FAQs
It's best to read this like one document, from start to finish.

Catering is highly variable. What it is or is not has no set definition. Still, there are three main types of caterers you should under.

Boutique Caterers - This is us. Custom cuisine unique to you is prepared on-site over a long day and night and more. 

Amazing cuisine.

Star chefs and service staff who are well-paid.

Constant wow-comments. 

Deeply memorable, even decades later.

Goes above-and-beyond, by design.

Are in high demand.  

Your event is very personal to us.

Truck-it-In Caterers - This is most caterers. Food is prepared off-site, trucked in, and served hours old from warming and/or chill boxes.

Cafeteria-quality food with sometimes fancy dish names.

Degraded, dry, soggy.

Novice chefs.

Low-paid staff.

"It looks rather pretty but the taste does not match."  

You are a business transaction.

• Drop-and-Go Caterers - Restaurants, pubs, and related prepare their everyday food off site, deliver it often no longer hot or cold, and leave most of the rest to you. 

  • • Like having a whole bunch of everyday take-out delivered.

    • "We're just feeding your crowd and will be gone shortly."

    • "You get what you pay for."

    • You are a business transaction, if that.

    • Just sad.

Please see Our Boutique Catering. It is essential information.

• Guests will long remember just two main things about your wedding: your love and the food. The two together build permanent memories like nothing else can. Boutique Catering is exactly designed to build such memory.

• Catering is typically the single largest wedding expenditure for a wedding. The national average is $75 per diner for all types of caterers, but for boutique catering couples often invest $100 or more per diner. For gourmet individually plated dining, expect pricing to begin at $150+ per diner., depending upon your menu. There is an enormous amount involved in how we cater compared to others. 

• Smaller events are not catering events but private chef events and are typically ~$200 per person. We rigorously pull out all of the stops.

• Your specific menu, venue, its location, and desired service style will unavoidably impact costs in all cases.

• Some couples avoid high venue costs to increase the level of their cuisine, while some reduce their guest count to fit their culinary vision within their venue. Some scale back their menu or service style(s) expectations due to locked-in venue costs. We suggest you hire your caterer before locking in your venue.

• We have some availability for lower cost backyard-style BBQ events nearby, such as a whole animal feast.

• Reach out in all cases.

Chef Stephen and his carefully selected staff disperse from across Wisconsin to all parts of the state, neighboring states, and nationally and internationally. We prepare your unique-to-you cuisine on-site utilizing all of your venue's amenities and a mobile kitchen we set up on site. The level of cuisine from our boutique catering is unapproachable by caterers who truck in already-cooked food from site and truck it down the road.

The comparison is not even close. The level of dedication, labor, service, cuisine, flexibility, and other particulars that our Boutique Catering provides is similar only to dining in at very special restaurants. We are not "bargain-buy caterers." The two by far most important things about weddings and memories are your love and the food. 

Please see About Chef Stephen.

Chef Stephen has put together an extraordinarily talented and diverse team from across Wisconsin who earn every cent of their high pay. You can read some of their bios here. He has additional talent for overseas private chef events. 

We take only one major event per week and take each extremely personally. Because of competing requests, we are selective about situations we enter, especially during the Wisconsin wedding season (mid-May to mid-October). Typically, we choose to cater events during that time at $75 to $150+ per person. Because of the demand on our services we may lack time to personally respond to lower cost requests, please don't take any offense. During other times of the year, our catering schedule is less competitive so costs are lower. Reach out in all cases. 

Over many decades they are universally Five Stars and glowing among people who have eaten our cuisine and experienced our service. Yelp! is where our few negative reviews tend to aggregate. Each are from people we declined to take as clients and who never experienced our cuisine, while one involves a situation where we ourselves regrettably had to cancel but with plenteous professional notice because of a staff tragedy no one could have possibly anticipated. Authentic customer reviews of our cuisine and service are at Google Reviews, Facebook Reviews, and in text messages.

Your venue and its amenities will influence your menu and service style options. Venues with a usable commercial kitchen enable us to pull out all the stops, while venues with some sort of usable kitchen also expand your options. We also shine at entirely outdoor events but your menu options and service style options will have some limitations. 

