Grapes of Wrath Events

Thank you, thank you, thank you! Dana and the entire staff at Grapes of Wrath made our October 2015 wedding at the old whaling station adobe house simply wonderful. I realize that they are ostensibly «caterers», but the service my now-​wife and I received was so far beyond that. For example, Dana was our saving grace when, in the days before the wedding, the weather forecast turned sour and indicated thunderstorms, oh no! She was there when we had our freak out moment, explained our options, and her warmth, honesty, and good karma was so re-​assuring.
When the big day came, everything went smoothly, and mother nature smiled on us as well. The food was excellent, the employees all friendly and helpful, the atmosphere magical. Even though they worked with us to keep the wedding within our budget, many of our close family and friends said it was one of the best weddings they had ever attended.
We are local to Monterey, for whatever that is worth, and took the time to write this out of pure appreciation. Thanks Dana and Grapes of Wrath, you exceeded all our expectations!

We just had a wedding at the Memory Garden in Monterey and used Grapes of Wrath, everything was perfect! Called Dana months before and felt right away that she would be the one for the job. I felt like she «got us» right away and was easy to work with. Very accommodating and we really enjoyed going to the tastings. Everything was set up well and we would highly recommend using them!

I attended an old college roommate of my wife’s this past weekend at The Old Whaling Station in Monterey. The event was catered by Grapes of Wrath. I am a personal chef that caters events just like this in Roseville. My wife often works with me. As I was enjoying watching your crew tend to everything and taking personal care of everyone, my wife came to me and said my crew should be so sweet and efficient. She is right, I am envious of the crew you have assembled. I do lean on and love my staff, but yours just stood out to me. The set up and display of the appetizer table near the bar area, was very nice and nicely maintained. I loved them all serving at the buffet line. All caught eye contact and communicated 1 at a time with each guest and did so while moving the line through fairly quickly. The efficiency of getting everyone served was spot on. Without feeling nudged or intruded on, things were constantly cleared, removed from tables as finished. The clean up was just as efficient and done with a smile as the whole event. I simply wanted to take a minute to give kudos to your staff. In your absence, they made you look very good. Well done!
Thank you for a wonderful experience,
Perry McCown, Thyme Is Precious

Hiring Grapes of Wrath to cater our wedding is one of the best decisions I have ever made in my life. Having a wedding encompasses A LOT and Dana from Grapes of Wrath was extremely helpful in making everything come to fruition. My wife and I got married in June of 2015 at the Henry Miller Library in Big Sur and Dana was the first vendor we officially hired to get the ball rolling. From there she was extremely helpful in finding other vendors and the entire time she was very caring during the entire process.
Oh yeah, their food is great!
If you are getting married in the Monterey Bay area I highly encourage you to hire Grapes of Wrath as they are truly the best in the business. Our wedding was perfect with no problems at all and this is largely thanks to Dana and her staff making sure that everything went well.
I highly recommend their beef brisket. I had family come to our wedding from Texas and they were falling all over themselves after eating the brisket Dana and the staff from Grapes of Wrath prepared.
And by the way, we don’t even live in the Monterey Bay Area. My wife and I did a lot of communication with Dana via email and phone from our home in Los Angeles. We made the drive up to meet Dana for the first time in Big Sur and immediately we were taken in by Dana’s warmth. Then when we tried their food at a tasting we were hooked! So if you don’t live in the Monterey Bay Area and are organizing a «destination wedding» Dana with Grapes of Wrath is the person for you!
My wife and I are forever grateful to Dana and her staff for making our wedding day perfect.
Thanks Dana!!!

