Catering By John Lowe Reviews
Reviews
4.4 out of 5 rating
4.4 out of 5 rating
13 Reviews
88% recommend it
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![Kaitlyn]()
Kaitlyn B. Sent on 11/11/2022Amazing from the start!
We just booked John Lowe catering for our wedding in August of 2023 and we could not be more excited!! Out of 8 caterers contacted they were the ONLY caterer who provided us with a tasting before booking! We had no idea what to expect with the tasting, but boy were we blow away! Chef John provided us with a plethora of food and cocktails and even packed up the leftovers for us to take home! Him and his wife Susan were the most genuine and kind-hearted people and made the entire experience feel like we were dining with family. It was a no-brainer for my fiancé and I to book with them. We are so thrilled to have their team with us on our wedding day and we cannot wait to taste more of Chef John’s DELICIOUS food!!Catering By John Lowe's reply:
Thank you so much for your fabulous review Kaitlyn! We loved hosting you guys for your tasting and cannot wait to "wow" all your guests with your fabulous menu next year! -
Talia S. Sent on 11/12/2023
Best catering ever!
Catering by John Lowe was absolutely amazing and THE best choice for our wedding (and yours)! From the very beginning at our tasting, we were extremely impressed and so excited to have John Lowe at our wedding. The food was AMAZING! The team was so friendly and worked with us to create the perfect menu for our wedding, even including custom requests. Our favorite part was that they went above and beyond to ensure my husband and I got to taste all the delicious food we had chosen. We had our own server for the day and right after the ceremony, we got to try our amazing appetizers with a special tray just for us. They also ensured we got some of everything on our plate for dinner and it gave us the opportunity to make sure we actually ate our meal on such a crazy day. Our guests raved about how delicious everything was, and the late night wanderer station was a HUGE hit! To top it all off, they sent us home with leftovers that we got to enjoy the next day. John Lowe also offers a unique family style serving option that is the perfect balance between a buffet and served dinner. They were extremely efficient and dinner time went very smoothly for us and all our guests! We were very proud to have chosen a caterer with such delicious food and great service for our big day! Thank you so much John Lowe, we cannot recommend enough!Catering By John Lowe's reply:
Talia, thank you so much for your kind review. It was our honor to be a part of your special day. We couldn't be happier to hear that you had a great experience and that you and your guests enjoyed all that we prepared. We hope you enjoyed your leftovers, and wish you and Noah a lifetime of love and happiness! -
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![Abby]()
Abby W. Sent on 08/05/2023Perfect meal for a perfect day!
John Lowe impressed us so much when we tried his food at our tasting and we/all our guests had the exact same reaction on our wedding day. Everything was so amazing and well prepared with a ton of flavor at a level of cooking most said they didn't expect at a wedding. The staff was also very attentive, friendly, and great to work with throughout the entire process!
Abby and DrewCatering By John Lowe's reply:
Abby, it was an honor to be a part of your wedding day! We couldn't be happier to hear that you had a great experience and that you and your guests enjoyed all that we prepared. We wish you and Drew a lifetime of love and happiness! -
![Elizabeth]()
Elizabeth P. Sent on 12/19/2022Creative, and such good food!
We loved working with Catering By John Lowe for our wedding. From the tasting, through the menu selection, all the way to our wedding day, the team at John Lowe made us feel like family. They were incredibly accommodating about our guests dietary restrictions and, best of all, our guests couldn't stop raving about the food! We're so happy we worked with them!Catering By John Lowe's reply:
Thank you for your wonderfully thoughtful review Elizabeth! It was an honor to be part of such a special day in your lives. We wish you all the happiness in the years to come! -
![Ashley]()
Ashley G. Sent on 11/09/2021Best decision we made for our Wedding!
Catering by John Lowe was a perfect fit for our wedding! They went above and beyond and delivered more than was promised at the end of the day. Every bite of food was amazing, both the day of and the leftover meals that they so generously put to get her for the bride and groom to take home, since so often the bride and groom miss out on eating during their wedding. They made great accommodations for our vegan guests and the vegan pasta action station was a favorite among all of our guest! We even had late night cheesesteaks in little to-go boxes that guests could take with them after a long night of drinking and dancing. It was a perfect way to end the night! It’s the one decision we made that was absolutely perfect!Catering By John Lowe's reply:
Thank you for your wonderful review Ashley! We love to hear from our couples and were honored to be part of such a special day in your lives. Congratulations again! -
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![Sara]()
Sara K. Sent on 10/29/2019Yum- loved it all!
