A San Jose bakery is losing thousands of dollars after Tesla reportedly canceled a major order

A catering contract to celebrate Black Heritage Month turned into a hard lesson for a black-owned bakery in the South Bay earlier this month.

What started as a $16,000 deal instead cost the small business owner thousands of dollars.

On Valentine’s Day, the owner of The Giving Pies in San Jose’s Willow Glen neighborhood got a pretty sweet call from a Tesla representative: a job catering for thousands of mini-pies for a Black History Month event.

Owner Voahangy Rasetarinera, who started the business from his home in 2017, says the two sides have agreed on a bid and exchanged an invoice for 4,000 pies for delivery this week. Due to tight turnover, Rassetarinera asked staff to work overtime, she purchased ingredients and packaging supplies and turned down at least three other catering jobs.

But two days after taking the Tesla job, the bakery owner received a simple text message canceling the order.

“I felt like we didn’t matter,” Rassetarinera said. “I felt like, ‘OK, it’s not a big deal, it’s just a business transaction that didn’t work out.'” But it’s not. I had to tell my staff to change your plans.

Rassetarinera says she’s done similar big jobs in the past with no problems, from weddings to companies like Google, Apple and Adobe.

She has a cancellation policy, but since Tesla hasn’t paid her yet, she has no way to get a refund.

NBC Bay Area reached out to Tesla to ask what went wrong with the catering deal and if the company will somehow compensate the bakery for its time and expenses.

A Tesla spokesperson did not respond to specific questions, but told NBC Bay Area that they have reached out to Rasetarinera.