Buffet Style Service - Tired or Necessary?

I say this over and over that the best part of my job is meeting the couples.
Each and every one is so full of joy, excitement, and ideas.
Their stories are unique, yet very similar in many ways. We talk location, we talk appetizers, desserts, favorite dishes for the main entree, what types of craft beer they are going to have, but one
of the hottest topics during the meeting is this - Style of Service.

One word is mentioned and many of the young brides make what I call the "Icky" Face.
The same face a baby makes when they don't want the food in the spoon you put in front of them.
Nose wrinkled up, etc, etc..... That word is "buffet."

Couples don't call on their favorite food trucker to put on a buffet style service.
Food trucks are so hip and trendy, while buffet service is often viewed in the same category
as Scrabble - acceptable, but no fun.
There are actually many factors to a successful wedding meal, believe it or not.
By success, I do not mean getting the people fed.
My personal nemesis - I am at a wedding, stuck in assigned seating (Insert Icky Face),
and like usual, my table is one of the last to get their meals. The meat has been under a warmer for what tastes like 2 weeks, the veggies are now cold and chewy like bubble gum, while the mashed
potatoes now have butter that has seperated back into a cube.

This is one example of a wedding meal that failed in many people's opinions, mine included.

Obviously buffets were born of necessity, not glamour.
Which brings us back to initial problem - Hip and trendy is part of the draw for these young whipper snappers. Let's insert some cool to your wedding service.

Here are 3 things to help your service be effective, tasty, and amazeballs cool.
 1. Mix it up - Do a different style of service for every course. We do a lot of these weddings.
Cocktail Hour/ Appetizers - Family Style for 2 of the appetizers. They are arranged on plates at the table for your guests to pick and choose as they like. This is a great place for apps that require a fork or that have sauce. Passed for the other 1 or 2 Appetizers.
Guests that are walking around looking for future dance partners can also nosh on hand held bites.
Great place for skewers and one biters.
Main Course - Great place for a station - Perhaps a grill style setup - pick 3 meats and let your guests choose from freshly grilled meats. Toppings are also very effective here - Grilled flank steak and the guest adds some bruschetta on top. Another hugely popular station is a build your own anything - Insert taco bar. No Taco Bell, we are talking nicely done fried tilapia, smoked pork belly, fresh qucamole, and all the fixins. Guests can take as much as they like and all the food is super fresh.
Your food trucker can make smaller batches as the service goes on, so the food is perfect.
Sides - We also see a lot of family style sides, or even a....buffet table or two.
Guests can get their food in a timely manner, no waiting and no fuss.
Dessert - Truckside!!!! Let the guests go get their dessert on their time.
Pie Holes (Bite Size Pies) with a milkshake station is the perfect end to any meal. If someone wants to make three trips, let them - That is the fun of a food truck style service.
2. Really go over the flow of the service with your food trucker. Waiting kills a service like nothing else. We shoot for 75 people max at any one station. If you have 180 people at your wedding, you would need 3 stations. That way nobody ever waits very long. And let's be honest, stations are so much fun - The more variety, the better.
3. Be realistic. A wedding service with 125 people ordering from the truck for every course is not a good idea. Make sure you are talking to the right crew to handle your wedding. If a food trucker tells you otherwise, they are not being realistic. There are a lot of factors, like the crazy summer humidity that make a 15 min wait seem like 3 hours. Nobody wants crabby pants at the reception.

If you don't want your wedding dinner to have the same feel as a church pot luck, just follow
these three steps. If you have any quesitons, please leave a comment or email us at
info@wanderingdago.com. If you get a chance, please sign up to follow this blog or share
on your Facebook Page.
Thank You -

Brandon - Chef/Owner
Wandering Dago Catering Co. & Food Truck

Can a venue tell you who can cater your wedding?

As you all know, this blog is about all things food truck wedding related.
Most of my info is shared to help couples in the planning process or to help
bust some myths.
Today will be a little different - The topic is all about venues.

I hear a lot about the most time consuming parts of planning a wedding reception.
Lots of couples mention finding a venue and booking a caterer as the two hardest
things to get ironed out.
So, I started asking couples what made these tasks so darned complicated.
Talk about a pandora's box of sorts - Granted, the catering thing was a lot of what I
imagined, however, the venue part threw me for a complete curveball.

