We had a wonderful experience on our first visit. Food, service, cocktails, all excellent! We…read morestarted with cocktails (duh!) and they do a good pour. For appetizers, we did the poke nachos (paired with a very good salsa) and Korean short ribs. Some good flavors going on. For dinner, I had the Twice Fried Chicken w/ risotto, collard greens, and a side of potlicker sauce. This meal cemented the 5-stars!! Chicken skin was crispy, the meat moist. Pour the pot liquor sauce on the chicken and DAMN! Risotto was very good, but collard greens brought the dish home. Superb. Wife had the orecchiette w/ shredded short rib. Also superb. Desserts were okay, and the pear bread pudding stood out. Lastly, some outstanding service from Jen put a nice cap on a wonderful dinner. A+ Cheers! RS

We were hungry after a long drive in Los Alamos. Not much open on a holiday weekend (but there's…read morenot much in this small town anyways). We were grateful The Maker's Son was open and graciously sat at a table inside the bar. I had a headache from the heat so it was nice to cool off inside. It looks like this has recently opened and is only serving the bar menu until their full kitchen opens up next week. We ordered a 6 piece Smoked Chicken Wing Set and The Maker's Burger. The portions of these are ridiculously generous! We thought the wings would be small but these are so huge! The burger was tasty and came with great waffle fries. Great food, nice and friendly staff (currently masked up due to the pandemic) - this place is awesome! Wishing it nothing but the best after it fully opens!

Review of All Purpose Flower/Working with Golzar…read more I rarely write negative reviews, but after our wedding weekend I feel a responsibility to share our experience so other couples can make an informed decision. The issues started weeks before our event. Communication was consistently poor -- we had to repeat ourselves multiple times on things we'd already confirmed, and received unsolicited invoices with zero context or explanation. I was the one who had to initiate conversations about our menu to find out whether it had even been finalized. That's not how a vendor relationship should work leading up to one of the most important weekends of your life. Welcome Party (Night 1): We had made it very clear that our welcome party was a casual gathering. All we needed was a bartender to pour wine at the bar for the hour before the event. Instead, she proposed table service staff -- something we explicitly said we didn't want. After a phone call where she agreed to send a bartender instead, no bartender ever showed up. Wedding Day (Night 2): We had specifically requested a menu change from chicken thigh to chicken breast. That change was never made. The wait staff poured wine for only some tables and then disappeared. In a family-style dinner format, not enough food was dropped at multiple tables -- which is a fundamental failure for that style of service. The alcohol situation was particularly disruptive. They massively underestimated how much was needed for 104 guests, and my father-in-law had to leave our wedding reception to go purchase more. On top of that, two bartenders for 104 guests was completely inadequate -- at points, guests were waiting 15 minutes for a drink. After the event, we heard from our venue that the catering team left the kitchen in an absolute mess and failed to clean up after themselves. Across the board -- communication, execution, staffing, and professionalism -- this was not the experience we were promised or that we paid for. I hope this review helps someone else avoid the stress we dealt with on a weekend that should have been nothing but joyful.

All Purpose Flower did a great job! The dishes were beautifully presented and full of flavor --…read moredefinitely the kind of service you'd expect from a professional personal chef team. Communication was easy, they responded quickly, and everything looked elegant. I'd recommend them for small events or dinner parties if you want something special and stress-free.

Absolutely beautiful in every way, your next shower or party will be STUNNING and perfect at this…read moreamazing location. I love Stella Mare's so much!!

The event staff at Stella Mares offers service that is absolutely impeccable. As a wedding…read moreplanner, it is often tricky to go out of your comfort zone and look for venues in different regions. When I found Stella Mares and called their Catering Sales Manager, Sarah, I knew I had struck gold! Over the past several months, Sarah continuously went out of her way to make sure that we had what we need in the planning process for the wedding; including drawing up several diagrams of the room and always providing good insight to what would work best in the space as I was planning from afar and was not able to go in for regular tours. On the day of the wedding the staff was incredibly accomodating- Sarah, Michael, Francisco and the other staff members made everything easy from start to finish. It was such a lovely, warm and welcoming venue- it was much like hosting a party in my own living room- only even better because I was not reponsible for all of the cooking and cleaning! Half the time I felt as if these professionals had read my mind- they took care of things before I could even ask. The food was wonderful, the ambience perfection and the event smooth.I would strongly recommend this venue to any bride!

