Wild Thyme Catering

Took me a very long time to get this off my chest. My review is from someone (me) that worked in the kitchen for Sally as a prep cook. The chef was chef Bob. After a while Sally wanted to save money so she fired the dishwasher and made me not just prep cook but mostly the dish washer after working in 5 hoels, resturants and nursing homes. Some of the kitchen workers were allowed to talk on the cell phone while touching food that you all ate and then did not wash their hands after talking on the cell phones. My biggest complaint was chef Bob was jealous of my beautiful wife (his girlfriend was fat and not pretty at all)!!! A few times he said to me that my wife is a ” whore ” and called her other names for no reason at all. I think this punk chef was trying to get me to quit. I felt like beating the crap out of him but held my cool as i wanted to continue working there a bit longer until i found a better job. I don’t know why but Sally told us cooks that she met Robert De Niro and that he called Sally the C– — - word. Hmmmmm i wonder why. This was not a good place to work. I read the bad reviews and was happy what i read. I do not reccomment using the service of wild thyme catering. Go somewhere else. Read the bad reviews. I know those reviews to be true. I saw it 1^st hand!!! Thanks for reading. Had to give it some kind of star so a 1 star is all i can give!

I’m giving it one star, because you have to give anything to be able to review. STAY AWAY FROM THIS BUSINESS!!!
I guess the red flag should have gone up on my end when owner, Sally Van Slyke couldn’t find the contract for the event, besides multiple conversations and confirming and reconfirming the time of delivery, your delivery person was late, he was supposed to be set up by 9:15, 9:30 at the latest, he started unloading the food at 9:30, he said his paperwork had delivery time of 9:30 am. We had to have our staff help set up the food because he wasn’t on time.
The presentation was AWFUL, basically he just dropped the food trays randomly at the table, no effort whatsoever to make display look nice and attractive. table cloths he used were old and ugly
The coffee garafs were old, and stained, I wouldn’t serve coffee out of them at my own house, let alone at an event, the sandwich bred was old and stale, I am assuming the entire thing was put together the night before, because the bread felt cold as if it had been refrigerated, the only thing that was OK was the fruit, but again, the presentation was terrible, the old pineapple crown in the center just made it look terrible.
The cheese platter … I am pretty sure I saw the same prosciutto and cheese, and salami and cheese roll ups at Costco that same afternoon when I went grocery shopping
Another thing, we ordered food for 75 people, there was barely enough food for 45 people on those platters. Not to mention that vegetables and iced tea I had ordered were not delivered …
To add insult to injury, there was no response to my several calls that morning to the number posted on your website, and today, I get a call from Deb (the person whom I had initiated the contract with, telling me that is her personal cell phone and that she no longer works for Wild Thyme.
This was the 23^rd of these event’s I’ve organized throughout the Bay Are over the last two months, Walnut Creek was the most expensive catering order, for a lot less, than any of the other event, and the quality of the food and service was BY FAR the worse, even one of the worse I’ve ever seen in my 10+ carrier as an event planner.
Basically we paid over $ 1000 for something I could have picked up at Costco and Safeway for a couple hundred dollars.
I’ve shared this same feed back with Sally, the OWNER, who has not made a single effort to reach out to me and apologize for the mess it was our service, in the hopes she make some effort to mitigate our disappointment.
If they can’t handle a simple delivery of coffee, sandwiches and vegetables. think about it long and hard before hiring them for your wedding. NEVER AGAIN!

I recently tried using this service but found it unprofessional and unreliable.
To get them to retun calls is nearly impossible. Buyers beware, read the other negative comments and make your own opinion.
I would NOT recomment this place at all.

We used Wild Thyme for my daughter wedding on July 21 2013. Their service and food was amazing. I highly recommend them.

