Combine a busy work schedule between myself and my wife, a school schedule with my son, and general laziness to go to the grocery store far enough out to actually prepare a decent meal and my family becomes the picture perfect model for this concept. It is so nice to be able to have a full home cooked meal ready in less than 30 minutes.... throw in a few microwavable steamed veggies and it's like you're back at Mom's. Making a month's worth of meals hardly takes any time at all when you arrive at dream dinners. All the stations are stocked and ready for you based on your order and the time slot you reserved. My wife and I working together can do 12-14 meals in just about an hour. I've done it by myself in about an hour and a half. I love the fact that because you're preparing everything yourself you can cater the recipe to your taste. Don't like olives? Skip it. Love garlic? Throw an extra scoop in there... The frequent buyers club is great too. We've been going here the last 7 months or so and every few bills we get a 10% and sometimes 20% discount. I figure each serving comes out to about $5-6 a person which is definitely cheaper than eating out and mostly cheaper than the grocery store. The quality of the meals is great. Usually 75% of them taste delicious and the other 25% are ok/good. Nothing has been bad. The owners are very friendly and the staff will always lend you a hand if you need it. read more

Dream Dinners - the front of a fish city restaurant - Do-It-Yourself Food Near Me - Houston, Texas

I was really sceptical when my girlfriend asked me to go to Dream Dinners with her. Why would I pay to hang out and do a chore I can do at home anyway? I'll tell ya why: because I can prep a whole month's worth of dinner in less than an hour, that's why! I chose to make 36 servings of food (3 or 6 servings of different entrees), which lasts my husband and I about a month, since we go out to eat and travel quite a bit each month. It cost about $155. At first that sounded pricey, but that's pretty much what we spend at the grocery each month anyway. The ingredients used are high quality and the recipes are very tasty. You choose your menu beforehand (it changes monthly, so you're never eating the same thing), and when you arrive, your little recipe and instruction sheets are already printed out for you. You simply go from station to station (there is one station per each menu item) and put your meals together. This involves measuring and mixing items, and putting them into the freezable containers provided. Like I said, mine took less than an hour, which is usually the amount of time it takes me to get in and out of the grocery store in a week. You bring everything home and just thaw out the meal you want to cook. Each meal takes 30 minutes or less to cook at home, but that's not active time for the cook - you typically just throw your meal in the oven or on the stove and let it go while you get other stuff done. There is a huge variety in the menu. We've had two kinds of pork chops, salmon, baked breaded cod, and a plethora of various chicken recipes. I don't eat beef and I prefer to cook healthy, so I check the handy nutritional info on each recipe before I place my order. Nutritional info is available online or in the store. If I wasn't concerned with calories, there are plenty of other recipes that really catch my eye! Our favourites have been the Kentucky Pork Chops, Sesame Seed Covered Chicken and California Chicken (a creamy casserole with tons of artichokes and tomatoes). Not a huge fan of the Chicken Marsala, but it was still edible, just not a favourite in our house. The owner is very sweet and remembers me from visit to visit. The facility is also clean...spotless...and they come in behind you at each station and clean up so you are always starting at a clean workspace. And you don't have to clean up your own messes, another bonus! They have a pretty nifty referral program and "frequent shopper" program that gives you a percentage off your order each month. If anyone reads my review and decides to give Dream Dinners a shot, please use me as your referral! Also feel free to send me a message with any questions this review didn't answer. read more

I had a Groupon for this, so I tried it out a few weeks ago. The prep process was easy enough - measure, throw in ziploc bags, blah blah blah. Cooking the meals was easy too - they all took about 10 or 20 minutes to make. And that's all that's good about it. By the time I prepared our second meal, and had to try to scrape a tablespoon of brown sugar out of a carafe, I knew this place sucked. The sugar had turned into one, very large, carafe-shaped clump because the carafe was not sealed in any way, just open to the air. When I showed the incredibly dried out sugar to the owner, she just said "oh yeah it just does that." Anyone who doesn't know that sugar clumps and dries out when exposed to air, doesn't know anything about food and should not be running any sort of food-oriented business. The food is disgusting. We got six different meals with our Groupon. After eating three of them, we threw out the rest. The garlic butter steaks were bland. The fried onion chicken tasted so strongly of onion that I couldn't eat it AT ALL (I threw it out and filled up on side dishes). I was able to tolerate the kentucky pork chops, but my husband had to choke it down. By the time we ate the second meal, we were dreading having to eat any more of them. When the third one was just as horrible, I got fed up and threw out the ones we had left. We thought about giving them away - but why would I do that to someone? Giving people food like that is a quick way to turn a friend into an enemy. Even when we could manage to choke down the meals, the portions were so tiny that, even with side dishes, we were still hungry. The reason these meals have a low calorie count is not because they're healthy - ha! - it's because the meals are laughably small. Unless you are a ballerina or a gymnast (since everyone knows they don't eat anyway), you will still be hungry. I can't recommend these meals to anyone. If you know how to cook, you can easily do the same concept in your own kitchen on the weekends. If you don't know how to cook, learn. You can make better tasting and healthier meals yourself, for a quarter of the cost and the same time commitment. read more