I cannot recommend Island View Catering enough. Buckle up, there's a lot I want to say…read more We had a Sept 2020 wedding originally, so we were part of the postponement crew. We postponed one year so we got married in Sept 2021. I had to move all my vendors, which I did so successfully. Then, due to some unfortunate circumstances, my original caterer cancelled on us about 4 months prior to the wedding. I was frantic as this was a very competitive year due to all the postponements. I started reaching out to anyone and everyone and to my surprise, I still had a lot of options. I got on the phone with Avrey and he was the first person that really put my mind at ease and made it clear that he could and would do his best to mostly match the menu I had already created and work with me on budget that I already had. He was such a fabulous person to talk to and work with; I just felt really at ease and like my opinions and needs were being taken care of. I'm also in the service business, and I admired the way he was treating me as a potential client. I ended up signing with them and the proposal process was very clear, professional, and smooth. Then he met my wedding planner, and she also thoroughly enjoyed working with Avrey and his team, and that was impressive to me. Then comes the wedding day - holy crap - I had SO MANY people come up to me and tell me not only that the food was absolutely phenomenal (we had a taco bar and delicious apps), but that anyone who ran into one of the catering team members was so impressed by them. I had brought my own bartender, a friend of the family, and she also had nothing but great things to say about the catering team. I later found out that we ran out of margaritas that we had premade, and Avrey said great we'll make more. I am still not even aware of what ingredients we had and didn't have, but somehow they made more. So to be clear, his team went back and juiced a ton of limes and made more batches of margaritas, which they were never responsible for in our contract/plans. My parents and some family friends did a lot of the take-down of the wedding. The catering staffed helped them tremendously - again, not their job. They helped box up extra wine, extra food, and even carry it to my parents car and help them load. The food was INCREDIBLE, and it was so beautifully presented; the team was top notch. Your catering team really makes the wedding flow - if they're disorganized or anything less than stellar, so are your and your guests' experiences. I had so many people tell me that this is the best wedding food they've ever had. Avrey is one of the most professional caterers I've come across - his communication is impeccable, and he just cares about doing a good job. Do yourself a favor, call Avrey and book them for whatever event you have coming up. I only wish I had more events to hire them for.

This week, we were at a wedding for 300 in SYV and Island View catered the meal and the bars. It…read moreis pretty unusual for me to say this, but there was NOTHING Island View could have done better! The food was fresh, hot, and delicious. And the menu was tailored to the bride and groom's tastes. The service was attentive, happy, and always in the right place at the right time. The drinks were legit (not watered-down sugar with cheap booze). And they stayed the WHOLE TIME so if a guest wanted anything more as the night went on, they were there to make it happen... and still full of smiles at 11:30pm!! Truly a wonderful partner for any event! Thanks, Island View Catering, for helping our friends' wedding such a success!

I was looking up High on the Hog's address to pick up our Thanksgiving feast when I realized I'd…read morenever left a review--time to fix that! Amber, Brett, and their team are truly exceptional. Every meat is perfectly succulent, and the sides are decadent and bursting with flavor. You simply will not find better catering in the Santa Ynez Valley. They've consistently delivered outstanding food for our winery events (200-250 guests), catered both of my weddings (yes, two COVID weddings with the same groom!), and whenever we have the chance to get their food in our house, we jump at it. Thank you to the entire team--we've loved your food for the past decade and look forward to many more decades of deliciousness! Will upload photos if I can remember before diving in!