This cater came highly recommended. Everyone working at our wedding was very good, especially Deborah. The food was good, some of it was great. The reason I gave 3 stars was because it was frustrating dealing with Sally. She is a very interesting person, but her follow thru is very poor. We met with her several times. Each time she took notes, but the next time we met, we had to start from scratch for she didn’t remember what we wanted. The most frustrating part was after the wedding. We had paid for services we didn’t use. I contacted her several times trying to get a final accounting from her. Over a month later, I finally wrote a very firm letter with my own accounting that got her attention. But we still haven’t received the two kitchen items her staff accidentally took while using our kitchen (the wedding was in my husband’s backyard). She said she would put the one they found in the mail, but we will never see it. To be fair, our event was great, but I would not chose this caterer again.

I’m very disappointed in the food and service from this caterer. The event I attended was fairly small and did not go well. All the food was cold and overly salty. Not to mention the staff was very immature; a lot of bickering and gossip between them. I felt as if I were a part of their drama for the night?! If you are looking for a talented, professional caterer, this is not the one for you.

Main two things you need to know:
1. Experienced caterer who will give you a great event.
2. Charges overtime after the event is over. Get a quote INCLUDING setup and cleanup times before booking. If you are cool with that quote, book them because they good.
For number two, there’s another review here that talks about the same thing happening to them. It’s a pretty crappy thing to do actually. We stretched our budget to afford Wild Thyme and on our wedding day we were really happy with the result. The day after the wedding, I got an email indicating that there were overtime charges. I told her the facility rental times from the beginning of the process, but three days before the event she told me that opening up the facility early would incur overtime changes. There were additional labor charges before and after the event, bumping the price up about 10%. If she had just quoted us that price from the beginning, we probably still would have booked them. It’s just crappy to find out after the fact.

Our party was a smallish affair, 50 people but it couldn’t have been more successful. The food, from appetizer to desserts were all distinct in flavors, delicious and attractively presented. We got many compliments from our guests. The staff was efficient and helpful. Dealing with Sally was fun too. She is clearly so experienced and at ease with her work that she made it all the easier for us as well.
Fred & Linda S.
Nov. 2012

My wedding was just about a year ago and I can’t believe I’m only just now getting around to writing this review.
My wedding took place at the Marsh Arts Center (formally Gaia Arts Center) in Berkeley, CA. After checking out a few caterers, I stumbled onto Wild Thyme, which happened to be just around the corner from my apartment in Walnut Creek. After chatting with Sally about the details, we instantly knew that we’d be booking our wedding with Wild Thyme. Sally really knew what she was doing and made the whole process extremely painless. Before even letting them know we were interested in booking with them, they invited us in for a tasting and literally treated us to a 3 course meal. I went in expecting a few small bites and came out stuffed beyond belief. The food was excellent and exactly what we were looking for.
On the day of our wedding things went off without a hitch. The bartender was great and all of the Wild Thyme staff was excellent. At first I was worried because Sally was not there, but everyone else was awesome. Since our venue did not have a kitchen, the food had to be cooked prior to the reception and then brought in later. Even so, the food was still fantastic. We received nothing but positive feedback about the delicious food.
One thing I really liked about this place was that we could buy all our booze ourselves and then store it at their site and they would bring it and serve it at the wedding. They were really helpful about giving as advice as to just how much liquor to buy and where to get good deals. After the wedding they even brought the leftover booze back to their site and let us pick up when convenient.
Their prices were really reasonable for the level of service provided. If we had to do it again, we’d book them in a heartbeat! In addition, Sally is also just a really interesting person to talk to. She’s got some fantastic stories about her previous life in Hollywood and always had us cracking up every time we met with her.

