What does Toby Fox’s episodic RPG Deltarune have in common with Fyre Festival, DashCon, and, most recently, the Glasgow Willy’s Chocolate Experience? If you haven’t been on Twitter the past few days, then you are (unfortunately) about to find out.
On Sunday, a Toronto event organizer called Sugar Packet hosted an unofficial Deltarune Fan Cafe event. According to the ticket website, attendees who paid $15 could spend 50 minutes in the cafe eating themed food, purchasing merchandise, posing in a photo booth, and entering a raffle. There was also a free portion of the event that offered a more fleshed-out artist alley and a live playthrough of the game’s newly released Chapter 5, which inspired the event’s theming and menu.
But all of this was almost entirely overshadowed by some glaring problems, the worst of which was a certain menu item. The cafe served takoyaki, presumably inspired by a vendor in Chapter 5’s festival who sells the same dish. But according to the organizers, the event’s takoyaki was stored improperly and left in a cooler to thaw (and, as some attendees alleged, later left out of the cooler after ice ran out), which led to multiple cases of food poisoning that reportedly sent several attendees to urgent care or the hospital. It also just didn’t look too appetizing:
i was there…. the takoyaki tasted kinda undercooked 😭😭😭 pic.twitter.com/Xc3rZV0kRv
— Loch 🖍️🦕 (@lochstep) August 12, 2026
In Deltarune’s Chapter 5, after taking a bite of the in-game takoyaki, party member Susie mentions that it tastes like “raw onion.” If nothing else, I guess the organizers of this event could be applauded for their commitment to the source material here?
Beyond that nasty-looking takoyaki, attendees also complained about overcrowding, issues with merch pre-orders, and unexpected pricing changes.
Also, the whole thing was held in a sparsely-decorated college building:
this picture i took sums up the whole aura of the deltarune cafe 💗 chalk and pen on the ground, chalkboard for the students, and podium for the professor pic.twitter.com/tseLUjhHfi
— sarah ⚢ (@lesbicot) August 12, 2026
Yes, even the alleged kitchen was just in a regular old classroom:
finding out there was a horrifically organised deltarune cafe in toronto that took place in a college office building, was managed by two club presidents and had a canteen as the kitchen is the craziest thing to wake up to (this is allegedly what the kitchen looked like) pic.twitter.com/FBiQrVOEYG
— mono 🏳️⚧️ (@monopurplee) August 12, 2026
Several days after the event, the organizers apologized (via four separate Instagram posts), offered refunds, announced a plan to compensate attendees for any takoyaki-related hospital bills, and even offered information on how to report food safety violations to the city. They also announced a 10-month hiatus and encouraged attendees to refrain from harassing volunteers, with two named organizers taking full responsibility.
“The Deltarune cafe was a failure,” the organizers wrote on Instagram.
It’s nice to see Sugar Packet taking accountability, at least? I just hope everyone makes a full recovery.