I don’t write Unilocal reviews very often (as might be evident from my extremely out-​dated picture and lack of any sort of Unilocal-​status), but working with wedding vendors has spurred me out of a six-​year hiatus. I don’t think I realized exactly how much the vendors you work with can make or break your wedding day. I feel extremely fortunate to have seem to have chosen a dream team of vendors, and Dana was a huge part of this.
From the very beginning, she was very easy to work with and went above and beyond to make the day stress-​free for us. She was always tossing out new ideas and suggestions, and definitely does have a take-​charge personality (though she listened to what we wanted, and was flexible when we needed it). In our case, this worked great for us, and she ended up being our day-​of coordinator. She took care of a lot of the little details, and conducted the whole show beautifully the day-​of. Working with our venue was not the easiest (the only vendor we had any friction with), and Dana felt like she was 100% on «our side», and dealt with them well. If you’re the type of person who wants to micro-​manage down to the finest detail, I can see how working with Dana might not suit you, but if you’d rather not worry about the small things and have someone else do that for you, she’s amazing. Also huge thanks to Kira who helped us out on the actual wedding day! It was great to have the pair of them handling set-​up, while I could just sit-​back, get ready, and feel comfortable knowing everything was in such capable hands.
Onto the food. Honestly, I did not eat a ton at the wedding, which I hear is pretty normal, but our guests seemed to have loved it! We did a few tastings with Dana beforehand, and overall thought the food was quite tasty. One of our guests told us it was one of the best meals she had ever had, so I consider that a pretty good endorsement :-).
Dana truly seems to want to «get» the vibe of the couple so she can help contribute to their day the best she can. She brought my husband a pack of Skittles that morning (he’s basically a five-​year-​old in a man’s body and obsessed with candy), and it was these thoughtful details that we’ll remember. At one of the group tastings she told us that she still gets nervous before each event, even though everything always turns out fine, which to me just says how much she cares. Would highly recommend working with her.

Nan S.
Our daughter’s wedding was catered by Grapes of Wrath, and everything was fantastic. The food was totally delicious, plenty of it, served beautifully, and the staff was outstanding. They were efficient in setting up and clearing up, and were most friendly and cordial to everyone, especially Richard, who coordinated the whole event. We were most pleased and happy with our choice!

We attended an event catered by this company and the food was not so good. I understand that the hosts had to use them if they wanted the venue so if you’re planning an event the venue’s sole caterer is the Grapes of Wrath, I’d find a different venue. Our hosts were not happy; the hot food was cold and the menu wasn’t what they ordered.
The serving staff was great, though! They tried their best to make the guests happy but there wasn’t much they could do about the food.
Perhaps Erin P.‘s review is worth reading and thinking about before you commit yourselves to one of their venues.

We had Grapes of Wrath cater our Big Sur wedding last month and were incredibly happy with how everything turned out. Dana and her team created an amazing menu for us including some of THE BEST slow cooked brisket I’ve ever had (and I grew up in Texas).
From start to finish we had great communication with Grapes of Wrath and on our wedding day everything went very smoothly. Their caprese salad was plated and ready to go when our guests sat down and buffet was fantastic with mac and cheese, fresh roasted veggies, etc.
Highly recommend using them to cater your event!

Dana was great — she just did our wedding and we thought we were getting a caterer but they took care of essentially the whole wedding. The staff was really friendly and even played with some of our more demanding 4 year-​old guests. They did a great job with the food — we received so many compliments. Everything was beautiful and yummy, and I would definitely recommend them.

Dana was perfect. A total dream to work with, and my kind of wedding vendor. She was super chill and accommodating, and helped me out with all my indecisiveness. At least half the wedding guests swore it was the best wedding food they’ve ever had, and everyone loved it. I loved everything that was served up, I’m only sad I was too busy to get seconds: P.
She added a bunch of cute personal touches, like using my husband’s suggestion for the tri-​tip sauce and inventing appetizers for us. It was perfect!
I honestly think Dana was the only vendor I worked with that I actually really really liked. I would totally get a beer with her. 5 stars, would hire her over and over again.

