Schaefer's Wines, Foods, and Spirits

Schaefer's was great to work with. They were flexible and we ultimately ordered booze for 135 people the Monday before our wedding and it was delivered on time. Heads up: they make their deliveries to Chicago on Thursdays. Fortunately our venue held our liquor for us. They don't charge a delivery fee, which helped us cut costs. We were responsible for picking up the unopened bottles and returning them after the wedding, but if you're working on a budget that's another cost saver. We compared prices between them, Binny's and another family owned liquor store and Schaefer's ended up offering the best prices. We were happy to give our business to this independent liquor store.

If you want a good experience, do not use Schaefers! They had the worst customer service ever. To start, when I first contacted them about my wedding, it was mid July. They told me to call back in October because they only need a week or so to process the order. (my wedding was 11-13-15) So I did, not a big deal. I called in mid October, about a month before the wedding. I told them the budget I was aiming for(they said it was perfectly doable) and a base selection of what kinds of alcohol I wanted. I said I wanted a beer heavy, modified full bar that specifically included amoretto and tequila and I said I did not want champagne. When the email with the invoice came, it was more than double my budget, had 36 bottles of champagne, over 40 bottles of hard alcohol but no tequila or amoretto, and hardly any beer! Fed up with multiple phone calls, we took matters into our own hands and did research with online alcohol calculators to figure out for ourselves what we needed. To put into perspective how far off they were, they had 8 bottles of jack on the invoice and 12 bottles of vodka. We calculated that we only needed 2 and 6. We were right. We ordered a fraction of what they were trying to sell us and had leftovers. After I emailed them the new list of alcohol, I waited a few days for an updated quote. It never came. At this point it is about 2 weeks till the wedding. I had to call and ask what's going on. They nonchalantly said "oh, it was on the other guy's desk". So I finally got a new invoice and went into the store to pay it in person. The week of the wedding I got a call from them asking if my order was still a go and I need to pay or else they will consider the order cancelled. I told them that I came in and paid a week ago. They basically said "oops. We didn't see that". Three good things for Schaefers. 1: They provide free glassware. Wine, rocks and champagne 2: Free delivery 3: They fully refund any unopened alcohol These good points bring me to the last bad point about my experience. They refunded me what I was owed and needed to charge me for 11 broken glasses. Not a problem at all. Until I looked at my credit card statement and saw a charge for $264! I called and asked what that was all about and they basically said "oops, our bad. Someone goofed" and it should've only been $22. Seriously Schaefers! -___- They said they would credit me again. We'll see how long that takes. Never again will I use them.

Overall I was happy with my experience with Schaefer's. They have a great selection of alcohol and work hard to fit your budget. The only negative was that they did not have the non-alcoholic beer that we requested.Our guest whom we requested it for was embarrassed when she asked for it. Had we known we could have had someone pick it up.

Really great. They deliver and arrange anything. You don't have to deal with it at all. They include glassware and everything. It's a great deal.