The concept is great, everything is prepared, we just need to do the assembling. I used to go once a month with a group of ladies and did this for over a year. It was fun and quite helpful at that time since my schedule was truly hectic back then. The pros: - place was very clean - staff & owner were very friendly and helpful. - good selection of food - price is correct - the food is tasty, it feels like you are eating out every night :-) The cons: - not a place for the avid cook since all you do is assemble! read more

I had been here once before & the food was yummy, the process was simple & the staff was helpful. Seems they are not what they used to be. This trip the stations were out of ingredients. Out of the 6 entrees that I made I had to ask for or find ingredients for 5 of them (some recipes I had to hunt for more than 1 ingredient). When I had finally hunted on my own 1 too many times for ingredients I asked the staff for missing items, I got attitude & was told to go find them myself at other stations. I then asked the manager, thinking she would check out what was going on & she gave me attitude also. I was told once again to go find the missing ingredients myself. When I mentioned that they should be stocked at each station I was told they were running low on some ingredients. Well there is a grocery store right there in the same shopping center. So if you are low on ingredients, go BUY some & stock the stations! Really if I wanted to hunt for ingredients I would do it in my own pantry (for a lot less money) & if I wanted attitude I would cook with my own kids. I went with a friend & needless to say neither of us will be back. read more

I decided to try Dream Dinners when they ran a groupon deal; with the discount I really couldn't pass up the chance to try this unique business. I like food. I like tasty, not-too-terribly-bad-for-me meals. Which means I should be cooking dinners. But I live alone and it's such a nuisance to do all the prep work to churn out one serving. And I don't want to be eating leftovers of the same meal for the next 6 days... So I eat a lot of not-too-terribly-tasty and not-too-terribly-good-for-me take out and frozen dinners. I'm counting on Dream Dinners to help me break out of that set of bad habits. I wasn't really sure what I should expect. I don't know anyone else who has used this type of meal-prep place. My only information came from the internet. So I read the reviews here (thanks yelpers!) and selected the menu items based on the pictures on the company's website and placed my order. I arrived with a small cooler (to carry the completed meals home) a few minutes before my 6:30 appointment to find that several others were already there and had begun making their month's worth of dinners. I was greeted by a petite woman who seems to be the owner. She and a nice guy began explaining "what we do here." Directions were simple and straight forward as was the orientation: hand washing stations and aprons over on one wall, a shelf full of clean measuring cups/scoops/spoons - though each work station was pretty well stocked, the prep stations that dominate the space, and a refrigerator near the front that had shelves labeled with each customer's name for you to put your meals on as you complete them. Each station was set up with a recipe card (most stations had 2 or 3 recipes set up) that matched one the menu items I had picked from online. All ingredients were prepared (veggies were chopped, butter was cut into 1 TBSP pieces, chicken breast were halved and frozen...) and arranged in an easy to reach and use manner. Most ingredients had the correct measuring utensil stuck in the ingredient. Need 1/2 a TBSP of chopped garlic? The garlic was chopped, in a container in a refrigerated area of the work station with a long handled 1/2 TBSP scoop in it! This made preparing 9 meals (3 servings each) easy and painless. I was completed in about 75 minutes. Staff came around and wiped off the counters when I was messy and splashed olive oil while measuring. I didn't have to worry about washing dishes. I didn't have to chop, dice and deal with raw chicken (frozen is so much less icky to me!). And I didn't have to go buy the 12 different spices, multiple pestos and panko bread crumbs that were required, but I'd never manage to entirely consume before they expire. The place was quite clean - I dropped a pen under one of the food prep stations - when I reached down to get it I noticed that the floors were clean there too. (as they should be... but it's still good that I didn't get a nasty surprise!) I was impressed with the food safety. Having worked in large kitchens and having family in the the culinary field I've been exposed to enough safety to be scared by a bad set up. Be aware - there is the potential for cross contamination - dripping pesto on the grated cheese for example - since ingredients are in containers next to each other, so severe allergy sufferers might choose to steer clear. However the meat items were all frozen and packaged in individual freezer bags, which cuts down significantly on the chance of getting raw chicken on an item that won't be cooked. My review might be a little early - I've only tried one of the meals I prepared; but it was tasty, the cooking instructions were easy and my freezer looks a lot better now that I made room for these meals. (I certainly did not need 3 tubs of Bluebell and a bag of frozen fries that was probably purchased shortly after power was restored following hurricane Ike!) My total price for 30 servings (I picked up a pre-made meal too) was about $135. Since I easily spend that much at Whole Foods and leave with a cart full of cheeses, veggies and frozen dinners (and end up eating take out anyway) it's a worthwhile investment for me. The standard minimum order is 36 servings - but there are sessions at the end of the month that waive that requirement (check the calendar on the store's site). I'll be back to update my review after trying a few more of the meals, but for now a solid 4 star review has been earned. read more