Let’s talk about an awesome day with even more awesome food! Our food tasting really sold us. John personally prepared all of our tasted entrees and cocktail hour items. Every plate was garnished with a beautiful floral arrangement. They really made you feel a part of they’re family! Day of, we were truly so busy. That didn’t stop us from enjoying all the foods! During cocktail hour, my husband & I took our pictures. We had our own personal waiter, that followed us with a serving table filled with every cocktail hour favorite. He made sure we ate all the things we were excited to try again in between pictures. If we needed a beverage, he gladly brought it back to us. Seriously, all brides need to hire them to just experience that alone! Our guests have been complimenting us on how much they loved they’re entrees. Would recommend to all brides! -
![breamarie]()
Breanna Sent on 11/24/2023Terrible. Run.
My husband and I were married last weekend, and I wanted to take some time o cool down a bit and talk with our guests about the food/their experience before writing this review. Ultimately from the guest perspective it was fine. The food was anywhere “okay” to “FIRE” depending on who you ask. From our experience as wedding photographers with a gajillion weddings under our belt, the food itself was probably ever so slightly above average, but the experience was far, far below. This review is MOSTLY about that.
I’m going to outline the issues in chronological order as best as I can remember. There will be a lot of little annoyances left out as there is a character limit. But the long and short here is that on a day that vendors should be trying to make their clients happy, Catering by John Lowe’s goal instead is to make their job as easy as possible. Even if it’s at the expense of the client’s experience.
As many people on the review sites have mentioned, the experience with Catering by John Lowe for the tasting was lovely. The food was excellent, they treat you wonderfully and Chef John and his wife are kind. We enjoyed that experience greatly. While there, I asked A LOT of questions about logistics. I have been in the industry for a LONG time, so I’ve seen it all. I asked about kids meals, I asked about vegan meals for our two vegan friends. I made it very clear that feeding our vegan friends was a TOP priority. I was assured that we would have meals for them without needing to restructure the entire buffet menu for them.
At the tasting, we were asked multiple times to leave a review for them. They even used the angle that we’re in the industry and we know how much reviews matter. We do, absolutely, but there was no way we were going to review any vendor before they actually do any work for us. I also noticed on theKnot and other sites that the majority of the reviews were people who had enjoyed the tasting “looking forward” to their wedding food. It was a bit of a sketchy tactic and honestly had me worried a bit that the food isn’t as good at the wedding and that’s why they did it. Little did I know, the concern was going to be a major drop off of customer service.
The first major issue we ran into came when it was time to figure out how best to serve the band given their performance schedule. The band was scheduled to perform ballads throughout the dinner hour, so having them take a break to eat would have taken away from the experience for our guests.
Catering by JL wouldn’t work with us to feed the band at a time that worked with our schedule so we had to arrange catering from a nearby restaurant instead.
As someone who works in the industry, and has photographed over 500 weddings, and my fiancé 300+, we have seen what is standard. When there’s a band and they need to eat before the reception starts, before they begin performing - the caterer often makes a lasagna or some sort of easy meal that feeds a lot of people easily. We’ve been served other meals than what the guests get beforehand when that makes sense with the schedule but it is still good food. Even a boxed lunch is another option. But we were told they couldn’t/wouldn’t do any of these things. Instead the only option was to put food out on our buffet 1.5 hours before the guests will eat. Which obviously was a no-go.
In case it’s not clear why that’s a no-go… the buffet would be open during cocktail hour, while the guests were milling about, and if they wanted food they would be turned away, and then the food would just be sitting on the buffet going bad for the remaining time. It’s an INSANE option.
When it came time to discuss the vegan meals, we were told there were no specialty meals allowed, despite being assured at the tasting that they would take care of them for us. The only option for them was to eat the salad, and then either change the entire buffet options to accommodate them (replacing one of the sides with a cold chickpea salad, which is also NOT dinner) or have them just eat the one appetizer that was vegan and salad, which is NOT a reasonable option.
After some push back they finally agreed to a specialty meal for the vegans, as originally promised. Which is NORMAL! My main second shooter at every wedding is vegan and without fail every time they make a vegan meal for him at every wedding. He’s never forced to just eat salad. The only concern we ever have is that the couple didn’t communicate that he needed a vegan meal, not that he will be refused food. Without fail, every time, he gets fed.
Ultimately the only reason we were allowed a vegan option is that during our tasting Chef John’s wife had promised us a specialty kids meal option since we have a lot of kids in the family - which we were told she wasn’t supposed to do but now they had to honor it. And since they were honoring it they could do the vegan meal as well.
