Underwhelming experience at SF taco and beer festival leaves attendees calling for refunds

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — Hundreds of people attending the West Coast Taco and Beer Festival in San Francisco Saturday were met with a long line leading to underwhelming expectations. For many, the event was not what they paid for.

“It was probably like almost an hour in line,” said Matt Jenkins who attended the event with his fiancée. “They only had one person checking tickets at the front door, which was insane. I don’t know, there were like probably over 1,000 people that were waiting in line.”

According to an admission ticket, the event offered alcohol tastings and taco samples from over 30 vendors. However, according to Jenkins and his fiancée Willa, it wasn’t anywhere close to that.

“It was not 30,” said Willa Bautista. “Ten maybe, and the beer was a little sample, and the line to get it was long.”

They also say none of the food was free. It all costed extra.

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“We had heard after the first 20 minutes, all of the free options ran out,” Jenkins said. “But no one was even able to get in by the time that was offered.”

In a statement, Blue Stream Entertainment, the organizer said:

“We’re saddened to hear about the reaction we’ve had coming to San Francisco. When we built this company, our mission was to bring a community together to celebrate local chefs and breweries. We are as transparent as we possibly can be and we understand the community’s frustration with the long lines and the limited tastings. We are currently working with our vendors to improve future events to make sure that we hold our mission statement true and improve the guest experience.”

They went on to say they have changed the format for their upcoming event in San Jose. The tickets will include bottomless beer samples and the food will be for purchase. Jenkins and Bautista say they have tried to ask for refunds but haven’t been able to get ahold of anyone.

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“I DM’d them on Instagram explaining the situation and asking for a refund, but I haven’t heard anything back yet,” Bautista said. “There wasn’t, like, an email or ‘contact us’ or anything, like, so I don’t know.”

Bautista said the event’s Instagram page was full of angry comments from festival attendees, and she believes a lot of those comments were deleted.

“I was looking at the comments. It was basically saying ‘This is a scam. Don’t go,’” she said. “Then, when we left the event like 30 minutes later, I wanted to see if more had commented and all the comments I saw before were gone.”

To them, it was something they looked forward to, but now they think they just wasted $100.

“It is extremely deceptive of those people to throw an event like that,” Jenkins said. “Then to think they will be ok having people come to an event like that.”