I really wanted to get married at the Old Whaling Station and since Grapes of Wrath is the only approved caterer for the venue we initiated the process.
While most of the staff seem really nice, I think Dana the owner is a little pushy and uncomfortable going outside their standard MO. We wanted burritos served at our wedding along with various appetizers. I know that’s not considered standard wedding catering but again being the only caterer allowed at the venue we had no choice but to try to work with them. Somehow after thoroughly explaining what we were looking for (burritos) the quote came back as fajitas with a spinach salad? Who eats spinach salad with fajitas… never mind the fact that isn’t what we asked for.
We were still determined to work it out however, since I had my heart set on getting married at the Old Whaling Station, so we drove down to Monterey for a tasting. That’s where it ended for us. The food was mediocre at best and their special house-​made bread was worse than what I can pick up at Safeway.
Ultimately, I’m happy we choose somewhere else to get married since we didn’t feel like Grapes of Wrath would live up to their high price tag. Maybe because they have an exclusive deal with the venue it’s allowed them to be lazy and inconsiderate of their potential clients wishes.

My husband and I got married August of 2013 at the Old Whaling Station and had our reception at Memory Garden. We were so lucky that we ran into The lovely Dana at a bridal show in Monterey. The two of us and my mom liked her immediately and thank goodness we trusted our instincts.
From the beginning, Dana and the amazing team working with her made us feel happy and at ease. They definitely have a way of calming those wedding nerves! We first went to a tasting at the beach house — Chef Claire knows how to cook it! It took us forever to decide our menu because everything was truly mouth watering perfection. We are foodies and wanted the food at our wedding to be beautiful, delicious and memorable. After the tasting my mom booked them to cater our shower, and it was a hit (with pink guamosas all around)!
Luckily, they were the preferred caterer for our venue. They know what they are doing, trust them! Every step of the way, Dana was there for us, keeping tabs, updating us, and always there to answer any questions we had. I am really big on décor and atmosphere and especially antiques and all things vintage and so Dana introduced us to Ana Marie. Ana Marie has such an eye for making things look just right. She did such an amazing job with the décor for both our shower and wedding. She rented out some of her personal pieces as well!
(Also, Dana recommended an amazing florist — Kate Healey from Big Sur Flowers.)
On the big day, it all just came together so perfectly. What we also loved was that they all made sure we enjoyed ourselves, and that we had the time to enjoy the food! Chef Claire made the most delicious rabbit I have ever had — it was just what we wanted! We had gorgeous mussels, an amazing salad with edible flowers — it was truly perfection.
The staff was amazing and we really felt that they were there for us. I could go on and on which is why it took me so long to write this review.
I know this sounds beyond cheesy but I do recommend them, they are beyond five stars because you aren’t just hiring a vendor, they felt like part of the family.
Thank you guys so much! You were all so wonderful and made our day perfection! We were blessed to have found you!
Alex & David
PS. We hope we can get you guys to cater our future baby shower! (far future tho, no baby yet lol)

I got married at the memory gardens in September, and grapes was recommended because they have the most experience with the site.
Dana is great, she knows what she is doing and has the venue and process down, I agree with some of the other reviewers that she can be a little stuck in her ways about how things should be, but brides need to understand sometimes events need to go a certain way, so I wasn’t too bothered by her approach. I did everything for my wedding myself because I worked in event planning and weddings before so I had my own ideas about what I want and Dana was supportive and willing to accommodate most all of my wishes.
After I hired them and before the wedding, Dana merged with del monte beach parties, which I wasn’t impressed with. It could have been the merger and getting kinks out but they seemed disorganized and they didn’t communicate too well initially, but things got worked out. They are slow to respond to emails, I think Dana doesn’t have enough support staff to rely on.
The day of our wedding:
Everything was lovely and no one noticed things except the following comments:
There were only four staff at our wedding and we paid for more in our bill, I think one didn’t show, the ones that were there were obviously not able to handle some of the tasks and weren’t so professional. One forgot to pour me and the groom champagne for the toasts but poured our underage daughter glasses twice which we had taken away and then when he realized he didn’t pour them he did it in the middle of a sentimental toast from my mom.
Set up and break down went well.
Dana talked me into having a buffet instead of a family style dinner I wanted with the promise that all the Buffett is staffed and dished for guests so the line moves quickly. That was not the case at all, and I was super annoyed at it. Also it rained before our wedding and they didn’t dry the plates off before they started serving dinner. My mother told them to dry them.
We paid for more people than actually showed up because my husbands family lives far away and doesn’t plan well so in theory hing paid for more than enough people we should not have come close to running out of food but for the cocktail hour we had a tacquito station where they made shrimp and chicken street tacos fresh and they ran out of tortilla shells early in the hour. Which lots go our guest mentioned to me.
All in all, they did a good job and Dana is well experienced and knows her business but I don’t think the shortage of staff and food was acceptable, especially because I paid for it and it wasn’t cheap.