Reach out to us if you wish assistance with selecting a venue that best meets your culinary vision and event location! 

As boutique caterers, we craft each menu through close collaboration with you. This ensures a personalized and unforgettable dining experience. Prices are determined by your custom menu, your venue's amenities, event location, and desired service style(s). Our past custom menu examples offer only a small glimpse into our culinary range within varying contexts.

Our explainer gives guidance. We will discuss the best fits for your menu, venue, and event during our initial consultation. 

Boutique catering means not something ordered from a standardized menu. It is custom cuisine unique to you cooked on site for a large gathering. That is something that is impossible to represent by a few samples. Hence, we don't do the choreographed pageantry of a traditional "tasting." 

"Truck-the-food-in" caterers very much want you to do a "tasting" because what they will be arriving with at your event will not be, simply cannot be, as fresh or good. 

Many wedding writers hungry for internet clicks-and-eyes write articles that simply do not distinguish among the types of caterers in the market. They are novice.

If you wish firsthand experience with our cuisine, we can often extend an invitation for you and several guests to watch us in action and dine for free at an event we are catering. Alternatively, you can hire us as private chefs for an intimate gathering. 

• Our approach is One Price. Expect zero psychological sales tactics where we give you a low per person cost and then bulk it up toward the end with slushy add-on fees, as most other caterers do. Our goal is to make costs plain and help build amazing lasting memories for you.

• Our catering inquiry form is the best way to reach out to us.

• Schedule a consultation, if invited.

• As a chef-owned business, we don't have a secretary waiting to take calls. We may have to do some back-and-forth to connect.  

• Review and comment on the menu proposal and pricing in Google Docs.

• E-sign the catering contract.

• Transfer an 18% retainer.

• Pay 50% of the remaining at least 45 days before your event.

• Pay the final remaining 50% 10 days before your event.

• Once you become our client we devote ourselves to you and are available Tuesdays through Thursdays, via text, phone, or email within typically 24 hours, often immediately. On Fridays through Mondays we are usually giving the same sort of devotion that you can expect from us to another client.

• We will have two touch-bases, one ~45 before your event, and a final one ~10 days before your event. 

• During the few days leading up to your event we will be harder to reach because we will be intensively preparing.

Our basic catering contract template is normal industry standard among boutique caterers. 

We love to do so and can offer package deals for multi-day events, such as a Friday dinner, Saturday brunch, dinner, and late-night refreshments, followed by Sunday brunch, or some combination thereof. 

For longer periods, we are available as private chefs or under a larger contract. 

Absolutely and we have affinity for doing so! Col. E.H "Jim" Ammerman was a very important life mentor to Chef Stephen. 

We require direct contact with a named officer from the start and don't normally go through bidding contractors. 

We suggest this formula:

(number of out-of-town invited guests x 75%) + (number of local invited guests x 90%) = estimated guest count 

We closely coordinate with all third parties as team members.

1. "This is everything we hoped it would be and so much more!"

2. "This is by far the best food I have ever had at any wedding, or probably anywhere!"

3. "You and your team went way far above and beyond!"

• We love everyone and deeply value the privilege of serving cuisine to all. 

• We avoid events where the fire safety occupancy is exceeded, or if other serious safety concerns are evident. We check.

• We decline events when an insisted upon menu and service style is too seriously incompatible for the venue.

• Chef Stephen is a certified ServeSafe® Food Protection Manager and trains his team. 

• Northwoods Catering is an LLC and carries $2-million liability insurance.

We travel worldwide as private chefs. Hiring us as for such enables us to lavish attention on the smallest of details, whether for a day, a week, a month, or more. 

Our cancellation and rescheduling policies are industry standard. The earlier you cancel or reschedule, the better for us both. 

As much as we love cuisine, we love people much more and listen closely to special circumstances. 

Chef Stephen's culinary expertise and cultural knowledge can help you create a perfect menu for your target clientele. He can also train kitchen staff on-site.