Just to preface that this review is for a wedding back in 07, so things may have changed, but I expect that unless the owner is different, it hasn’t.
I’ll try not to whine and complain, but just break it down.
The Good:
1. The food at the tasting was awesome. Presentation and flavor were great!
2. They take care of food and serving ware and napkins… etc. And will set up and take down, for the most part.
3. The appetizer hour was done great and the appetizers tasted very good.
4. They carry their own liquor license and insurance-​which is important if your event is not at a hotel.
The Bad:
1. The owner has no concept of customer service. A month before the wedding we had an appt to ‘confirm’ the place-​settings, which we had already discussed. My husband’s grandmother died and we had to go to LA for the funeral. I sent my maid of honor in my place, notifying them that I would be unable to go. My ‘representative’ btw is a director of catering for a 5 star hotel in SF, so she knows what she’s doing. Sally flipped that I didn’t come myself, yelled at my friend for ‘wasting her time’ since we already decided on the place-​settings, and was generally rude.
2. They are either extremely lazy or incompetent or both. We had an involved service, with many dishes that did not change from the time we had signed the contract to the execution. 2 – 3 weeks before the wedding the admin sent me an ‘updated’ quote which was now $ 15k more than what we agreed on. I had my friend check the quote and to their credit it wasn’t bogus. However, when I asked how the price suddenly jumped up (this isn’t a couple of hundred $$) she advised me that only now did they bother to submit the order to their vendor for silverwear and such. So even though the had the counts, and have done business with their vendor before and therefore knew appx how much it should have cost, they quoted me a ‘standard’ rate. When I complained to Sally and told her I might need to find someone else to cater my wedding, her response was «Good luck finding another caterer now.»
3. Sloppy table presentation for food. The placesettings themselves looked good and what we expected. However, since we did a combination family style and individual dishes, the ‘sharing’ dishes like the risotto and such were just dumped into the plates with no effort at presentation.
4. We never got the leftovers. Prior to the event we explicitly stated we wanted the leftovers boxed up for us. Never saw them, but did see the catering staff, after clean up, eating my wedding dinner in the back of their van.
5. The manager on duty during the event had no control of his staff and many of the requests we made never happened.
The way they treat you after you sign the contract is abysmal and the staff has no concept of professionalism and customer service. It was the only horrible thing about my wedding and while I wouldn’t say ruined it completely, came pretty close.

Really? I’m the first to review Wild Thymes? Where do I start?
We were planning my grandmother’s 90^th birthday party. Not only did Wild Thymes have the BEST food we had tasted but they went out of their way to work within our budget. A lot of other caterers rolled their eyes at us and made us feel bad for having a small budget but Wild Thymes not only helped us maintain that budget, but they also made my grandmother feel like she is a queen.
As far as their work-​the staff was awesome-​super nice and friendly. The food was amazing-​really! And Sally and Ginny? Well, they are just the sweetest ladies around.
Thank you for making my grandmother’s 90^th birthday amazing and memorable. You have our gratitude and you can bet we will recommend anyone who needs a caterer to you!
Thanks!

We had a wedding at the Brazil Room and are extremely disappointed with Wild Thyme. We counted on the owner to show up and the coordination details we had discussed with her were otherwise not communicated to her staff. The servers were not attentive and my drinks were never refilled. Additionally, we had to point out a lot of errors in our final invoice, luckily we checked since they would have overcharged us by hundreds of dollars. The food is decent though.

WOW! Wild Thyme is The Best. Our daughter got married on June 25^th. We had the ceremony at the Brazilian Room at Tilden Park. Wild Thyme was our caterer of choice after sampling quite a few others.
From start to finish everything was seem less and perfect. Food, service, everything could not have been better. David was the Captain and helped make the evening both pleasurable and fun.
Thanks to Sally and all who were involved.
If for some reason you have had a not so memorable experience… look within, as Wild Thyme does it right.
Michael & Nancy.
P.S.
All our vendors, Flowers, DJ, Cake, Brides Dress… Perfect. Anybody need suggestions, we got em’

