Multiple vendors have dropped out of Smorgasburg Toronto and one is even claiming an "abusive" experience with the event's organizers. 

The food festival, which originated in Brooklyn, opened to a ton of hype at Toronto's waterfront last summer. This year brought new local organizers, and, with them, promises of a larger scale event and smoother experience.

According to the owner of the Hamilton-based restaurant Fisticuffs, Caitlin Chee, the exact opposite was the case. 

"None of those promises came true," Chee claimed to blogTO. "In fact, it was smaller. There was less seating, there was no shade, there wasn't even music."

Chee, who was also with Fisticuffs at Smorgasburg last summer, cited a number of other issues, including a huge lack of attention to marketing compared to the 2022 event.

Chee says Fisticuffs ultimately dropped out because the event was actually losing the restaurant money. 

"Financially, it didn't make sense for us to keep doing it," Chee explained, adding that vendor costs have increased, but sales went down.

"There was no way that we would be able to make money."

A second vendor, who asked blogTO to keep their identity anonymous, suggested that their experience with the organizers could be described as verbal abuse. 

"The organizing team was on edge the minute we got there," the owner recalled. "They were yelling at people...at the end of the day, one of them actually swore at me."

This vendor was also at Smorgasburg in 2022, and described this year's environment as being completely different—and not in the ways that were promised. 

The vendor recalls writer Suresh Doss carefully curating a diverse lineup of restaurants last summer, while this year's festival featured instances of multiple vendors serving the same kinds of food and, in turn, fostering a weird sense of competition.

"I specifically told them what we were selling, and I found out that someone else was selling the same thing," they said. "There were no hard feelings there, but it was just very poor curation."

Both restaurants' owners say they sent emails to the organizers expressing their frustration at how the event was handled and asking for their money back since they wouldn't be returning.

The vendor told blogTO they had a lengthy back-and-forth with the organizers, in which they claim Smorgasburg Toronto made lots of excuses but no apology, while Fisticuffs claimed never heard back at all.

In the end, Fisticuffs says they received a partial refund and the other  vendor got their entire deposit back.

Both owners expect more vendors to drop out after this Saturday.

blogTO reached out to Smorgasburg Toronto for comment but didn't hear back by time of publication.