Wolfgang, Lothar, and the entire crew at Schatzi's Catering catered both my housewarming and my…read morewedding and I couldn't have been happier. When searching for a local catering business in San Diego, I was hoping to find someone who could deliver memorably excellent food with minimal stress to the hosts.
For my housewarming party last year, I engaged Schatzi's to deliver food for about forty people. They are equipped to cater less formal events as well as full-blown capital-E events; for an informal housewarming, I went with one of the theme menus they've got posted on their Web site. Shortly after sending them an E-mail, they responded back with all of the details, generously offering to custom tailor the menu to my guests. The food was delivered right on time, piping hot, and oh my God was it delicious. The roasted pork stuffed with plums was amazing and their homemade spätzle was to die for. Even better, they were able to rent us a couple of chafing dishes at reasonable prices so that we could serve the food ourselves using our own plates - it was fantastic to be able to keep costs down by pitching in using our own silverware, for example.
More recently, I got married. Based on my excellent experience with Schatzi's, I immediately called them as soon as I had a date fixed. This time, however, it was going to me a much bigger event - a hundred guests, still at my house, but this time I would obviously be way too busy with, you know, actually getting married to worry about the details of food service. Again, Wolfgang, Lothar, and their staff were amazingly helpful: we had a short meeting to go over the food to be served, the general schedule, and what exactly I needed from them in order to pull it all off. They also coordinated with a local party rental company to deliver everything we needed for the wedding reception at our house: glassware, silverware, plates, napkins, you name it.
Exactly as arranged, Wolfgang and his staff showed up at our house right on time to get everything set up. All I had to do was point at where everything was to be set up and they did it all, which was extraordinarily relaxing (in the sense that my wedding day stress just disappeared when they began setting it all up). After I went to change into my tuxedo, my house and back yard had been transformed into an actual event: the tables looked great, the presentation of sparkling wine and beverages was awesome, and the serving staff was super friendly and looked professional like you wouldn't believe.
That was two weeks ago, and our wedding guests are still going on about how incredibly delicious the food was; we served Central European favorites like veal in a white wine sauce with mushrooms, Hungarian style goulash, spätzle, and grilled asparagus. All of the food was served piping hot, portion sizes were very good indeed, and (most importantly) every guest was delighted. Finally, as the host, I could not have been happier with everything: I was able to trust Schatzi's entirely and leave them to their work so that I could concentrate on the party. As we approved the scheduled end of the day, their staff cleaned everything up, disappeared all of the trash (I still have no idea how), stacked the party rental equipment, had the delivery folks pick it all up, and that was that. I was left with a clean house, happy guests, and an overwhelming sense of calm and satisfaction.
If you're catering an event anywhere near North Park, you owe it to yourselves to check these guys out. They are amazing.
