Hy-Vee Catering

We used Hy-Vee catering for our wedding last year and they were absolutely fantastic! We were planning it on our own, which was overwhelming but when you’re on a budget, that’s how it goes. Hy-Vee offered a bundle so we use them for Catering floral and bakery. The cakes were delicious and we ended up not having any left which the wedding planner said was a huge waste of money and cake was often thrown away so I was happy ours was not wasted. Having some older folks attend our wedding and it being a good size event I can’t tell you what I’ve eaten at a wedding in the past, but I can’t tell you about waiting in line for the buffet so I didn’t want that for hours and we ended up using Their staff to pass in clear plates. The only thing I would say is we had a tub of meatballs left over so I’m not sure if they missed those or what but the staff did a fantastic job they showed up on time. The food was hot and I can’t recommend Hy-Vee highly enough. Everything was reasonably priced And floral and bakery. Also did a knockout fantastic job

Highly recommend NOT using this location. I used this location 3 times. I have used multiple other locations with no issues. Specifically liberty. The first time here the food was great but it was a fight picking things up in the morning which made me 30 minutes late to my own meeting. The second and third times the food was literally terrible. The service was absolutely awful. The lady working said, “this is why you shouldn’t use the -catering-”. (She called it an internal name but meant catering). I had to argue about getting the plates and silverware that always comes with the order. The pan size was half the size as normal and she said, “I gave you more than you deserved. You didn’t pay for that much!”. All I did was ask why the pan was half the size as normal. We were spending just under $500 per order. Again, highly recommend you NOT using this location.

DO NOT CATER YOUR WEDDING WITH HY-VEE I cannot stress this enough: do NOT trust Hy-Vee with your wedding catering. It was a complete disaster from beginning to end, and it caused me stress and frustration on what should have been one of the happiest days of my life. At first, everything seemed fine. Then they scheduled a second meeting to go over the order, and when I showed up, no one had a clue why I was there. I had assumed we’d review the details, pricing, and that I could finally pay — but they weren’t prepared for any of it. Zero organization. As we got closer to the wedding, I was hoping for at least some professionalism — but they still didn’t know how to process payment correctly. Eventually they got it done, but that should’ve been the easy part. A week before the wedding, they STILL hadn’t called to confirm the delivery time. I take some responsibility for following up, but I was already in full panic mode, wondering if they were even going to show up at all. I left voicemail after voicemail, desperate to get confirmation. Someone finally responded a day or two before the wedding. And then — surprise — THEY DIDN’T SHOW UP ON TIME ON MY WEDDING DAY. So in the middle of trying to enjoy my wedding, I had to stop and call the store myself. I explained multiple times that I had already placed and paid for an order — only to be told I could “place an order now.” Three times. Then the catering manager (who at one point claimed she wasn’t the manager, even though she had earlier said she was) told me they don’t do delivery and there was nothing they could do because a manager wasn’t in. Ridiculous. The food eventually arrived, but at that point, it didn’t matter. They had already ruined a part of my wedding day. The stress they caused was totally avoidable — if anyone at that store had simply done their job. My mother-in-law called the store days later and spoke to a manager/catering director named Chris, who claimed he “wanted to make things right.” But guess what? No one ever followed up. No apology. No refund. Nothing. It’s been almost a month, and the silence says everything. I had no issues with any other vendor — only Hy-Vee. Which is pathetic, considering catering should be straightforward. I would never, ever recommend them to anyone for any special event, let alone a wedding.

Overall working with Hy-Vee Catering was a horrible experience. There seems to be very little to no organization involved. We used HyVee to cater our wedding and because of my experiences with other locations, I believed that this was a reliable service. The first signs of trouble was at our second meeting while discussing what services we wanted. My wife had been in contact and HyVee set up the meeting. When we arrived no one seemed to have any idea what was going on. During the meeting they were able to get the information they needed and it sounded like everything was going to be fine. The next problem was when we went to try the food. Once again, a meeting was set up and when we arrived, no one seemed to have any idea what was going on. At this point we should have looked elsewhere but my past good experiences left me with some hope. Getting closer to the wedding, all of our vendors had reached out and made sure things were lined up except for HyVee. So my wife called and confirmed that we could pay for the food early and set up a delivery time on the day of the wedding. At that point we were already frustrated but we thought everything was taken care of. The day of the wedding we get a call from a relative that the food was not at the reception venue. Immediately we called HyVee to try and figure out where our food was. We got directed to employees that made things even more frustrating. We were told by one person that they did not deliver and the other kept asking if we wanted to create a catering order. Luckily, someone brought the food for the reception but was running about 20 minutes late. (I would be more forgiving if the venue wasn't a few blocks from HyVee.) Our experience with this HyVee really tarnishes my opinion of the brand. It was extremely frustrating and was overall just a mess. I would not recommend using this service until they figure out how they want to manage it.

I placed an order for delivery and they charged me full price but did not deliver all the sides we ordered and got some of the sizes incorrect. I have left a couple voicemails and have not received a call back about reimbursement. I’ll probably choose a different caterer next year for our Thanksgiving event.

Never again