Jen Royle Boston restauranteur amazing fight with Trevor Chauvin-DeCaro after a cancelled dinner reservation led to death threats & lawyers.
Play stupid games … win stupid prizes. Personally as a small business owner (and it does seem, Jen Royle is hardly as small as she claims) one has to learn to take the good with the bad and build a thick skin. Attacking a customer on a personal level for canceling a dinner reservation reeks of desperation, non professionalism and anger management issues.
Shall we? Matters came to the head when Jen Royle, famed Boston restauranteur, who owns North End eatery, Table (amongst a bevy of other restaurants including, Table Mercato, Table Caffe North End and Table Caffe at Time Out Market Boston) took exception to a January 6 dinner cancelation by NY man, Trevor Chauvin-DeCaro, after the ‘dinner guest’ disputed a $250 cancellation (for him and his partner) he incurred after an emergency hospitilization preempted dinner plans.
According to Chauvin-DeCaro, he had personally reached out to the restaurant (the non refundable dinner cancellation fee would be triggered within the restaurant’s day of cancellation policy 48 hour window policy) informing the restaurant of change of plans. It didn’t matter, his card was billed with Chauvin-DeCaro’s credit card company (who he had used to make the booking under their travel insurance quotient) in turn contesting the $125 per person cancellation booking when it arrived and refusing to pay.
For reasons not clear, Royle instead of putting the cancellation behind her or perhaps being unable to fill the slot with a walk off street dinner request, or simply coming to terms with the notion that ‘life happens,’ and as a restauranteur feeding human beings’ to take matters in stride and keep one’s composure and negotiate accordingly. Not so.
Instead Royle went out of her way weeks later to personally reach out to Chauvin-DeCaro where she sent him a seemingly ‘disparaging’, ‘snarky’ and dare one imagine, ‘hostile’, and ‘rude’ message.
‘Pathetic’
Read the sweet nothing as sent on private Instagram message:
‘Hi Trevor, I own TABLE restaurant in Boston.
‘I just wanted to personally thank you for screwing over my restaurant and my staff when you disputed your cancellation fee.
‘I really hope in the future you have more respect for restaurants, especially small businesses such as mine. Pathetic.’
Perhaps non surprisingly, Chauvin-DeCaro didn’t take too well to the message and rather than also putting the un-palatable experience behind him, decided to take the ‘affront’ public (yes kids, that’s why when I have dinner parties I make sure to sit the loudest brashest and obnoxious guests far away from each other….).
Chauvin-DeCaro went on to share Royle’s direct message on Twitter, which led to a snow fight turning into a daggers character assassination back and forth as social media watched on with bated breath and also joined in (see embedded tweets below).
Jen Royle is a terrible person and should not be a restaurant owner. Here’s just a very small sample of the replies to negative reviews for Table Boston on Yelp. Mind you there are countless reviews saying the same thing that she berates and belittles her customers. pic.twitter.com/1acJx7T69J
— Truth Matters (@TruthMatters92) February 23, 2024
‘wildly unprofessional.’
It wasn’t long before the Boston Herald reached out to Chauvin-DeCaro realising it had a ‘delicious story’ (no pun intended) on its hands in which the NY resident explained as a result of his Amtrak train being significantly delayed, finding himself in the hospital and unable to make dinner.
‘The delay was a blessing in disguise. Thank God we were still home,’ he said. He proceeded to head to the ER, after which the entirety of the trip was canceled.
Because the cancelation occurred inside of the 48-hour window before the TABLE reservation, the staff told the pair they would have to pay the $250 cancelation fee – $125 per person. Yes kids, the entitlement is fantastic. But presumably the food and dining experience worth it…
Chauvin-DeCaro contacted Chase, his credit card company, to activate the card’s travel protection insurance, which includes coverage for cancelation due to hospitalization and ‘never thought of it again,’ he said – until Royle sent her DM.
Chauvin-DeCaro was astounded by the content of Royle’s message and sent a lengthy response explaining the situation and expressing his disappointment with the way the Boston chef had responded.