We had to hire Grapes of Wrath for our wedding because we got married at the Old Whaling Station, and they are the only approved caterer.
The food was excellent — 5 stars. People still talk about the wild boar sausage.
The event staff was absolutely fantastic — 5 stars. My Dad always complains, and he was very happy with them. Very sweet, helpful, professional.
They did an excellent job on the timing of the wedding, and the amount of food served.
The three star review is for a few reasons dealing with the managerial staff:
1. They were well over a half hour late for our consultation because the couple before us showed us late. Instead of cutting into their time, they shortened our consultation.
2. The owner, Dana, was a little condescending and pushy as to how things needed to be done. She has done this a long time and has «her way» of doing things.
3. They made a big deal about how you would get a commemorative plate at the end of the wedding with leftovers to take back to your hotel room… then they forgot to do it for us. When I let them know, I received an apologetic letter in the mail and again they made a big deal about how they were going to send us the commemorative plate… and then they forgot to send it.
Managerial staff made me feel as if our special day was not very special — 3 star. That said they were adequate and got the job done. And Dana was very sweet to my Grandmother at the wedding.

My wife and I picked Grapes of Wrath to caterer our wedding. They seemed well-​liked, and they were the only caterers who were authorized to serve food at the Old Whaling Station, which was where we wanted to get married. I was really looking forward to a seamless planning process, a smoothly run event, and delicious food. Too bad we only got one of the three!
Some things which went wrong:
* Dana and Tamie were totally uncommunicative via email. In person, they were very easy to work with. However, we couldn’t get a reply from them over email about several critical issues. Planning a wedding is stressful enough without all of your questions going unanswered. There were times that I considered pulling out of the deal (which would have meant postponing the wedding) simply because I didn’t think that it was fair to ask people to fly across the country if I couldn’t be sure that we’d have food for them. Quite unprofessional behavior for a top-​rate catering business.
* Neither Tamie or Dana were at the event to run the show. The crew which was there did ok, but nobody was in charge as far as I could tell.
* Some of the food we paid for did not arrive until well after dinner had been served and cleared. We were told that it was sent «to a different site».
* During our conversations with Tamie and Dana, they had asked us for a schedule as to when we wanted champagne passed out for a toast. Unfortunately, during the event, the Grapes crew seemed totally unaware of this previously arranged schedule, and missed the time completely. When we realized that they had no idea what was supposed to happen, they scrambled admirably to get it passed out, but it was late, awkward, and stressful for me.
* The buffet table had a gloriously large sign greeting anyone who came up to it, which read «Congratulations to Jonah and Maryanne!» Maryanne is my mother-​in-​law. We’re a easy-​going bunch, so it just became a running joke during and after the wedding, but still… ouch.
* My new brother-​in-​law is in a motorized wheelchair, and as such needs a good deal of space. We arranged with Grapes (months in advance) that the table arrangement would include both enough space for him at his table, and a wide enough gap between tables for him to actually roll up to his table and to get out as well. Unfortunately, the carefully planned map which we provided to Grapes went completely ignored. When I arrived at the site, I had to commandeer a group of wedding guests to have them re-​arrange almost half of the tables so that my brother in law would merely be able to eat dinner at his sister’s wedding.
* The person they «highly recommended» to do the outdoor lighting for the event scammed us. He «lost the check» we wrote him, and then when he got a replacement, he cashed both. Now he won’t answer our phone calls.
All that said, the unanimous feedback I got from guests was that the food was the best-​tasting wedding food that they’d ever had. I guess that’s nice, and it’s the only thing which kept this from being a 1 star review. However the entire logistics side of their operation is terrible. I would not hire Grapes again.

