My overall experience was good but with lots of things need to be pointed out for the future client as Martin's many rules are very weird that you might missed to ask or forget to confirm before you book with them.
you can bring your own caterer for food and they will let you do it but the process is very stressful and full of paperworks
you have to book with caterer,then you will have to give those caterers contact details to Martin's ,they will ask all the info including food,insurance and other paperworks about the event and if caterer is failed to provide in time,they will not allow them as they are very precise about paperwork.so its lots of stress bcoz you have to call and make sure caterers send all details including menu,what kind of food,what are the contents,what temperature it need to maintain,
Because when your caterer bring the food to Martin's ,from there Martin's will handle the food from kitchen to event hall including keeping on buffet and removing from buffet,refilling,making sure what to bring from kitchen.
things to consider before bookings with Martin's
(1)Main thing is when you event is over,you or caterer can not take the leftover food back..that food will go to trash because they do not allow any left over food which you paid and your some guest want to take to go food ,but unfortunately Martin's will not let you take any leftover food and it will go to trash.(food waste is not my nature bcoz there are lots of country where kids do not have food for weeks and we trash food will give a pain in my heart)
(2) even you bring your own caterer,you can not bring water bottles or soda with your catering ,bcoz you have to purchase that from Martin's which is very expensive on average 4$/person for 3 hour average event.
(3) Cake cutting..once you finish cake cutting ceremony for any event,either you can send cake back to kitchen and they will pack for you.but if you want the cake to be served with other food,they charge 75 cents per person for cake cutting and serve the cake on buffet.your caterer can not provide you this service for free bcoz of Martin's policy
(4)time for decorating .I had my baby shower at 10am to 1pm (4 hour event)they only give 1.5 hr free for decorating and if you request you get full 2 hour to decoration which I got.but imagine decorators need 30-40 min just to unload the stuff from their vehicle to loading deck and bring it to the event hall which is also a task.how they will decorate event hall for 150 people in 1.5 hr?? But if you need extra time for your decorator ,you have to pay 75$/hour which I have to buy bcoz There is no chance they can finish in 1.5 hr.
(5)if you consider out side caterer,and think that your caterer will come and drop the food and rest martin will handle,...nope...your caterer have to be there during entire event even though he is not doing anything ,so you have to pay your caterer for waiting and also you paying Martin's for the same service to handle the food.so your caterer can not just deliver food or just anyone else can not pick up the food from licensed caterer but they have to be present there during entire event..this does not make sense.bcoz either you guys let the caterer do whole thing which they suppose to do,or let them go once they deliver the food .
(6) if you want to deliver some stuff on prior day to your event,you can do it but make sure you do not pack the boxes as they will have to open and check them before they let you put them in lockers and they themselves bring the stuff when u need at the event.
(7) Head count is very tricky,I booked for 150 people and I only had head count of 110 adult and 25 kids but they charged full adult charge for kids bcoz kids were less than 30 in count.so make sure to ask about adult head count and kids head count bcoz I paid for nothing as most of the kids were 2-4 year age.and main thing You will have to pay minimum for what you assume your headcount will be while booking ,if later date you find out that you have 20-30 people less than what you assumed,you still have to pay for the number you told them while booking.
I have positive things to note as well
*hall is perfect for any kind of event with huge capacity,lighting is great inside the hall,service is great when they handle the food from kitchen to event hall and arrange on buffet and maintaining food temperature and all is great,they provide free water station if you do not want to purchase bottled water from them,staff is great to work with ,specially Robin,very helpful and supportive,location is perfect.
Overall Martin's is expensive and charge for each and everything on top of you pay for hall.
I paid 5500$ for baby shower event where I had 120adult + 20kids so average 37$/ person just for event hall and service they provide includes 1 hour soda serving at bar,cake serving ,food handling
And the charges does not include Food,decoration,photography ,DJ which I paid separate. read more