Excelsior Events

Nightmare. One star is actually benevolent.
These folks were hired to service my friend’s husband’s birthday party. 50^th. Important and fabulous.
Things were going well… food was being heated and served (not like they had to cook!)…folks are dancing and grooving and getting it on… libations were flowing…
Now-​they would have been a little smoother if the woman behind the bar (an Excelsior employee?) knew how to open a bottle of wine. Initially my friend and I thought she was a guest or someone’s girlfriend!
So, the evening begins to wind down and naturally the Excelsior folks are beginning to get things wrapped up and begin to clean as they were c;early (detailed in contract) paid to do, right? NOPE.
THEY DISAPPEARED!!! No fooling! My friend was like… ummmmmm…where’d they go? They SPLIT! With the tip jar and without cleaning as they were paid to do! So we all banded together and cleaned.
These guys suck.

Hired 2 servers and a bartender for my husband’s 50^th bday party, held at an art gallery on U street. They were very professional in the planning stages, rented me a coatrack at the last minute, and my communications were with Jordan, the head waiter. Deposit was made to Darnel Leak who apparently the owner of the business. Confirmed all plans and even rented a coat rack for me at the last minute. Jordan and Vance arrived on time, but needed a lot of direction on serving/​stocking the buffet, which was fine. Bartender was defintely not a pro/​licensed, which is not fine because I asked for and paid for what I thought was a licensed bartender. I saw Jordan and the bartender (forget her name) walk out around 12:15 for what I thought was a break… not so much. They bounced. Vance was supposed to stay until an hour after the party was over to clean up. All three left so me and my out of town guests were forced to do the break down and clean up, putting my security deposit in jeopardy. The proprietor agreed to let me return on Monday to finish the rest of the cleanup required in the venue rental contract. I called and emailed Excelsior. Jordan played dumb on the early departure of the server and didn’t even acknowledge the fact that he and the bartender left early. The coatrack was also left at the gallery, which inconvenienced them as they will have to carry the thing down 2 flights of stairs to dispose of it if Excelsior doesn’t pick it up. I would never recommend them to anyone seeking party planning assistance. Had a horrible experience that tainted the ending to a great party.

We paid the owner of this business, Jordan Lucas, and one of his assistants $ 320.00 in cash the morning of Saturday, Oct. 291. The agreed upon rate of pay was $ 20 per person, per hour. The timeframe was 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. They told me they would be between 15 minutes and half an hour early. They were 10 minutes late. No biggie, they had called and the weather was bad. They did a nice job for almost 3 hours, and then said they’d be right back, they said they needed a short break and they’d be back in just a few minutes. They NEVER RETURNED! My best friend from Richmond wasn’t even able to leave the reception site to attend my daughter’s wedding because she had to stay and set up since Excelsior Events chose to take our money and leave us stranded. They won’t return our phone calls. Be very wary. I should’ve known better when I noticed that I could never reach them by phone, but Mr. Lucas would call back right after I’d tried to call. He is obviously screening his calls because he doesn’t want to hear from irate, unhappy consumer like myself. I will be informing Angie’s List and the Better Business Bureau and I would welcome any more advice anybody can give me to keep others from being robbed from this illegitimate business, as we were.

Avery D. Leak of Excelsior Events is a thief, a criminal, a liar and a cheat. I hired him to cater my party three weeks ago. He met with me to sign a contract and collected the full payment for services. On the day of the event, I received an email saying he would not be there and he would send my check back. He never did and refuses to answer his phone or emails. Further, I have found evidence on discussion boards that he has done this to many many other people. I did a background check and found a list of criminal convictions including resisting arrest and felony forgery as well as over $ 10k in unsatisfied judgements and liens. If you hire this person you are going to be robbed.