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Menu
meself – I don’t see things your way. This guy has not had integrity when it comes to dealing with my friend and her wedding and her deposit that he still has. He did not notify her himself, she was called by another catering company in the area. How is that integrity? Now he is avoiding her calls, as I’m sure the others here are dealing with as well. This is ridiculous. Don’t take a deposit for something you can’t follow thru on. It’s a freakin Ponzi scheme. Some people cannot affort to lose a few thousand dollars weeks before their wedding. Or ever. This guy sucks and I’m going to do my best to track him down and give him hell. And get my friend’s deposit back.
Well we have loved 28806/Nova since we had reserved them for our wedding in the fall of 2007. Since we are residents of Greenville, we could only eat there when we were in the neighborhood and we loved it every time. 5 days before our wedding (9/6/09), my then fiance got a phone call from Eric saying Nova had folded. My fiance then told me and w/5 days before the wedding, that was not news I wanted to hear. Nova was also hosting our dinner rehearsal that Saturday. By the end of the day we had Colorful Palate hosting our wedding and our dinner rehearsal was held at the Corner Kitchen. The food was amazing from both places and we were grateful for them coming to our rescue.
Now my husband and I are trying to contact Eric to see if we can get our deposit back. If anyone has any luck or would like to rally together, feel free to email me: [email protected].
My daughter’s wedding and reception was September 20 in Swannanoa and we had a 2 week notice of 28806 caterers going out of business. My $2500 deposit went with them, which was a huge personal loss for us, that we hope to recover somehow. Artisan Caterers came to our rescue and provided excellent food and service. They couldn’t have been nicer to us or our guests.
I’d like to keep current with any type of group effort to recover catering deposits collected by 28806.
[email protected]
I too am a victim of this closing. I hired Eric to cater my Welcome Fall Party on Sunday September 27th. I am having 40 people at my home in Wolf Laurel. He took a deposit of $494.00 and now he has vanished. I called the Bankruptcy Court and he has not filed under any of his business names or personally as of September 18th.
I have done business with Eric in the past. He went to all efforts to honor his obligations. He earned a tremendous amount of respect in satisfying those obligations.
He has worked hard to earn a good reputation. This is unfortunate. I am confident that Eric does not see this as the best time to fold due to having accumulated deposits as Groom 2 points out. This position will be tough all the way around, for those left scrambling, and for Eric sweeping up the mess. From experience I know Eric has integrity. This recession downright sucks!
I used Erics services for catering, enjoyed 28806 Deli, and Nova. I found all my dining experiences outstanding.
Thanks for this blog thread! Also had 28806 down for our wedding in a little over 3 weeks. Just realized all this was going down when I tried to go in to Nova and saw the "closed, please forward mail" sign. No word from anyone over there yet. Can’t get in touch with Eric. He’s tried to call at least once, but we’ve missed the calls.
I’m fine with moving along to someone else, but I’m worried about getting our significant deposit back! If anyone else has any luck getting back their deposits, wants to go get your money’s worth in restaurant tables, knows about a bankruptcy filing, or has had luck getting their deposits passed along to another caterer, PLEASE spread the word here, or email me! (info at jubileeorchestra.net) Incidentally, Asheville West, LLC is the company that signed as DBA 28806 Catering on our contract. Is that just Eric, or do they have other businesses?
Also, in terms of the catering business, at least, nice time to fold, since this would be the point in the whole year when they’d have the most money accumulated from deposits for weddings and the least money spent on actually doing the catering. That may be unfairly cynical…..I hope this all works out for everybody.
We were big fans of the 28806 Deli in West Asheville and were very excited that Nova was two doors down from my downtown store. I wish Eric the best of luck in landing on his feet.
It’s easy for us to be armchair quarterbacks, and I’m sure the economy is partially to blame. However, there is one word that has been said by everyone when they heard the news of Nova’s closing… "sandwiches." We were ready for an excellent deli in that area of downtown and were a little disappointed that they were not part of the menu. I’m not in the food business, but couldn’t a deli have funded the fine dining?
Wow, I go out of town for a few days ….hate to hear this. Nova was one of our favorite date night restaurants. We never had problems parking as they made it clear to park across the street at Home Trust. Always had great service….
We also were having 28806 cater our wedding and have been scrambling to find a replacement. In response to the previous post, how we get our deposit back depends on how/if 28806 is filing for bankruptcy. If they are filing for bankruptcy then you have to know what kind and file a claim with the court, and may never get it back…you’re near the end of a long line of creditors waiting to get paid. If it’s just simply closing then they owe you the deposit, and holding onto it is illegal.
Does anyone know what’s going on with this? I can’t get in touch with Eric either…
28806 catering (the side business of the Nova owner, Eric Backer) appears to have shut down, as well. He has yet to get in touch with me, but another caterer in town called to tell me they have taken over many of the weddings he was to cater in coming months. We have had no luck getting in touch to see what is going on or to get our substantial deposit back.
I just had a guest come into my work with a gift certificate to Nova… do these guys have other places she might use them?
nova – great food, very, very tasty – but so pricey! you can’t afford to do that every so often.. i kinda like the location b/c you had easy parking under the bridge
Although I enjoyed their dinners back at 28806 (they rivaled Market Place and Table), I couldn’t afford to eat there more than once or twice year.
If memory serves, 28806 began as a bakery. Their breads were incredibily good — best in town — and they were still happy to sell them to go even when the place went upscale. But when Eric moved the place downtown, the help seemed puzzled when I asked for a filone to go. I was told to get them in stores, but they put they bread in plastic bags, which ruined the beautiful crusts. I don’t know why they didn’t use paper bags like that Sparrow bakery that sells in Earth Fare.
Eric & Justin seemed like good guys. Here’s hoping they land on their feet and that the breads will resurface somewhere else.
If the news is true, two things did them in. First, as mentioned in the post, the location was just awful, even relative to other downtown locations. And the false start on the name was the nail in the coffin. Patrons weren’t sure if the restaurant had changed owners or concepts.
(shakes head)… i never figured out why on earth 28806 ever changed from best lunch place in town with a line out the front door every single day to an upscale, very very high priced restaurant in west asheville??? the place was always empty after they changed the format. i still miss their farmer’s pie!!!
as far as scratch/nova… i never went there when it was scratch, but did have lunch at nova… food was good, service was awful, which i didnt understand since there were only two other tables in the whole place.
i get eric’s concept- "nova"… everything is always "new" but i dont think that works for most… we all have our favorites from different places and go there for what we’re in the mood for… with an ever changing menu, you never know if there’s going to be something that you’re in the mood for…. there may be something that the chef is in the mood to eat, but not a sure thing for the customer.
other closings… o naturals, stir fry cafe…
I have had lunch there a few times. Usually only a few tables with folks eating. Hard to keep things going with expensive "ok" food and no customers.
I think Scratch/Nova struggled mostly because it took them 45 minutes to make a sandwich at lunch. Not acceptable for business lunches.