Ipswich Clambake

Hands down, best rehearsal dinner ever!! My husband and I wanted a casual backyard clambake so we hired Ipswich Clambake Company. They were extremely professional and fun to work with. They arrived right on time, just as we were running out the door to the rehearsal. When we came back, the grill was fired up, the tables were set and we were ready to party! The food was absolutely delicious! People went up for seconds and thirds!! They went above and beyond to accommodate children, vegetarians, and food allergies. They even packed up the leftovers for us and we ate them the very next day! I will definitely hire them the next time we host a clambake!!

I had attended another party catered by Ipswich Clambake, and their reputation, and the quality of the food, meant that I specifically selected a wedding venue that would allow me to work with them as a caterer. I did consider other local clambake companies, just in case they were not available, and nobody else was nearly as responsive. Through our whole planning process, Tracey Carlson was great to work with, being very flexible with the menu combinations, and she bore with me through changes from round tablecloths, to square, back to round, and continuously shifting dimensions and quantities, as well as last minute additions. The week of our wedding, we spoke on the phone to confirm details, and she was truly pleasant. At the wedding, my New England family raved about the chowder, claiming it was better than Legal Seafood, Woodman"s, or anywhere else they had tried. The chowder, steamers, and hors d'oeuvres were delicious, as was my lobster. Everyone that ordered the vegetarian meal loved it. The grilled chicken was a little bit small though. There is one reason that they are not receiving five stars in each category. I know my numbers were exact because they were generated from an excel pivot table, created from the RSVP export of invitations created on Greenvelope -- I did not make a mistake in my tallies, because it was automated. Since the wedding, I have compared these numbers with what was on our invoice, and we ordered the correct number of entrees. Despite this fact, four guests, including the groom, the best man, and the groom's father did not receive their meals. Ultimately, the groom, who requested steak tips received the last chicken, another steak tip recipient and the owner of that chicken received the hamburgers left over from the two children's meals, and the father of the groom did not receive an entree. Despite multiple people expressing shock at their failure to come prepared with a few extra entrees, in case some of the food were dropped, etc, I would not be upset except for how they handled it. Ultimately, I would only have advised that anyone using this caterer pad in their own additional meals, or choose one of their double entree options instead of their individual entree options, except for one thing. Their response to this food shortage was extremely poor. When the groom, one of the last guests to go up for his dinner learned there were no more steak tips, the response he received was "oh I'll check my numbers." There was no concern, no offer of an apology, no offer to run out and obtain additional food. Despite this claim to verify their numbers, we never heard anything else from them all night. While I would not have expected any discounts, I do think we deserved an apology, which we never received. I did not say anything at the time, because I wanted to be sure that I had not made a mistake myself before I said anything. It is possible that one or two of the guests did not realize how exact the food was, and took seconds, but we were instructed by Ipswich Clambake to provide guests with some form of meal ticket, which we did. If guests took seconds, they should have been stricter with the collection of meal cards. Just a quick update, after posting this review, as a courtesy, I sent it Tracey. She expressed shock and dismay, saying that it was the first that she had heard of this. She apologized, and told me I would receive a call later that week. It's 3 weeks later, I never did.

The food was amazing!! People are still telling us how great the food was and how much food they had! They also said how much the servers were accommodating and friendly. The lobster was delicious, the steak tips had great flavor and melted in your mouth, the walnut/gorgonzola salad was great and the warm potatoes were infused with a great buttery flavor- much better than a cold potato salad. (and there was so much more great food as well). Michelle was very accommodating with the needs and looks we were going for- we had plenty of options to chose from.

Couldn't ask for better! We knew what we wanted, Ipswich Clambake made it happen and didn't try to sell us into anything we didn't need. The food was excellent and the service was top notch! Servers payed particular attention to bridal party and even elderly guests since the layout was buffet style. They set up, served, refreshed, and cleaned up - fantastic!