Crave Catering, Austin TX

This review is based solely on the initial (or lack thereof) response from the catering company. I spoke to someone on a Monday who mentioned that they were available on my date and were able to accommodate what I was looking for. She mentioned she would reply with sample menus and pricing within a day and I never heard back. I followed up twice within a week and never heard back.

Crave catered a cocktail party for us recently. The food was excellent, the presentation was very good, and the staff were all terrific. I will absolutely use them again when I need a caterer.

We had Crave Catering provide food and beverages for two days for our conference and they were wonderful! We found their pricing to be much better than any other quotes we recieved. They offered a variety of fresh choices and we received lots of compliments from our attendees. All of their staff was extremely professional and friendly throughout the entire weekend. They even went above and beyond to provide us last minute special meals with extensive dietary restrictions. Highly recommend Crave Catering!

This place sucks. Who ever runs it was very rude. And the food was terrible. Consider other catering companies.

We recently had Crave catering provide what we thought would be heavy hors d’oevre’s for our daughters wedding reception. Throughout communications, I thought that I could rely on the representative from Crave regarding necessary amount of food. We ran out of food and many guests did not have anything to eat at all. This came as a huge surprise and embarrassment to me because i assumed that we would have a small buffet of leftovers after the caterers departed. There was not one piece of food left over! Shockingly, I later learned that each guest was allotted just five small bites for an extremely outrageous cost. After discussing this with a representative of Crave, I was really shocked that they didn’t offer any type of credit for the mishap. Another problem was that due to the size of the venue and the number of guests, the servers didn’t make their way to parts of the room; leaving those guests without any or very little food. I really hate to write this because the staff at the event were so friendly and the two bites of food that I tasted were very good but there simply wasn’t enough food or the size per portion just wasn’t sufficient. It was not a formal wedding celebration but more of a three hour wine event but it still would have been nice to have enough food for all guests to feel comfortably full, especially with what we paid. That’s the biggest frustration. Cost vs.what we received.

Let me start by saying, the food itself was delicious. Everyone raved about it. The menu options and customization definitely allowed us to pick what we wanted. The bartenders were great too. The managers we worked with from the day we booked (2 years ago) up until about a week out were relatively helpful in getting everything that we wanted together. However, the management a week before and on the wedding day was beyond awful. A week prior to our wedding date, we were sent an invoice that raised prices on everything that we already booked and paid for two years ago, with no explanation. In the contract (that Crave did not adhere to) it states they must provide us alternatives to keep costs the same or notify us if prices increase. They did neither of those things, and they had many months prior to the wedding date to do so. They claimed they only have to tell us if the overall price increases more than 10%, but the contract stated if any ONE ITEM increase more than 10%, of which some were as much as 30% or more. Once we found out things weren't right, they continuously sent us incorrect invoices with incorrect head counts, trying to hide all their upcharges. They told us they decreased prices for some items, when the price literally increased. Blatant lies. The bride works wedding events and even has worked with Crave in the past, and treating a client that way is absolutely NOT acceptable in the industry.

That leads us to the wedding day. The two managers we worked with for two years were NOWHERE to be found. We met with them multiple times throughout planning and they told us they would be the ones there on-site coordinating on the day of. They did not show. They sent another team and didn’t communicate that to us whatsoever. Following dinner, the bride asked catering to package her food because she didn’t get time to eat. Catering confirmed they would do so. At the conclusion of the night, we requested the leftover food to be boxed up, as well as the bride's meal, again, as she did not get a chance to eat. This is standard practice (again, the bride has worked weddings WITH this caterer before and it’s common to send home leftovers with the bride and groom). They told us there was no food left. We told them we had 15+ empty seats of people who told us they were unable to make it to the wedding AFTER we gave catering our final numbers. It was impossible to not have any leftover considering they were preparing for a higher total of people than what they knew attended the wedding. Then, they told us there was leftover food but they threw it out, because that’s their company policy, which was another lie. Then we saw the entire staff walking out with TWO BOXES each of our leftover food. One of the caterers offered my wife her one of her boxes and said she felt bad we didn’t get any. Not only did they lie straight to our face, they stole thousands of dollars of food from us. They gave my wife a tiny charcuterie board at the end of the night which wasn't even food that we served that night. We don’t know what is so hard about boxing a meal or sending leftovers with us (the people who paid for the catering) but Crave was unable to do so.

In addition to that, when we got home we found we were missing many of our decorations that catering was responsible for tearing down as well as several wedding gifts that never made it to us. Still to this day, we haven’t heard a word from anyone at Crave regarding the event or our experiences. We’re still wondering what happened to the team of people we worked with for 2 years and why they told us they would be on site. Absolutely terrible management.

Crave Catering, treat your clients better, follow your own contracts, don't lie, and don't steal.

I work at Crave and I couldn't be happier with the job. People love to be served delicious food and drink and that's what we deliver.

Food was one of the most important aspects of our wedding for us, and we couldn't have asked for a better vendor to make our culinary dreams come true. So many of our guests have said that our food was the best wedding food they've ever had. Meredith and the team were creative and accommodating and so inspiring when it came to our menu. I would stop your search now and go with Crave Catering for your wedding. It's one of the best decisions we made for our wedding!