My husband and I got married 4 days ago at The Brazilian Room in Berkeley and Wild Thyme catered our day. A few hiccups in the beginning-​planning stages. However, they delivered 99.5%.
First, the hiccups, which really are *small potatoes* in the big picture, but I think are important for prospective customers to know. We went with the two-​entrée option for about 110 guests. We had specified a certain pasta dish, which we had tried prior and was incredible. What we got was an entirely different pasta dish. It was delicious as well, but not what we ordered. This also happened with a garnish we requested on our salmon, which was not correct. But, delicious nonetheless. Also, Ginny at the front desk was a little flaky on more than one occasion. Had us down for the wrong date up until about 3 months before our day. Lost track of some of our details, too.
David was our captain and was absolutely wonderful. We were blessed with %&cking RAIN and had to unfortunately stage our ceremony indoors. This was executed FLAWLESSLY, while our guests were arriving, and David even improvised by turning the seating sideways to face the cathedral style windows rather than the drab fireplace wall, which was the original Plan B. He was an absolute delight, a pleasure to work with, and an incredibly organized captain.
Sally is, by far, the ultimate reason my husband and I decided to go with Wild Thyme. The food was great, but she really sealed the deal. She instantly put us at ease. The woman knows what she’s doing. Incredibly creative, loved our ideas and embellished them with her experience and style. Executed a beautiful, unforgettable event. Though, I might be a little biased being the bride. :)
ALL of the feedback we got from our wedding included a lavish compliment regarding the food. «Amazing», «incredible», «delicious», all words used by our guests. Roman was our chef.
It should also be noted that the «bartender» we had clearly did not know how to properly operate kegs. He pumped it too much, gave many guests glasses full of foam. He said one of our kegs was almost empty, but really he had just depressed it too much and didn’t know how to get more out of it.
Professional caterers. Reasonably priced. Unbelievably good food. Would recommend them in a heartbeat!

Sally has been there for two of the most important parties I’ve ever thrown. The first was my Grandfather’s 100^th birthday party several years ago now. We had over 125 people and it was very much like a wedding, but the average age of the guest list was 80+. Sally helped with planning, created an amazing menu and delivered one of the best meals I’ve ever tasted. An amazing meal for me is one thing. .. but it was something older folks could chew, I had amazing feedback on the beef tenderloin and everything was just first class from beginning to end.
Then came the wedding. I was later in life when I got married and there was never a question about who would cater. Again, Sally planned an amazing meal, was sensitive to our likes/​dislikes and did a «special tasting» for my now husband who just can’t help himself. Sally makes you feel like you are the only person in the world who has ever thrown a party or catered a wedding. Her chef is fabulous! Her captain (name will come to me) is spectacular. But Sally makes it all come together. She has experiences she doesn’t brag about and yet I know I’m in great hands.
And the wedding. . the food was fabulous. She made sure that we had cocktails and appetizers before we met the guests. . and gave us a lovely goody basket for home after the wedding.
She understands seasons/​food/​service/​vendors (linens, glassware, cake), but most important — she gets people. She understands the mood you want to create and she makes it happen.
So. . truth be told, I’m a closet foodie and a control freak. I trust Sally implicitly. She is mindful of budgets, taste and just great fun. And she is smart when it comes to hiring good people. She can also plan an entire event for you w/​o charging a ridiculous fee. She knows where to get affordable/​returnable liquor, how much to buy, what rentals are critical, etc. And when you get home and write the check. .. you know it was worth every penny.
Sally. .. thank you for making two big days in my life amazing days. I can’t wait for the next big thing.