Dream dinners is the perfect solution for busy couples and families who continually struggle with the age-old question: "What's for dinner?" The concept involves ordering several meals and scheduling a time to come in and assemble them. There is a station for each dinner, for example, "pesto ravioli with chicken and walnuts", and you put together the base ingredients of the meal. 36-servings is the minimum order, and dinners come in either 3 or 6 servings, so my husband and I typically end up with 12 meals, which takes about 45 minutes to assemble with both of us there. (There is also an option to have them assembled for you). Considering eating out sometimes or making other dinners, this usually gets us through an entire month. You put all of the meals in the freezer and whenever you need to make one, you simply pull it out and follow the instructions on a card. Prep is usually less than 20 minutes, and not overly complicated for the culinarily challenged. About 50% of the time, 3 servings ends up being just the right amount for the two of us, and the rest of the time we have leftovers for dinner the next day; however, it may not be an ideal system to feed less than 2 people or more than 4. Basically, it's a great option if you don't want to live on Lean Cuisines. You still do have to cook the meals, but everything is planned for you and you don't have to spend extra time at the grocery store buying a niche ingredient for one or two dishes. Personally I also appreciate the cooking part as it lets me tweak, add, and subtract ingredients to my heart's content. And the variety is nice, so you never end up hearing, "steak gorgonzola with herb roasted potatoes AGAIN?!?". It's great having one less thing to think about, and most of them are pretty good (although be prepared to add most of your own salt at home). My husband was on a tough sell on this concept after working out in detail the cost breakdown, but in the end, we'd spend more money randomly picking up pizza hut or chinese food when both of us were too tired to think of something to make. We've been using Dream Dinners for about three months now, and our total monthly food costs have actually gone down; we end up splitting our food budget pretty evenly between the grocery store and DD. Overall: yes, you could do this yourself-- but ain't no one got time for that. P.S. Show up to your session early; the process goes faster with less people there. Also bring your significant other and make them help out with the work. read more

