A Calgary woman, and big fan of the Karen schtick, is unleashing her inner “Karen,” demanding a refund from a unique dining event.
Brita Smith told Global News she was stoked to find out Karen’s Diner was scheduled to make a pop-up visit to the city late last year.
“We were pretty excited,” she said. “We don’t go out a ton so we were like, ‘Let’s go get verbally abused.'”
Smith bought two “early bird” tickets to the popular experience, described as diner food served up with a side of sarcasm and insults from the staff.
“Just over $40 for two tickets, which I thought was completely reasonable.”
She said the ad stated the event would be held in November. But November came and went, and she still hadn’t heard from the organizers.
Smith said when she finally heard from Karen’s, she said she was told it would be happening, but a date had not yet been set.
“Excuse me. You planned this whole thing. You’re selling tickets. And you don’t have a location or dates?”
Smith said she finally received another email this past weekend with new dates scheduled for Calgary. Along with the date was a link for a new price.
“I thought I’d already got my tickets,” she pointed out. “So, I go to it and it’s now going to cost an additional roughly $80 for the two of us to go.”
Smith said what was originally a cheap night just became too costly. She then asked for a refund.
“All I got was an email back saying, ‘Ok, I’ll talk to my manager and I’ll get back to you.’ And I’ve heard nothing.“
Global News reached out to the event organizer.
In a statement, they said: “…everyone was offered a refund as the event was pushed back, they were notified as soon as it was pushed back and have also been offered to switch to the tour date.”
The event organizer said the pushback was due to “set designs.” When asked why the ticket price was increased, Global News was told there was a “miscommunication.”
“The tickets were for two different things. The Early Birds that were bought last year are for the permanent diner set to open later this year,” the explanation read.
“This is Karen’s Diner on Tour, which is a pop-up that is coming to Calgary for a very short term, which is not anything to do with the longer term pop-up. However, as the original plan was moved forward, we offered all our previous customers the option to move/credit for the event for this one that is coming sooner if they’d prefer.”
Further explanation read: “Our tickets for the tour were only released this week so she would have had Early Bird tickets to the longer-term diner, which would have acted as a voucher off her food bill at the longer-term diner.”
Organizers have told Global News the team will reach out to Smith to clarify what happened and refund her if she decides to go that route.
But Smith told us the only route she wants to go right now is the one that gets her money back.
“At this point, I’ve lost all interest. I’ve just been messed around for so long that I’ve lost interest and I don’t really want them to have my money.”