Coach House Tavern & Grille

I’ve really struggled with this particular review — hence waiting 4 months after the wedding to write it. I fell in love with the Fitton Center for my wedding reception and Coach House is the caterer for the Fitton Center. Prior to booking the reception, I had never eaten at the Coach House. My aunt has very discriminating tastes & she swears by the Coach House. I trusted her & went forward.
Compared to other reception sites/​catering I looked at, Coach House was by far the most difficult to figure out. We paid $ 6 extra a person to have actual glassware available. We also paid the fees for servers & bartenders. I’m sure this price is built in at other facilities, but it was strange to know exactly how much we were paying for them.
During the course of working with the Coach House, the catering manager, general manager, and head chef were either fired or left the company voluntarily. The initial catering manager didn’t take very good notes so when the new catering manager took over we had to start completely over. Luckily my mother had taken good notes and was willing to meet with the new person as I live out of town and couldn’t take the time off work to do so. Our initial tasting went very well and we chose chicken madeira and beef tenderloin. Unfortunately when the new chef took over, he just couldn’t produce a chicken madeira dish that was (in my parents words) edible. My parents went back for additional tastings several times to give the new chef a chance to fix it, but it never worked. Finally they decided to change to chicken florentine which they said was much better. On the night of, the food was all delicious.
I’m not quite sure how to blame for this mixup, but it all worked out in the end. We were told when booking that no other events would be taking place at the Fitton Center the night of the wedding. We later found out that a play would be there that night. In order to ensure all our guests had parking, a police officer was stationed at the entrance to the parking lot and valet parking was offered at no extra cost to us or our guests.
One thing I wish would have been done better was the service. Only some of the cake was cut initially. By the end of the night all the cake that had been cut was gone & I ended up cutting my own slices. Also we had two (that I know of) bread baskets catch on fire as a result of being set down in the tea light candle. (My parents table’s caught on fire during my dad’s speech and NO ONE at the table noticed. Thankfully someone at another table noticed and quietly put it out!)
Overall, I would use Coach House again once they’ve got their personnel issues straightened out.