My overall experience with Herbs & Spices was satisfactory, but not amazing as with some of the other reviewers. My husband and I hosted a cocktail party to celebrate our marriage and worked with them to cater the event. I had searched around quite a bit and after reading all of the wonderful reviews, we felt that we were making the best decision to work with Wendy. She was very accommodating and helped fix up a multicultural menu. Based on the previous reviews, I was hoping for seamless service, but this was not the case. Below is a list of some hiccups we encountered.
Firstly, one (1) of the two (2) servers called in sick. Wendy was not able to find someone else to work the shift, so our party of 75 only had one server. This meant that less food was being served in a timely manner. Hungry guests were devouring the food as soon as it came out of the kitchen. Some people never saw all the dishes because the server couldn't get to them. Wendy was not there for the party and I really think she should have made herself available and stayed to fill in for her missing staff person.
Secondly, we had agreed to bar service until 11:30 pm. I was shocked when I found the bar unattended a full 1.5 hours before the agreed upon finish time. Instead, guests were pouring their own drinks. This was mortifying. I had to take time from having fun at my party and find the lead staff to see where the bar tender had gone. The lead staff wasn't very apologetic about the matter, which was disappointing. Thankfully she called Wendy to verify and the bar tender reappeared.
Thirdly, we agreed that there'd be coffee with dessert, but this never made an appearance. Extremely disappointing and frankly, unacceptable. Wendy (who did not attend the event) later insisted that the coffee was at the bar and not at the dessert table because there supposedly wasn't room for it at the dessert table. This is totally untrue. There was a lot of room (too much actually) and no one ever saw/was served any coffee. I never even saw coffee mugs in their crates. A real disappointment.
Finally, passed hors d'oeuvres were only served early on. Caterers stopped serving and attending to guests early and instead, were mingling in the kitchen area for a long time, eating. This was quite annoying. I understand that they are allowed a break and that they'll taste the food, but to nonchalantly be constantly eating in front of guests is unprofessional. I don't want to seem petty, but it was also noticed that they were helping themselves to generous portions of the expensive desserts we actually provided ourselves, from 2 different bakeries. Again, very unprofessional.
Toward the end of the party, I saw that there was a bit of food that had not been served. It didn't look like they were going to box it away for us, so I had to ask them to do so. I think they should have automatically done this. Actually, we didn't get to taste all the food and it would have been nice of them to set aside a couple of boxes with a variety. I also noticed that we did not receive all the food which was left over.
Overall, the service was okay, but not up to par with my expectations and definitely not 5 stars worthy. I work with a lot of caterers with my work and expect top-notch service. There could have been a bit more food and better-trained, more professional staff. We hired Wendy because we wanted to support a small, local business and due to the raving reviews. Not sure if this experience was just a fluke, but to me it looks like better management was needed. Wendy seems like a nice person who has great potential in this business. read more