He told the Herald her response was ‘simply uncalled for and wildly unprofessional.’
‘Even if you disagree with how a customer goes about canceling a reservation, her response was outrageous and unhinged. There’s no reason to ever do that to a potential customer,’ he said.
After the original exchange, the pair went back and forth a while longer. The messages were all shared online by Chauvin-DeCaro and have since amassed some 23million views on X according to the dailymail.
Bring on the lawyers
At one point, Royle posted on her own Instagram as well as the restaurant’s addressing the fight:
‘BOO HOO. Then call and cancel and explain! DISPUTING A CANCELLATION FEE IS WRONG!!!!
‘I spoke to about a dozen business owners today who shared their frustrations in people walking all over them and disputing their credit card charges. THIS HAS TO STOP! The lack of respect and entitlement is gross,’ she wrote.
She then told Chauvin-DeCaro that she had contacted her legal team.
‘We privately messaged you and you chose to take this public,’ she wrote via the business’s Instagram.
‘The amount of slander that the business is receiving is absolutely horrific. You will be hearing from our lawyers.’
To date, according to Chauvin-DeCaro no lawyers have reached out to him and one is wanton to wonder, isn’t Royle the one who reached out to him and ignited the bonfire which is now set to potentially burn her burgeoning restaurant empire?
Of note, Table’s social media accounts have all been taken down.
I’d be willing to bet that the “Jen Royle fan club” is just Jen Royle.#TableBoston pic.twitter.com/rlEIZJs2sU
— Sam (@nutmegmagi) February 24, 2024
‘Waiter, I think there’s a mean Instagram DM in my soup…’
After Chauvin-DeCaro posted the exchange, as well as his response, online, the Boston chef has since claimed receiving death threats.
The restaurant’s legal team is threatening action against him as the fracas and blowback continues. Royle’s attorney, Michael Ford, told the Boston Herald last week that his client ‘doesn’t want to be hurt anymore’ by the ‘false statements, the defamatory statements, the death threats, the abusive comments’ she’s allegedly been receiving.
‘She’s been facing attacks on the internet, and now she is getting bombarded with death threats,’ he said, adding that he believes Chauvin-DeCaro’s hospitalization story is ‘bogus.’
Bogus or not, the restaurant must retain its poise and not personally lash out at diners and then be surprised when the match stick fire now morphing into an uptown inferno threatening to wipe one off the map.
The restaurant and its myriad reviews – many of which are now negative – can no longer be found on Google or Google maps, according to the dailymail.
The #TableBoston drama has been the best thing on this dying platform today. Jen Royle learned a painful lesson: never cross a gay man.
— Cimmy Redmond (@what_cimmy_said) February 23, 2024
‘Will you be coming to dinner?’
But there’s more. Yes kids, can someone please pass the aioli pumpkin soup and the Vodka tonic, just so we’re all on the same page …
A 2021 profile of Royle describes the chef as having little regard for business etiquette or public perception when it comes to calling out customers with whom she disagrees.
‘She also isn’t shy about getting into public spats with rude customers,’ wrote Scott Kearnan for Boston Magazine several years ago.
‘Maybe a diner emails with a complaint about her no-excuses cancellation policy, which charges truant guests in full unless someone else takes their seat. Maybe someone leaves a nasty review online, all because she told their party they were getting too rowdy during dinner.
‘If a guest dispute comes up (as they do at every restaurant) and Royle thinks that she’s right (as she freely admits she almost always does), she has no problem making it clear to customers, past or prospective.’
Explained Royle to Time Out Boston last year, ‘I can’t even remember the last time I stepped foot in Southie. It’s just not my vibe. I think the last couple times I was there I got in a fight. (Shocker)’
Never-mind Jen, even this too will simmer down and go away (or will it…?), until then, I’ll be waiting at the other side of the dinner table with my vodka tonic and watching with intrigue along with all the other dinner guests.