Speaking of the specialty meals… the week before the wedding we were asked for the names of the guests who were supposed to receive them and what tables they were seated at. For the vegans there were only two, one per table, so we gave their names and which tables they were seated at. For the kids table, there was an entire table of children, with three who were supposed to go to the buffet instead of receive the kids meal. Again, they asked for names of who was supposed to get what.
My husband and I chose to keep our wedding party small and just have our kids stand up with us, so our daughter and son were our maid of honor and best man. About 15-20 minutes after dinner was served, Elliott came to us and asked if he could lay down because there was no food for him. At this point, my husband got up to figure out what had happened. The food was given to the wrong kids, so the two older kids who were not supposed to get chicken tenders and fries were sitting there poking at their plate, looking DEPRESSED about it. Meanwhile OUR KIDS, the WEDDING PARTY, had empty plates and no one had dismissed them to the buffet. Nevermind that there wasn’t anything they wanted on it anyway and that was the whole point of the kids meals.
When my husband asked if there was more food for them instead of getting any sort of apology he just got a shrug and was told there wasn’t anything else. No one took accountability, tried to make it right, or even apologized. This is a HUGE mess up. Our planner was going to order door dash for our kids because SHE was appalled that this happened to them. But again, NO ONE tried to make it right for us from Catering by JL. Ultimately the kids shared cold tenders and fries off of each others plates, which is NOT okay.
Just for context, our band had several screw ups on the day of, but they worked their butts off for us trying to give us an amazing wedding day experience, were incredibly apologetic for the things that weren’t right, and were overall wonderful to work with. So they got a 5 star review. We understand that people are human. This wasn’t that.
On the wedding day, the guests had long finished their salads, plates were empty, and the buffet food was open and steaming for at least 10 minutes before the first guests were dismissed to eat. We had to ask what the heck was going on to get the first table dismissed. When you're paying for the most expensive party of your life, these little delays are stealing precious dance time. Also, it shouldn't be on the couple to get the food going, wtf.
We requested a specific napkin fold (just a trifold that goes around the dinner plate) and they said they only offer one fold and the one we had asked for was “much more complicated” and thus “outside of the scope” of what they offer, so if that’s something we wanted, they would need to receive the napkins pre-folded. I asked my planner if caterers were usually this inflexible and she said NOT AT ALL. “Every caterer I have ever worked with asks us how we want the napkin - they show their staff and their staff does it.”
Now at this point I didn’t even honestly care that much about the napkins. It was just the principle of the thing. I’d been told no SO many times, that I was so upset with them at this point that allowing them to get out of any work was not going to happen. I told my planners I’d rather have them do the fold they do standard than allow them to get out of dealing with the napkins at all. It was not a make or break thing for my “vision”. I am not that bride. But I do not let people walk all over me either.
When the catering staff and planners were emailing about the napkins it got a little passive aggressive. With my planner saying they’d all work together to figure it out, and the representative from JL saying “Thanks Heather for taking care of the napkins”. At this point I was done. So I emailed saying “It’s literally a trifold. This seems ridiculous. It’s very strange for this to be ‘outside of the scope’”. Shortly after this email, I got a response saying that they’d had a call with my planner and understood the fold and would be able to execute it.
The most HILARIOUS part of this, is that 3 days before the wedding, Catering by JL posted a few photos on their instagram of the same fold at a holiday party. So, “outside of the scope” of what they offer, my ass.
Now this one was in the contract, but I did find it interesting that they don’t allow for any shaken cocktails at all. I understand that this can slow down the beverage service, and I feel like that expectation should be shared with the clients, but the option should be there. Even if it’s just with an additional fee. Not offering it at all is not normal. I’ve seen shaken cocktails at hundreds of weddings. In fact, the cocktail we’re serving that is traditionally shaken was a signature cocktail at my two last weddings leading up to ours.
I could keep going, but I’ll stop here. The amount of things we asked that they said “you need to do that” was appalling. Again, I checked with my planner to confirm that we weren’t being unreasonable and that they were actually inflexible and she said yes.
Nothing that we requested was outside of the norm from what we’ve seen at other events over over a decade in business. And at the very least, these options should be offered with an additional cost instead of just a hard no across the board at every turn.
Rather than feeling excited for the food at our wedding, I was frustrated going into the day.
Even if the food was mind blowing (it wasn’t) there’s absolutely no way they could have redeemed themselves. We had a beautiful dream wedding and yet I’m still upset that we were treated so poorly the whole time.Catering By John Lowe's reply:
We are sincerely sorry that our services fell short of your expectations. We wish we would have had an opportunity to speak with you personally about your concerns as your experience is certainly not a reflection of the services we aim to uphold. Once again, we apologize, and we wish you and your husband a lifetime of happiness together. -
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