Food52 Reviews 73

My wife and I purchased a pressure cooker from Schoolhouse for over $400. It lasted 10 months before the lid broke. I asked Schoolhouse to send a new lid and they said they only stand behind their products for 30 days. Crappy product and crappy service. We will never purchase from them again. BUYER BEWARE

This is one of the worst companies I have ever dealt with. First, I placed an order as a guest, forgetting to log into my account. They refused to credit me for the purchase (you earn rewards on purchases but only if you order through an account, not as a guest). Two, the merchandise photos are deceiving. I purchased two items (Yamazaki dish rack and storage rack) that looked sturdy but are cheaply made. Neither work as advertised. Three, one of the Yamazaki items arrived defective in two areas (had the same issue on two different rack bars). When I tried to return it for a refund, they wanted to charge me $14.99 as a return fee charge, plus deduct the promotional discount that was spread out on three items! I submitted a claim and I am waiting to hear back. BUYER BEWARE AND BUY ELSEWHERE

A potentially good company with poor management who promises what they are unable to deliver.
Recently I placed an order that went to the wrong address (an address that they had apparently saved from a a past order). I was never given an opportunity to change my address before the order was quickly placed. I saw the default shipping address being used so I quickly hit the back button to stop the order from being placed but Food52 accepted the order. I immediately tried to remedy by going to an Edit address option--- however you click on it and nothing happens. I quickly messaged them as there is no telephone number. They replied that the order already went through as vendors are preparing and there's nothing they can do-- even though I acted two minutes later and in the evening time. Very frustrating and unprofessional. Now my packages are at another address in a different city. Customer service is terrible. They offer good products but it they can't deliver and you can't reach a rep to inform of a misstep or issue, I'd rather shop elsewhere. There are plenty other food kitchen comparable websites. I will no longer shop there. Such a waste of time and effort and money.

They will not tell you when an item’s shipping is delayed, then once you discover on your own they will not cancel the order. I too was advised to return it. Which is Impossible if a gift. They are difficult to contact. Shop somewhere else.

I have done business with this company for years and most often there is a problem. I just placed an over $500 order and all of a sudden my PayPal Credit account was charged twice for the order. I never said to use PayPal to pay and I did not order twice. I immediately contacted their customer service to cancel the duplicate order. Their dopey answer was that they cannot cancel it, I need to let everything be sent and then return everything. None of this is my fault and they don't give a hoot about tying my money up for weeks. They have good products and once and awhile good sales but their customer service is horrendous and they have no phone number to call. If you can buy the same product elsewhere I suggest you do so and. avoid this very poor customer service company.

This is really TWO reviews .. about the dismal product HAWKINS WAFFLE TOWELS and the ultimate lack of acknowledgment for faulty products- apparently an ongoing issue if the reviews of either store HAWKINS OR FOOD52 are anything to go by.
The ISSUE:
In May I bought $600.00+ worth of Hawkins New York Simple Waffle Towels from Food 52 in Terracotta color for my husband's bathroom - this color is what I was after and here it was in sets. Perfect I thought!

I use similar waffle towels from ONSEN with great pleasure, BUT he almost immediately started complaining about how they do not work and just shmeer the water around. That they were not absorbent. Well, I thought, he just has to get used to them. But when I tried them I realized that he was correct.. THEY ARE AWFUL at the ONE SINGLE function of drying.
I see from the reviews that they weren't ALWAYS this bad.
People claim they bought them before and when they replaced them recently as in this spring 2023 the quality and their drying ability was ZERO. That water just shmeers around on the skin..and one is left to air dry.
Many of the same complaints show up on BOTH Food52 and HAWKINS about these towels but either without address the problem to those who complained
I wish I HAD read those before purchasing.

The dismal quality of what should be much better at the simple job of absorbing water off skin compels me to offer my own review to warn others off.
$600+ dollars is not an amount I want to throw out.
I cannot even donate these they are so bad.