I have given gift certificates to Dream Dinners to friends who I know are super busy and could benefit from a place like this, but I never thought of going in myself, just because I live by myself and don't really have anyone else to feed on a daily basis. My schedule can get pretty hectic at times and there are days where I don't get home until 9pm or so. By that time, I'm usually too tired to cook stuff so I just end up going out to eat or snacking on something and not eating a full meal that entire day. I saw a Groupon or Living Social deal and figured, might as well since my friends seemed to enjoy it. I scheduled my session and picked my menu and placed the order. My card was credited with the coupon amount so my first session ended up costing about $115 which at first still seemed quite expensive, but then I figured the costs of convenience, going out and so forth, and I felt a lot better about it. I go to Dream Dinners and brought my cooler with me. I was the only one there at the time and was a bit hesitant as to what to do since it was my first visit. Fortunately the staff was very friendly and helpful. He led me through the stations and showed me how the process worked. You have everything set in your drawer, which has your name on it. You look for the items you ordered and they either come in a 3 or 6 serving size. Everything that you need to make the meal is in front of you at that station. The spoons are usually the exact amount you need although there are times when you do have to double it. The meats/seafood are still frozen so there isn't raw meat just sitting out in room temp. Everything is kept chill and there are only 2 or 3 sessions each day and they are spread apart so things get rotated in and out of the stations. You follow the recipe at the station for your appropriate serving, seal it all up in a Ziploc bag and place it in the fridge area on your designated shelf. Once you're all done (my first time it took me 2 hours to get everything, but my second time was only about 1 hr 15 min), you place things in your cooler to take home. Now you have dinner or lunch for several days. You can pre-order your next month's menu if you want. If you do, you start their version of their "frequent buyer" program and start to save on your orders since they know you're coming back each month. It may not be for everyone and some people can easily do this stuff at home, but when you live in a small apartment, cooking up several meals at once to freeze isn't the most convenient. This place offers me convenience and now that I have started Dream Dinners, I don't go out to eat during the week, have leftovers for lunch and don't do as much grocery shopping (I still have to get my snacks in of course). I'm definitely a fan! Oh and I forgot to add, that everything that I've had so far has tasted delicious and I've had about 12 or so different meals from them. read more

I have this habit that I'm sure a lot of people have: I peer in the fridge and notice that I have nothing appetizing; wander away while contemplating a run to the grocery store; decide that it's too much work to not only drive the five minutes to the grocery store, but to come up with a list that I could use to whip up a few meal options (that's just mentally and physically exhausting--c'mon!); sigh, then wander back ten minutes later and repeat. I was all psyched for this, because a) lots of meal options b) minimal food prep time c) never having to go to the grocery store, ever again! Overall, the service and convenience would get this four stars. The owner was cool with me coming in 15 minutes late (I emailed her beforehand) and I was able to substitute protein items. My 9 items of 3-servings was about $114. I had a groupon, but normally, you can only do a minimum of 36 servings. You choose your items and schedule a time online. Make sure you print out your items as a reference and expect to choose a time at least two weeks in advance. There were a few weekday nights, but those mostly seemed to be for private parties. The other options were on the weekends. When you go in, you fill out a form, and someone shows you around. Each meal item has a station with instructions, ingredients, and the measuring spoons/cups you'll use. You store everything in a gallon bag, with quart bags for sauces and rubs. When you're done with the item you're working on, you store it in the fridge. There are light snacks that are items from the next month's menu. The reason this gets three stars is because of personal preference. Now, I like to cook and bake. I go on mad baking binges where I produce so many brownies, cookies, and cakes, I have to come up with reasons to mail them to friends (I need more non-carb hating friends in Houston!). For instance, I once started baking at 5pm, finished at 1am, then decided I really, really had to make a lasagna. By the time I was done cleaning up, it was 7am. In between those binges, I get really lazy. I need to recover. Basically, I like to have my food be exciting every once in a while, if not all the time. Dream Dinners has variety, but you're just making your protein (e.g. cocoa-rubbed chicken, cioppino, cheesy baked cod, buffalo ranch chicken), so you still have to come up with some side items, though it does sell basic garden salads and vegetable stir fries. It does seem as though this would work great for people who are super busy and/or don't know how to cook. This woman next to me said to her friend, "There's no tablespoon. I can't measure anything. What do I do?" Her friend told her to use a teaspoon. She said, " I don't know how many to use. How many are in a teaspoon?" Long pause, before I said, rather emphatically, "THREE." read more

I am like most busy parents - exhausted at the end of the day and then wanting something healthy for my family to eat. That is why I love Dream Dinners! Once a month or so, I will order my meals for them and have the staff make them for me. Then I keep them in my freezer and defrost one meal as a time as I need them. I'm really happy that most of these meals only take 15-20 minutes to prepare, and my kids actually eat it. I think the concept is great and a really good fit for busy parents. Like one of the other reviewers, it seemed really expensive to me at first too, but when I analyzed how much it would actually cost for me to buy all the ingredients at the grocery store then I realized how economical it was. HIGHLY recommend this place! read more

Great service and very delectable list of menu and they stay up to date! Makes your life much easier by helping you pre-make dinners so you don't have to waste lots of time wondering what to eat for dinner. read more