Almost every couple has told me about the struggle to do business with venues
that will not let them bring in the vendors they choose.
Now, my distaste for the good old boy clubs runs deep beyond words. Good, healthy
competition is the foundation for any industry to stay sharp and be successful.
I have come across a lot of venues who won't let an outside vendor come to the party,
unless they are on the "Preferred" Vendor List.
So, to clarify - These venues want you to write them a check for a lot of money, like new car
amount of money, then feel like they need to tell you who you can have for other vendors?
So, their photographers, their caterers, basically the people they are in close with - The old deal of
who shines their shoes.

With total disregard for the fact that you are, in fact, the people getting married, who in the world
is arrogant enough to feel like they have any right to tell someone what they can and cannot do is
ludicrous to me.
I totally understand if the venue has a restaurant and handles the catering onsite - That makes sense.
However, most of the venues we work with don't have a restaurant.

How do all of you feel about this?
If I was engaged and someone told me what I had to do for my wedding, besides my fiance (Insert Wink), I have a feeling I would not be writing them a check for anything.

Today I got an email that made me smile - A couple told their favorite venue whose name I won't
mention, they were bringing us to cater the party or they weren't getting booked.
Guess what happened ....
Maybe the time has come to tell these venues that the world doesn't revolve around them.
Your Wedding = Your Vendors.
Plain and simple in my book.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this issue. Agree, disagree, other points of view, etc.
Please leave a comment here or email me if you feel more comfortable - info@wanderingdago.com

I really do want to thank everyone for the great feedback from this blog.
The support for this industry and where food truck wedding catering is heading, we need input and advice on best practices. The best way to do that is get good, honest feedback from everyone.

Thank you again everyone -

Brandon - Chef/Owner
Wandering Dago Catering Co. & Food Truck

Is the Food Truck Wedding Craze just a trend?

Every spring some things happen.

The snow melts, the ground thaws and the cycle of the life begins yet again.
How does that translate to the wedding world? Substitute "life" with "trends" and you
have the newest hot topic in the wedding industry.
Granted, we are in the middle of a phase where going old school is retro and hipster.
From old wood frames, burlap and chalkboard menus to  rustic barn venues with food trucks.
How long do the trends last? Who really knows.

What really stands the test of time are the "trends" that are deeper and much more purposeful.
There will always be people that are drawn to outdoor weddings where the bridesmaids wear
sun dresses. Those people seem to love the beauty and feel of sunshine on their backs and the rustic feel an outdoor venue brings to the equation. To others, a barn venue is totally hipster with paper flowers and all the guests wearing black Ray Ban Glasses and skinny jeans.

Lots of people send us emails about having a food truck cater their wedding.
Most are familiar with the cupcake trucks and the street food trucks.
They have either eaten at one in the city or saw one serving cupcakes at the end of a wedding service.
Some have even been to a late party after the wedding where the menus seem to gravitate
towards burgers, pizza and fries loaded with all manners of deliciousness.
We hear about the food truck trend that is really starting to surface in their areas.
The younger crowd wants a food truck or two at the wedding to show social status and be in the
loop for the trends that season.

For a food trucker in the great northeast that specializes in wedding catering, all these points are good. On the other hand, I do not wear skinny jeans and have big black glasses because I have a fat head. We also wonder if the food truck trend is far from being a trend.
Lots of hardcore foodies want to learn more about the important stuff regarding a food truck -
The Food.

The Hudson Valley, Westchester, Vermont and the capital region of New York is filled with foodies.
These people want to know where their food was grown, how the food was harvested and whether we offer vegetarian, vegan and gluten free choices.
That makes my heart smile.

When these foodies find out that we source most of the ingredients locally and make our food from scratch, they smile back.
Then comes the X Factor - We bring our kitchen to your wedding venue.
Translation - The food is cooked that day at your wedding.
When you see a catering van pull up with huge warmers, you can know that the food has been
cooked for quite some time. The word day fresh is for old bagels, not wedding food.

This trend is changing how the wedding industry will look at the food that is served.
Farm to table is a very catchy phrase, that is for sure.
On the wedding front, how does truck to table sound?
If you want the freshest food, prepared the right way, look into having a food trucker at your wedding. You may never see me in skinny jeans, but you will see me smiling when the trend has passed and people are shocked when a food truck is not serving the food at the wedding they attend.

If you have any questions or just feel like adding something to the conversation,
please feel free to email me -
info@wanderingdago.com or just leave a comment here on the blog.

Thanks -

Brandon - Chef/Owner
Wandering Dago Catering Co & Food Truck