Dana and the Grapes of Wrath Team did an awesome job for our wedding in Monterey CA at Memory Garden in May.
Before the wedding:
Dana is brilliantly creative, efficient, relaxed, and very good at what she does. I booked her about a year in advance after reading reviews and sending my now-​husband to one of her tastings. I didn’t meet with her until 1 month prior to our wedding (my preference, Dana prefers 1−2months). We had a brainstorming session where she collaboratively helped me develop my plan for the whole event. Through Dana, we had access to a wedding-planner’s worth of experience without the price. One warning, Dana and the Grapes staff is so busy that sometimes it takes a few days to get calls back from them, but they always got back to me, sometimes it just took a couple of days. And when I was late for our brainstorming meeting, Dana reciprocated and was exceedingly patient with me.
Logistics: Grapes takes care of rentals and food, many other aspects of the event are up to you, but I think this may depend on the location, so I would ask. It was great to have the caterer take care of all the rentals!!!
On the day:
Dana nailed the food (we got many comments on how awesome the food was), but more importantly she helped our event to run smooth in all aspects, she is so much more than a caterer. On top of all this, she has an incredible price, I think they keep their costs down by having you do a lot of the preparation yourself, but this was perfect for us because we could do things how we wanted and still got to take advantage of the years of experience and creative talent of Dana and Grapes. Ben and I couldn’t have been happier.

**Update** I learned last week that someone from Grapes of Wrath called the bride and asked her if she would talk to me and ask me to remove my review. I would like to state that absolutely nothing in this review is anything but my observations and opinions based on what I saw and was informed by the catering company that night. I do not work for any competing catering company — I’m a stay at home mom — and I was only helping out as a favor.
I helped out a wedding at the Old Whaling Station Adobe house and Grapes of Wrath handled the catering. I had not been in attendance to any meetings beforehand so my observations are based solely on the hours before the event and a few hours into the event.
The staff was very friendly and were very efficient in setting up the tables and bar area. However, once the event started I noticed that they hadn’t really changed clothes except for adding vests to their white shirt black pants ensemble. Some were in really grungy tennis shoes, girls with long hair not pulled back, black aprons were filthy looking. Mostly they looked pretty unprofessional.
After the ceremony the chairs were moved and then the tables were set where the ceremony took place. The tables all had specific numbers and a diagram was supplied to the caterer, but tables were out of order. Wouldn’t have been a big deal expect the table that was mistakenly put near the back was where the mothers & fathers of the bride & groom were sitting.
During the cocktail/​app time it was discovered that they were serving both the wine that should have been reserved for dinner and the sparkling cider which was reserved for the toast only. About the time that the buffet should have been set up I was informed that the food was not present. They had loaded another party’s food and the other party had our food. The location of the other event was 30 – 45 minutes away and they were just then trying to fix the issue.
I worked for one of the top 5 catering companies in the Bay Area and while I don’t expect everyone to live up to those standards I do expect things like having the correct food and having staff that look professional and clean at an event.
I’m unsure how you can bring the wrong food to an event. Not just one or two dishes, but the entire menu. Mostly, I don’t understand how this mistake wasn’t at least caught earlier than right before dinner. Maybe it’s because none of the food was cooked or prepared on site (which is definitely something that would have turned me away) or maybe it was because none of the staff unloading knew what the menu was for the evening? I’m not sure.
Of course, I’m not saying that mistakes don’t happen at events. I’ve seen my share of crazy things happen, but missing an entire menu? Sloppy and disheveled servers… not my cup of tea.