I LOVE Dream Dinners. When I first heard about a place where you can make a month's worth of dinners yourself in one hour, then freeze them until you're ready to cook dinner, I thought it sounded convenient but not anything so great I'd want to spend my money there. Then one day, a friend made me one of their dishes - a cheese and chicken ravioli with a yummy pesto sauce and pine nuts. It was DELICIOUS! Honestly, it was better than many of the pasta dishes I've ordered in Italian restaurants. After that, I knew I had to try it myself - I've now gone to DD for a year and a half! The store, which is always perfectly clean, is set up around six large refrigerated stations that hold the ingredients for the recipes. Because all the prep work is done for you, you can make 12 dinners in about an hour. The employees constantly check up on you to make sure you have everything you need and clean up after you. The staff are all very nice, and are more than happy to answer all the questions you have and even offer suggestions on the best way to assemble and prepare your meals! I especially like the owner. She's really sweet and very knowledgeable about the food, and is always willing to work with you to make sure you get everything you want and need. Now, about the food: it's delicious! DD offers 17-25 different dishes every month. In addition, they offer sides (mashed potatoes, vegetable blends, orzo, etc.), and desserts. I adore their desserts, they are better than anything you'd buy in a store anything I have the patience to make in my kitchen. Right now the sell packages of giant gourmet cookies. Why would anyone want to pay for cookies from DD when they can spend $3 on pillsbury cookie dough? Because they are honestly the best cookies I've ever tasted, and several other customers I've spoken to agree. If nothing else, you should just walk into the store and ask to buy some cookies. They're amazing. Another reviewer here (Jennifer S) reported that the food is disgusting and that she threw a lot of it away. I'm convinced she made it wrong. I can count on one hand the number of times I've heard a DD patron say they hated the food and it was always because they made it wrong. My guess is they combined two of the steps on the recipe card into one. The recipe cards have numbered steps for you to follow and each step requires a new ziplock bag for you to add the ingredients to. If you accidentally combined the ingredients from both steps into one bag it probably would mess up your meal - but that's not DD's fault. It's just user error. Oh, and to alleviate any concern you might have, DD does not let their ingredients stand uncovered when they don't use them. Reading Jennifer S's review might lead you to believe that, but I've seen the DD crew close up the store after a session and they cover everything with plastic lids and saran wrap. I imagine the brown sugar she mentioned in her review dried out from sitting uncovered DURING sessions. The portion sizes are a little smaller than what people are used to. DD follows the FDA recommended portion sizes for their meals, so everything you eat is the size nutritionists say it needs to be to lead a healthy lifestyle. I soon got used to the smaller portion sizes, and now I am much more conscious of my eating when I go to restaurants. The instructions also suggest sides to include with your meal. If you're eating just the dinner you made from DD, then you're probably not eating a full meal. I asked the owner why only some of the meals come with sides, and she said that preselecting sides for customers limits what they buy because not everyone will like all the sides that go with the entree. That's why they offer sides for you to buy separately, and make suggestions on the recipe cards for other things you might want to add on your own. Everyone should try Dream Dinners at least once. It's completely changed the way I have dinner. I spend more time with my family, and save a lot of money at the grocery store. Ooh! That's the other thing! They're really reasonably priced! So go try it! P.S. Jennifer S, check your facts. Professional ballerinas, especially in America, eat more than we do. They exercise 10 hours a day; if they ate nothing, like you said they do, they'd die. In fact, dansuer Edwaard Liang, of the NY Ballet Company, admitted to eating full meals 6-7 times a day. read more

My husband and I absolutely love the dream dinners concept. While we both like to cook, our schedules are extremely busy and having meals that are easy to prepare and relatively healthy is great! We take advantage of the Dream Rewards program which gives us discounts when certain milestones are reached (i.e., after so many visits a percentage of the next visit). This makes the cost per meal even lower. The concept is easy. We order our meals online or in the store a month in advance. The meal description tells you everything you are getting so there are no surprises. Some are complete with sides, some come with just a protein. The meals are easy to prepare and taste great. We have our favorites and tend to order several extra of those we like. You can also order sides for those meal that are not complete. There are even desserts and breakfast food that vary by month. We don't ike eating in restaurants often do to the Texas-size portions that are served (no wonder so many people are overweight). Portions are much more accurate here. We order 3-serving meals which is PLENTY for my husband and I to have a dinner meal and also for my lunch the next day. Dream Dinners is very affordable and makes our lives much easier. I highly recommend trying!!! read more