After getting stiffed, some Stillwater Farm dinner restaurants wonder who's being served
Jay Braymiller says tickets are clear: 10% goes to charity, rest supports his farm
In August, a month after Winfield’s Pub chef-owner Tab Daulton held his fourth dinner to support Stillwater Farm, he texted farm operator Jay Braymiller. “Hey, it's a tough summer. Can I get my money?”
It’s going to be another week, I’m busy around here, was the reply, Daulton said.
Two months of texting later, Braymiller was still offering excuses instead of money, Daulton said. “I was almost to the point of trying to beg, go out to the house and say, ‘Hey, I could really use this money. This summer has been tough.’ ”
“Silence is deafening,” Daulton texted Braymiller. There was no reply.
On March 20, when Stillwater Farm announced its 2025 farm dinner series was coming soon, a group text started popping off in Buffalo. Restaurant owners who’d donated time and effort to Stillwater Farm dinners for years shared notes on their experiences.
Daulton wasn’t the only owner in the chat who described being stiffed. Others described resorting to personal confrontation or multiple credible threats of legal action to get paid.
For each dinner that brought Stillwater Farm $6,000 or more, Braymiller was dodging payment of the $2,000-$3,000 he promised restaurants for ingredients, labor, and other expenses.
Since charitably-minded customers bought out the season series, that cash was in Stillwater Farm accounts the whole time. That especially stung because most of the owners, despite their own precarious financial footing, actually shut down their own restaurant, losing sales for the day, in addition to contributing their labor to Stillwater Farm.
Who are the Stillwater Farm dinners really serving? was the question that ended the chat.
Since 2021, Jay and Margaret Braymiller have hosted at least 60 fundraising events at their Boston property. He’s an architect. She’s a fellowship program administrator at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center.
The first series sold out in 48 hours, with eager donors pouring about $125,000 into Stillwater Farm’s accounts. Powered by a topflight roster of Buffalo restaurants, the 2021-2024 Stillwater Farm dinner series has grossed more than $500,000, participants said.
Donors’ primary focus was Stillwater Farm’s advertised availability to children dealing with cancer at Roswell Park, and the days of respite they might find at the Boston property, home to sheep, a horse, and a pond.
When the Stillwater Farm check failed to arrive, it put restaurant owners in a tough spot. While that money would’ve helped ease their financial stress navigating the razor-thin margins of the restaurant business, how do you sweat an alleged deadbeat without hurting kids with cancer?
For five years, Waxlight Bar a Vin, the Black Rock restaurant and multiple James Beard Award honoree, served dinners at Stillwater Farm as part of its commitment to community support.
Most lately on Aug. 4, 2024, its partners prepared dinner for 60 people at Stillwater Farm at $200 person. From the $12,000 gross, Braymiller agreed to pay Waxlight $3,000 for ingredients.
On Dec. 2, after Braymiller offered excuses in response to months of texts and an invoice, Waxlight sent Braymiller a letter saying they would sue him in court for the money. On Dec. 9, Waxlight got to cash its check.
“Three thousand dollars is a lot of cost to have in limbo for small businesses,” said Forster. “Many places cannot float that money for a charity or event. It was never made clear why our costs were not covered up front.”
In a statement, Forster continued.
We were not invited to return after doing an event with Stillwater each year since 2020: five years. Waxlight was not going to participate if we were asked this year, in light of last year's happenings.
We are still unclear about whether events we executed for Stillwater were to benefit a charity or their farm/home. We definitely should have asked.
Our desire to be hospitable, charitable, and “do the right thing” for children’s cancer made all of this a delicate and sensitive subject for us when asking for money. It is and was unacceptable for us to be made to wait eight months after money was collected to our services being compensated.
The scope and amount of events that the restaurant industry performed at cost or at a loss for Stillwater is massive. The restaurant patrons of WNY supported and purchased tickets to events at Stillwater at breakneck speed. Patrons of future events deserve to know these details as well as where each dollar of their donation/ticket cost is going.
This reporter reached out to 15 restaurant owners who participated in the series. Two said they had no problems getting paid. The other 13 said they would not participate again, mainly due to how hard it was to get paid. Two gave up entirely on collecting the delinquent account.
Marble + Rye owner Michael Dimmer organized dinners at Stillwater Farm for five years, and recruited other restaurant owners to serve there. He declined to comment, except for a statement: “We participated since year one, and loved doing it because I thought we were helping. We will no longer participate due to the issues we’ve experienced.”