Wild Thyme was pretty great from start to finish. There were occassional moments with certain members of their team that could have put us more at ease leading up to the event. I’m pretty particular and leading into the day I was a little uncertain how people were going to get moved around, from the outside ceremony, to another outdoor bar, and into the dining room — and some other small concerns.
That said, I shouldn’t have worried, it was a total waste of energy. I hadn’t met the captain they had on site for the event, I can’t remember her name, but she calmly had the event in the palm of her hand.
We’re pretty into food, living in Brooklyn, and the food was even better than we thought it would be. There are caterers that are way fancier and more expensive, but it’s hard to imagine better food at a wedding. They served a tri tip they carved at the buffet that was perfect, and a really summery chicken provencal that was fresh and delicious. Simple grilled vegetables that would have been really boring if the produce wasn’t good and fresh, but as it was, just simple, elegant, and delicious.
Service was impeccable. They had to be out of the venue at a certain time, everything went perfectly smoothly in that regard.
So overall, dealing with them planning the event could maybe have been a little better organized, hence leaving one star out, but it was good and solid. Food and service at the event were excellent, at a reasonable price.

Wild Thyme catered our wedding, and did a fabulous job. It was such a pleasure to work with Sally, Ginny and the rest of the team. Particular things we appreciated:
— Personal attention. From the first tasting to our wedding day, we always felt that Sally and Ginny were there to help us. They are so friendly and really make you feel like they care about your event turning out perfectly. We did an initial tasting, after which we signed up with them, and then another tasting to confirm our food choices, which was really helpful. I feel like we could have been in there every week tasting if that’s what we wanted to do! — they are so accommodating. There were also great little touches like Sally bringing me appetizers at the wedding because I never made it inside to the cocktail hour — so thoughtful.
— Awesome food. We got a lot of compliments on all the food served. The dessert bar in particular was a huge hit — Sally had a lot of great ideas for it, and I completely recommend going this route! Another especially popular item was the tuna tartare rolls as an appetizer. They can also accommodate any dietary restrictions your guests may have.
— Access to supplies. Wild Thyme saved us a lot of money because we were able to use their vases for the flower arrangements and their candle holders for the votives — all for free. Totally great perk.
— Prices are super-​reasonable. We tasted at a few places before Wild Thyme, and most of them had higher prices and worse food. Wild Thyme was head and shoulders above everyone else in terms of value. They are willing to negotiate with you and be fair about it.
— And, most importantly… peace of mind. We planned a large (165 person) wedding in a short amount of time, and I really don’t think we could have done it without Wild Thyme. They are pros and know exactly what they are doing, not only when it comes to the food but when it comes to making sure all sorts of other details come together. We left a lot up to them, and I’m glad we trusted their judgment. If my hairdresser hadn’t shown up, I’m pretty sure Sally could have done my hair. If the officiant didn’t show up, I KNOW Sally could have done the ceremony because she got qualified to do so… just in case. Basically, having Sally on our team removed any need for a wedding planner. I thought I was going to be a nervous wreck on my wedding day, but it was probably the most relaxing, calmest, and happiest day of my life, and a lot of that had to do with the fact that I could leave so much in Wild Thyme’s hands without a care in the world. That was the truly, truly priceless part of working with Sally and her great team. We are eternally grateful to them for their huge role in making our big day perfect!

I can’t comment on the food or the service but the 3 emails and few phone calls that I made to request a quote were never followed up on.
hmmm. Oh well.

I first met the Wild Thyme crew way back in the day at a Chamber Mixer held in the ‘Creek in like… ohmygod…1994?! And then kept bumping into them for various work related events. Was someone trying to tell me something?
So, did I call them for Wedding No. 1… no! and well, I can’t say I regret that decision…‘cuz for Wedding No. 2 I did make the call!
Brazilian Room — 17 guests total — a sit down dinner to die for — my guests told me it was like having dinner in our home…
LOVE IT — and yes, personality in a big way, Sally is and has… but let her use her powers for good… and get EVERYTHING in writing ahead of time… you won’t regret it the day after your big day!

I don ‘t know where Valerie’s review went, but I have to say I too, had a good experience catering an adult’s birthday party with Sally and crew. She was very flexible, came in on budget and made some good suggestions for venues that I wouldn’t have known about otherwise.
I have also ordered and picked up food to serve at a baby shower and that worked out fine, as well.