the most unsanitary and unprepared company that I have ever worked with. I highly suggest you take this into consideration if they are part of anyone’s events. On top of that, they left the property before the wedding was over and did not pay us for services we provided to them and will not return phone calls or emails Flynn Crew BBQ Follow The Smoke
I feel the need to post this to warn other couples - while i doubt they will answer your inquiry anyway, please do not book and pay a deposit to this caterer. They took deposits from 2 couples I planned weddings for both in September 2023 and stopped communicating in June. I had to find a new caterer for a Saturday September wedding in under 2 months and neither received deposits back. They both sent cancellation emails to follow the smoke that went unanswered. Totally unprofessional and unacceptable.
There was no positive experience. This company did not uphold their end of the contract with us. Communication is a huge part of fulfilling a contract and that did not happen. I gave time after time again to respond and try to make things right. I gave a date which to respond by after weeks of 0 calls or texts or emails back. No reply to that, and no reply when I said we will be moving on from your services due to communication negligence. I sent multiple requests for my deposit back with, again, not even an answer or anything. You cannot leave people in the dark for as long as you did with our event literally being a month and a half away. You failed your end of the deal and we want our deposit back. I cannot give 0 stars otherwise I would.
I'm only giving two stars because the food IS amazing and servers/ bar tender were great. Follow the Smoke catered our wedding and it was the most STRESSFUL part of planning our big day. THE most disorganized business. If you are cool with your vendor playing fast-and-loose with your menu and details for a 100 person event, then go ahead and book them. Otherwise, pay a little more and go somewhere else. We were clear from the beginning we needed 2 vegan meals, and communicated some other changes to the invoice as we got closer to the event. About 1/3 of those changes made it to the invoice, making it impossible to track what we had agreed to in conversation and what we were paying for. SO frustrating. Then I started sending lengthy messages to ensure a paper trail and guess what....those messages were not read in their entirety or responded to. So on top of essentially managing a catering business 2 weeks prior to my wedding day, we still didn't get everything we discussed.I really, really wanted to like this business because their values are amazing (sourcing local meats, sourcing in-season) and I DO want this business to succeed but Brandon truly needs to hire someone to manage the business so he can focus on his skillset--cooking great barbecue. I hope this string of recent bad reviews changes something for them :(
Hands down some of the best Jamaican food I’ve had and I am very picky. Flavor galore!! This is a good truck so not a full service restaurant so it’s a pick up and go. I saw plenty of reviews about the customer service but my experience was good. The young lady was very nice and she did a great job of keeping the line moving.Back to the food. This is authentic j*** chicken, it’s smoked and the flavors are perfect mix of hot & sweet spice. The rice & peas were delicious as well. Next time I’m going to try the oxtails.I highly recommend giving this place a try.
Restaurantji Recommends
This is the most mismanaged group I have ever dealt with. I was a military reunion planner for 10 years. It was a 5 day reunion so I dealt with many vendors. This was by far the worst. I was unable to contact them via phone, text or email. Wrong numbers, no one monitoring emails & all I got were excuses. The only time I got their attention was 3 days before my event when I emailed them and in the subject line I put " Pending Litigation". I booked the "Food Truck" as advertised on Google for my mom's 90th birthday. I got a truck pulling a smoker. I ordered pulled pork, chicken fingers and ribs as my 3 meat choices. Guess what; no ribs and dry pork. This is a breach of contract. I refuse toake final payment until adjustments are made. The couple that actually came to cook/serve were great! Very apologetic. They showed me the texts they received on my menu; no ribs. When I called Brandon on the day of the party he did not return MY call but texted the couple to have them tell me he would be in touch with me. Still haven't heard from Brandon, only received final bill with no adjustmentI would recommend the couple I dealt with. I asked for their information. If anyone wants the names & phone number PM me oi li live in Waverly,PA . Brandon. He's no business man. NEVER AGAIN WILL I USE FLYNN CATERING!!!
DO NOT USE THIS CATERER! As you can see by their most recent negative reviews they are not answering any sort of calls or messages. Thank God I was able to find another caterer less than 3 months before my wedding.
Do not use this caterer. He took my son’s money for his wedding. 7 weeks before wedding no answer from them about wedding. No calls, no thing. Son has to find new caterer.
On website stated that they were open In Simpson but they were not there
DO NOT USE THIS CATERER! As you can see by their most recent negative reviews they are not answering any sort of calls or messages. Thank God I was able to find another caterer less than 3 months before my wedding.
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