Jay Braymiller, contacted by phone March 28, said he is sorry for the late payments to Stillwater Farm dinner restaurants.
Using money from those dinners to support his farm expenses is quite legal and clearly stated to all dinner attendees, he said.
“I am taking complete responsibility for this,” Braymiller said. “When we lost our barn, I think we probably should have even canceled last year, because the wheels kind of came off. We had no production of lamb and chicken. It affected us in a very negative way.”
The family has been thinking of paying restaurants up front, he said. “Last year was an incredibly low point for us, and that's on me.”
Has he paid his outstanding debts to restaurants who served dinners for Stillwater Farm?
“I put some checks in the mail yesterday, the day before,” Braymiller said. “I'm going to go through it again. If there's anyone that has not been paid, I'll take care of that over the weekend.”
Asked to quantify the support Stillwater Farm has given to children dealing with cancer and their families, Braymiller said that over the years, “we’ve had 450 people come to our place.”
Does Braymiller’s family get paid by the charity?
“We don't make money,” he said. “I have never made a dime for the time I spend organizing all this, being at the events. We’re up at 8 a.m. on the day of an event, and outside, you know, we're in the house at nine that night.”
CARES at Stillwater, the 501c3 charitable corporation headquartered at his house, takes in less than $50,000 annually, Braymiller said.
The money from dinner ticket sales goes to the Stillwater Farm limited liability corporation, Braymiller explained. The LLC makes a donation of about $20,000 to the non-profit to finance its activities, he said.
The split is clear because every dinner ticket says 10 percent goes to CARES at Stillwater, Braymiller said. “Right on our advertisement, it says ‘10% of your ticket price goes into the CARES account.”
“We bring in about $20,000 and we spend it all on these events,” Braymiller said of his charity. “Nobody gets money out of that.”
The rest of the money goes to the upkeep of Stillwater Farm, its structures and livestock, he said. “Until we lost our barn, we ran a small family farm,” Braymiller said. “Do you know how many small family farms actually make money? It was like a labor of love.”
After the barn was damaged by fire in January 2024, a GoFundMe and fire fundraising dinner raised about $50,000 more for Stillwater Farm.
“If I never did another farm dinner, I'd be sad, but I'd be fine,” Braymiller added. “It's a tremendous amount of work to do. It's like putting on a wedding every weekend in your backyard.”
It’s not clear if the dinner series will continue, he said. “It is an incredible amount of stress and tension on our family. You know, it's a lot. We're not sure what we're going to do, but we will never, ever have a year like we had last year. I can guarantee you that.”
Asked why CARES at Stillwater was not registered with the New York State Charities Bureau, Braymiller said, “I don’t even know what that is.”
In 2022, after Tab Daulton organized Winfield Pub’s second dinner at Stillwater Farm, he told Braymiller to keep the $2,000-$3,000 due for ingredients and other expenses.
“I said, ‘I’ll just donate it, because it’s for the kids,’ ” Daulton recalled. Because that’s what he thought the dinners were for, to raise money to help pediatric oncology patients undergoing treatment at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Daulton had already taken a loss by closing Winfield’s Pub, his Abbott Road tavern, for the day. But he was thinking of the kids.
“That's what gets me the most,” Daulton said recently. “Money comes and goes. If you're using kids, don't do it like that, it’s just wrong. It's just wrong to use kids and not come through on all your promises. If you're having a tough time, come to me, or send something out. Don’t just shut us out.”
The day after a reporter called Braymiller to ask why he stiffed restaurateurs who served his charity, Braymiller came to Winfield’s Pub and handed Daulton thousands of dollars he owed.
#30#
Editor’s note: If you would like to share your experience with Stillwater Farm or CARES at Stillwater with me, whether positive, negative, or in-between, please email me at andrew@fourbites.net.
THIS is journalism.
Excellent reporting. The area’s restaurant owners have big hearts and are asked to donate repeatedly to community fundraisers in ways ranging from gift card donations to participation in major fundraisers like this one. When things go wrong as you report, it’s unfortunate for all involved, including community members who supported and participated in the dinners. I feel badly for the restaurants owners who lost money, as well as a good-hearted family that poured its heart into hosting an event that unfortunately got out of control.