I am so glad to be the first person to review this company. My husband and I were married on the North Shore and our venue recommended another bartending service. However, the event planner and budget shopper in me made me want to shop around for a better deal. After some Googling, I found North Shore Bartending online. I contacted them via email and George McCabe, the owner, called and emailed me back immediately. After 3 years of event planning in my professional life and contacting a few dozen vendors for our wedding, I am delighted to recommend George and his services to anybody who needs a bartender. George at North Shore Bartending was one of the easiest and most pleasant vendors I have ever dealt with. Our venue and ceremony had atypical timing, but George didn't sweat it and made sure that everything went off without a hitch. Their rates were really reasonable as well. The biggest challenge we threw at George was that our color scheme was purple and silver so we wanted a purple signature drink. Not only that, but we wanted the drink to feature a special lychee liqueur, Lichido. George worked for weeks to develop a drink that not only looked the right purple shade, but also tasted great. I pictured him like a mad scientist stirring up cocktails in his libation lab. He told me stories about how his wife and daughter were even privy to tasting his concoctions. That amazed me that he was working on our specialty drink even at home. It was all worth it. Our guests were raving about the final result all night. Even the men were slurping them up! This is the first time I am uploading a photo on Yelp because I think the photo speaks for itself. I never got to personally thank George (yes, he even bartended at our wedding so I was glad to finally meet the man in person!) because I was dancing when he closed the bar for the night. And my husband was kinda tipsy from consuming a few too many purple cocktails that evening so I don't think he gave George the proper thank you he deserved when he left. :) Soooo, George, I hope you are reading this review. We hope that it helps lead other couples, individuals, and corporations to your company as you are definitely the best bartending service around. Thanks for everything and happy new year! read more

North Shore Bartending - Our purple signature drink created by George McCabe - Party & Event Planning Near Me - Salem, Massachusetts

The service by North Shore Bartending was great on the day of our wedding, providing 2 excellent and easy to work with bartenders (though the wine arrived too hot to drink). George, the owner, was a nightmare. Emails and phone calls would go unanswered. 2 months before the wedding he defended his lack of action by telling my wife "well it's a long time until your wedding." He would not provide invoices when asked. We then had my father in law take over dealing with them, who finally succeeded in securing a contract after additional prodding from our event coordinator. 3 days before the wedding George called my wife again and did not seem to remember any of the details of his conversations with my father in law. He responded to this by saying "I didn't write it down" and asked for his phone number again. As I said, the service on the day of was great. The management, however, cannot seem to keep track of anything and only added unnecessary headaches to our wedding planning. We had to use them due to a contract with our venue, but if not for this we would have dropped them long before the day. Avoid at all costs. read more

When my (now) husband and I got engaged, we decided that one of the things we absolutely did not want to skimp on was the bar at our wedding. Fortunately for us, we chose Essex Conference Center and Retreat for our venue, and they allow you to stock your own bar, as long as you hire a licensed bartending service to do the serving. They recommended North Shore Bartending to me as their first choice, and after getting quotes from a couple of other companies, I can see why. NSB gave us the best quote by far, and George, the owner was very friendly and helpful. Sometimes I had to wait a little while to hear back from him via email, since most of the final planning was being done during peak wedding season, but he always got back to me, and I also had the option of calling for more urgent matters. The day of my wedding, they took care of everything bar-related including making sure all of our guests had champagne for the toast. I didn't have to worry about a thing, and although I didn't get to interact directly with them much (when you're the bride, you don't typically have to go to the bar for your drinks... they find their way to you), but my husband did, and every time I looked over at the bar, they were smiling. They kept the drinks flowing, and my guests were happy, all at what I thought was an extremely reasonable price! Thanks North Shore Bartending! read more

We've used NS Bartending twice. The first time was excellent. Easy to work with. The bartender was great. the whole experience was great. The second time we used them no one showed up, leaving me in a difficult last minute situation. To make it worse I left a phone call, email, and text to try to find out what was going on and we were completely ghosted. Never heard anything. Go figure... read more

We used North Shore Bartending for our recent wedding and they were fantastic! The food and open bar were 2 areas that absolutely wanted people to enjoy and North Shore Bartending made the bar service enjoyable for all! George was very easy to work with and quoted me an extremely reasonable price for the service. Our bartender was awesome! He was super friendly, made great drinks and was always at the ready to make the bride a drink whenever he saw me near. This is one of the easiest business recommendations I've ever made. read more

I used North Shore Bartending for my wedding at the Essex Conference Center & Retreat and they were great to work with! George was very responsive over email and provided input when I couldn't decided on what drinks I wanted to serve. The day of, his staff showed up on time and, from what I hear (I don't think I ever actually made it to the bar), were wonderful with the guests. There was a slight mix up with the company who delivered the liquor and the bar tenders were very quick to point it out and get it resolved before the reception began which was a huge help. I HIGHLY recommend using a wedding venue that allows you to provide your own liquor and hiring North Shore Bartending to serve it for you! read more

We used North Shore Bartending as our bartending service for our wedding at Essex Conference Center & Retreat in October 2011 and could not have been happier. The arrangements were straightforward prior to the wedding, email responses were rapid, the staff was professional and accommodated our special requests during the event, and the price was quite reasonably. Would highly recommend them. read more

North Shore Bartending was recommended by our wedding venue, since they required we have a bartender and liquor liability insurance. The prices at NS Bartending were very reasonable, and they were very responsive, especially by email, which was key for me. They were very helpful, even looking over our order from Kappy's On Call, to make sure it was an appropriate amount of drinks for our number of guests, and going to the meeting in Salem to obtain our one day liquor license. I would recommend them for anyone having a large party. read more