And before you say waffle towels are different like I said, I USE waffle towels by ONSEN daily and therefore KNOW them first hand.. and would have got them from ONSEN had they that color.

Maybe these were a faulty batch I asked, their response was 'NO' they are still made by the same manufacturer, but that does not mean the manufacturer did not screw up. and judging by the horrible reviews about them SOMETHING must have happened to the quality

But here is what really irks me.. FOOD 52 has a return policy only if the product is not used and only before 35 days are up.

In responding to my complaint Food 52 said they would ask Hawkins, and then claimed Hawkins said no, the purchase is outside of HAWKINS return policy. Back and forth this went.. 20 emails worth with Food52 offering as compensation 20%off another purchase while Hawkins said this:

***************************************************************************
From: hawkinsnewyork.com
Subject: Re: New customer message on October 7, 2023 at 9:31 am
Date: October 16, 2023 at 9:13:35 AM EDT
Hi

I'm very sorry for the disappointment. We have looked into the possibility of a defect, and we have no evidence of such. As per our last email, and Food52, you are welcome to return the unused towels for a return. Please direct all further inquiries to Food52 directly.

Best,
Sarah
**************************************************************************
So
#1 which and whose policy am I up against?
- Neither FOOD 25 or HAWKINS make these towels.
- People are complaining that these towels are NOW bad quality.
-Food52 defers to Hawkins
-Hawkins defers to Food 52
YET
-Hawkins is ready to exchange or replace..see above email
and
- Food 52 is claiming Hawkins return policy will not allow them to and vice a versa
#2 Hawkins say:"We have looked into the possibility of a defect, and we have no evidence of such. "
THEY NEVER LOOKED AT MY TOWELS SO HOW CAN THEY KNOW IF THEY ARE DEFECTIVE?

SO I am stuck with towels that don't work.

I would be willing to simply exchange the lot ($600.00) for regular terrycloth or some other towels that do not have bad reviews as to their quality.

Fuuucking hate this company and their website. Tried to use a gift certificate I was given. To even use the gift certificate I had to make a profile. Then their checkout process was a nightmare that even an IT consultant would struggle to figure out. Sub-human capitalist pigs running this company and website. Please find your products somewhere else. Don't give these piggies your money.

This company is misleading customers. I ordered a "Complete Cleaning Tools (Set of 4)" "Made in France" from them with picture attached showing the 4 tools, all with handles. I received the tools with 3 handles and, when complaining, was told one handle is interchangeable. The handle does not have groove and is clearly not designed to be removed once attached. Overall the set was overpriced, of poor quality (crack on one handle, bad finishing) and the tools have different colors as if they are not part of the same set.
There was a review from a customer on the product page with the same complained. The review is from August 2022 so there was enough time to correct the description. I didn't read the review before placing the order because the product does not show that it has a review (similar to other products with reviews on the site) under the product name.
I tired to place a review directly on the product page to let other customers know about my experience and I could not find this option.

I purchased the Victoria tortilla 12”•10”press and the Victoria grill press.
Total bill $105.00 after a $20. Promo code.
It arrived today. Horribly packaged with no protection around tortilla press and kinda damaged. The box was crushed and partially opened. Also the measurements are not what advertised… only 9 and 1/4 inches !
Inner surface is somewhat damaged with what looks like a bit of rust and scratches.
I will keep this product, fix it myself and will not be ordering again from them.
This company should be ashamed of themselves!

Update! After I contacted them about the chipped bowl, they sent me a replacement. There was no communication but I don’t care. I was very happy to get a replacement.
——
Wish I'd read these reviews first. Got the right bowls but one is chipped. Sent an email to what I thought was customer service, but so far no reply. I'm hoping I will get an answer. If I do, and if they correct the situation, I'll change this review. Otherwise, buyer beware!
Can't believe I spent this much on a product without doing better research!
Ugh.

