Smoke on the Water

Delicious!

As promised and re-assured by several of our other vendors for our wedding, Smoke on the Water “pulled through” on the wedding day. The food was great, tables were preset exactly as requested, and they sent us off with a very nice cooler packed with 2 to-go plates. It was all that we could have asked for on the day of the event, however the planning process was somewhat of a nightmare. Upon “booking” them to cater our wedding, we were surprised to find that they do not do contracts or require a deposit. This seemed too good to be true. It was in fact true, but not “good” when their catering manager (who we did our tasting with and put us on their calendar) unexpectedly left. Without a contract & without a reliable and consistently responsive staff member to communicate with via phone or email, planning our meal/event was extremely time consuming and frustrating. If it had not been for my own initiative, persistence, attention to detail, self-advocating, and patience (and trusting the good things that other vendors said about Smoke on the Water), then the end product for our important event would have been a disappointing mess. Planning a wedding is no easy task, but planning this part of the wedding should not have been nearly this difficult.

I cannot sing their praise enough! We held our rehearsal dinner at the restaurant and they catered our wedding. They did an amazing job. They were the definition of SERVICE throughout the entire planning process! On the day of the wedding they made plates for me and my groom and set them at our sweetheart table. When the wedding was over they packaged all of the leftovers and sent them home with my mom and they sent a cooler packed with 4 to go plates in our get away car. They ROCK! Highly recommend.

Unfortunately we were very disappointed with our rehearsal dinner at Smoke on the Water. A few years ago we attended a rehearsal dinner there and had a great experience. We love the food and they were very nice over the phone so we booked them. We booked the private room for the 5:00 dinner slot. People began trickling in between 5-5:15. They took drink orders immediately when each person walked in. People continue to trickle in. Everyone sits down, no water is on the table despite the fact that we are the first private party of the day. It is not until 30-45 minutes later the very first people who ordered drinks begin receiving their drinks and the wait staff begin to pass out waters. Everyone had walked from the hotels downtown on a semi warm night so they got a little impatient. At this point, family is getting up , going to the bar and ordering/paying for their own drinks. Mind you, the wait staff in the room is trying VERY hard but they were unable to keep up with the speed- There was 3 person wait staff for our room, which would be adequate if one of the three wasn't working their first night at the restaurant. Then, the food starts to come out- very sporadically. We have 4 tables, each with approximately 8-12 people, they bring 1/4 of the entrees to each table, followed by the sides, followed by the rest of the entrees. The sides are family style so by the time the last few people are getting the food the sides were cold. My biggest complaint: We went to the manager 3 times throughout the 3 hour period. He never once came to the private room to check with us on how things were going and seemingly never once made an effort to make any changes over how the night was run.