Grapes of Wrath catered our April wedding that the Holly Farm — they put on a great spread of food and had a lot of really cool dishes for us to choose from. On the wedding day itself, they were totally on the ball — the service was impeccable and well organized, and no one was wanting for food at the end!
I wish that hubby and I could have enjoyed the appetizer stations because everyone really loved that. Grapes were also super accommodating in meeting our request to swap out the regular bread for naan bread with raita to match our curry, and making sausage rolls for appetizers (although they were american «pigs in blanket» and not the british version we were hoping for).
However a few small picky things — the food was cold when it was served (even though its buffet, could have been warm!) and there were a few small details that were missed (blue cheese on the salad when we specifically wanted feta; taking a few months to refund coffee that we didn’t have). I also really wish that they would have done an individual tasting with us beforehand so that we could be sure of exactly what we wanted and work out the small details — I do understand that with a huge volume of work it is hard to do individual tastings, but it would be nice!
All in all, very happy with the service — Dana and Tamie are really easy to work with — albeit a bit disorganized sometimes — and I think our guests enjoyed our food and the great service.

In June 2010, we married at the Holly Farm in Carmel. Grapes of Wrath is the exclusive caterer, which seems to leave no choice but I will also add leaves no disappointment.
We hired Grapes of Wrath for Rehearsal Dinner, Main Event and Brunch the next day. Every meal was excellent and well presented, I come from a fairly picky family of 5 Star Travellers and Eaters. Their prices are reasonable, I would say commensurate with the quality.
Grapes of Wrath is extremely attentive to the client needs. In our case, they even purchased new serving bottles to house vodka on every table, (Russian wedding) and made our first toast with family (vodka, caviar) right after the ceremony exactly as we envisioned. All the food they prepared tasted amazing, very current cuisine, with attractive presentation. They allowed us to source our own caviar (Tsar Nicoli) and served it our specifications.
Grapes of Wrath is very creative and even helped chose our linen colors. Both my husband and I think they did an exceptional job and employed a wonderful staff. Everyone at Grapes of Wrath is very warm and caring and their involvement went beyond just food, they helped coordinate so much of the day at the Holly Farm. We would not hesitate to hire Grapes of Wrath again or recommend them to anyone.

I’m going to cut straight to the point: If you are planning a wedding at Memory Garden, use the Grapes of Wrath as your caterer. Dana did so much more than just provide us with amazing food, she really, truly gave us peace of mind. Now i know that might sound cliché and i feel kinda corny for saying it, but let me relate a little bit of our experience.
We met Dana over a year before our intended wedding date. at the time that we met her, we didn’t have our minds made up on a venue, so we were coming to Monterey to check out Memory Garden and go to a tasting for TGoW. After being wowed by the food at the tasting, we got a few mins to sit and chat with Dana. We told her we were thinking of doing our wedding at Memory Garden sometime in the spring of 2010, at which point, she pulled out a diagram of the layout of the garden and explained exactly how she does her weddings there, and believe me, she has it down to a T.
This is where the peace of mind starts to come in. You see, Dana wasn’t only our caterer, she turned out to be our event planner. She explained to us how everything could work out if we wanted to have a wedding at MG and the fact that she has so much experience working at that venue sold us on both TGoW and Memory Garden. Since Dana can provide a lot of the supplies in addition to the food (tables, dance floor, linens, heaters, etc.), it takes a lot of the guesswork out of the planning, and therefore, takes out a lot of the work.
Also during that first meeting, Dana related a little bit of advice to my wife and I that really stuck with us and helped us to enjoy our wedding; as our wedding was more than a year off at that point, she told us, more or less «don’t think about the wedding every single day and stress out over it, this is going to the be biggest party that you ever throw and you want to be able to enjoy it. If you think about it every day from now until it it comes, you’ll just be miserable». That really stuck with us and as it turns out, we didn’t obsess over it and we really did enjoy it.
As for the day of, it couldn’t have run smoother. The food was delicious, everything ran seamlessly, the servers were on point, and it really did turn out to be one of the best days of my life. Thank you so much for everything Dana
Oh, and before i forget, I highly recommend 2 things that were a smash success at our wedding: sangria and taco bar. Very important!