I placed my order at the end of November for a product that was not going to be produced anymore after December. The holidays came, I got busy, and then in January I finally got around to contacting the company to try to figure out what had happened to my order after checking the UPS tracking. UPS showed that my items had been damaged and a new order was shipping. The latest update was that estimated delivery was estimated (should have happened) somewhere around December 9th.

When I contacted customer service, they responded quickly and were very helpful. They discovered that my package had been marked as 'exception' (I think maybe they meant that it had been marked as accepted) and listed the address it had been sent to. The street number was correct, but the city was wrong, so this means it was delivered to the wrong address. In all fairness, my confirmation email had the wrong address on it and I didn't catch it. However, I'm not sure how this happened because my auto-fill always puts in my correct address with the correct city (I have made a couple of online orders in the past week and it filled it in correctly every time).

Unfortunately, by the time this was all discovered, they no longer had the product in stock. I am grateful that the customer service representative who was helping me refunded my money without me even having to ask. Luckily, I was able to find the product being sold in one online store and just ordered it for $20 more than I had paid through food52. So in the end, I ended up spending more money for the same products. I was lucky that I could find them at all though since they are no longer being produced, so soon there won't be any out there at all.

Though the customer service was excellent when I did reach out, I was very grateful to be refunded and there were a combination of issues that were out of food52's hands (I didn't catch the incorrect address and it's not their fault that UPS damaged my initial order - though that order still would have gone to the wrong address), I don't think I'll be ordering anything through their website again.

Terrible and deceitful customer service. Items shown as "available" are not shipped following months of emails and faux ship dates. Money finally refunded 2 months later.

I ordered the Hawkins New York Dinner set and one of the bowls came broken. Much like the other people who ordered, customer service pretended to send me the correct bowl but never did and they did not provide any tracking. Now I'm seeing all the reviews in TP. Do NOT ORDER FROM FOOD52!

Wrong item was delivered- waiting over a month with the same response that they are waiting to hear back from a vendor.
No phone number to call. Left in customer service purgatory. Will never order direct from food 52 again.

Ordered a Christmas on December 11th with an estimated delivery of December 21st (400+ dollar purchase). Reached out multiple times to customer service after never receiving a shipping notification. Got a response the morning of the 19th saying it would ship by end of day, then another response the night of the 19th saying they ran out of the product and my order was cancelled… 6 days before Christmas. Will never be ordering from here again… very poorly run business.

Absolute scam! I ordered a Dansk Købenstyle 1QT Saucepan on 12/5. The order went through and the status page mentioned 12/9 as the "delivery date" - which in itself is misleading. Turns out that actually means a likely shipping date! Long story short, status is still "pending" on 12/13.

The company has no customer service number. It claims it has "live chat". One look at their website (help page) will tell you that there is no such thing!

Only thing you can do is send an email and hope they reply back. I received a reply saying that the likely shipping date is 12/9. I requested a cancellation out of sheer frustration. No reply - total radio silence.

Lastly, beware - once you place an order, they will bombard your inbox with endless marketing junk - recepies and what not! Not surprisingly, a request to unsubscribe went unheeded.

Will not update order status . Not shipped says pending but no reply to emails , no phone number to call poor communication

Complete nightmare they double charged me for an order and customer service has issued no refund.

My experience at returning items to Food52 was terrible. They never sent all the items’ mailing labels despite repeated requests. They gave me credit for the wrong item in the label they did send. I’m stuck with the merchandise, one of which arrived broken. They never even acknowledged my last few emails. I will never use this site again!

I made a mistake with the shipping address, and started days of tracking down how I can update the shipping address. The customers service was not available for days and when I finally got hold of an agent on chat. The items were not yet shipped but I was told there was nothing they could do to update address since they are already "in the system". They copied and pasted that `Occasionally this is the case even when the ship date is days away, since catching and pulling an order requires time and labor, and is dependent upon factors like the warehouse or studio staff's capacity. We're so sorry in advance for the inconvenience.' and showed no inclination whatsoever to help. Terrible service!