I was lucky enough to get to try High on the Hog during a recent catering event at Brick Barn…read morewinery. Everything was so tasty! They served up Italian beef sandwiches and they were so flavorful. Definitely a gourmet sandwich and the beef was cooked perfectly. They had picked veggies on the side, as well as two other veggie sides that were equally as delicious. The affogato mousse cup for dessert was the perfect way to end the meal. I was so full with all of the different options and the staff serving up the food were all really friendly.

Amanda Lauren is an absolute hidden gem! Our wedding venue originally endorsed us to her; we loved…read moreher website and immediately felt a mind-meld when speaking with her, but couldn't find anything else about her.... "who is Amanda Lauren?!" Outside of her website and Instagram account, you won't find much on her business but her word-of-mouth referrals are quite extensive. We combed her Instagram/Facebook tags from other couples and contacted everyone through direct messages to uncover her story. From wedding venues to local Santa Ynez business owners to a famous drummer from a very popular rock band, people rave about her. She's been in the Santa Ynez wedding planning scene for about 7 years now, grew up in customer service and success for a jewelry company before finding her passion in wedding planning. Amanda has the vision and connections to turn all those visuals and wedding visions swirling around in your head into reality. Truly, it was unbelievable how she got inside my head and figured out exactly what I wanted when we had no theme, no mood, and only 1-2 random details to share like "bright flowers and colors everywhere" and "fairy-like trees." She knew how to ask the right questions to get more ideas out of my head, figured out what was important to us, and was able to match a list of vendors who hit every single criterion we didn't know we wanted. She found our dream wedding musician, dream lighting and decor vendors, a florist and farm-to-table caterer that was more down-to-earth to our style, and nailed the type of wedding photography vision we had in mind. There wasn't a single vendor she recommended that we didn't go with and she was very aware of our budget and where we didn't care to spend as much. To be honest, we were surprised she found vendors that could deliver what we wanted in our price range considering the bar of some of our requirements. Amanda was constantly in touch with us and was great at texting and communicating across the most random ideas. We didn't want or need full service, but she provided flexible packaging for us. She pulled out certain full-service package items, creating a new package that included month-of planning, pricing inquiries, contract execution that weren't in her standard package. Also noting, we had an intentional pandemic wedding and were a super small, 25-person wedding and she still gave us top-notch, full-service feels. She also knew instinctively when to let us control things, where we wanted to be more involved even if we didn't say it directly (like with editing contract language with our vendors or timeline for our wedding day to fit our family's quirky needs). She also went to bat for us with 2 vendors who were struggling to manage their clients while short-staffed for the pandemic and helped us avoid having to make inquiries or chase them down. On the day of our wedding, she was herding vendor cats left and right and solving unexpected issues like our catering truck being in the pathway of our wedding walkway and our venue manager not providing the equipment they'd promised. We were so sad we didn't get to spend more time with her during the event (it goes by so fast and she was behind the scenes making it happen)! My only recommendation is that if your wedding venue is in a remote location with no mobile service or has separate wedding areas/buildings far apart (even for a small wedding like ours) - make sure you take her up on her wedding planner assistant. She offered this service and was so nice to not push us on spending the extra money, but without her right beside our wedding party while we were offsite getting ready we fell behind on our timeline. It also would have helped us to have someone passing on communications to us from her while she was herding our vendors across our vineyard venue.

We hired Ashley as a personal chef while we were in town for a bachelorette party, and she was…read moreabsolutely amazing from start to finish. She was incredibly professional, arrived right on time, came fully prepared with everything she needed, and completely took the stress off our evening. The food was so good (honestly DELICIOUS), and on top of that, she somehow left the kitchen even cleaner than when she arrived! She was attentive, kind, and impressively patient while managing our themed dinner- even after we'd enjoyed a few glasses of wine. The entire experience felt thoughtful and seamless. You will absolutely not regret hiring her!

I recently had catering with Ashley for breakfast and dinner at a private home. Ashley was very…read moreprofessional, arrived early to make sure meals were cooked and served on time and the food tasted great. Everyone was extremely happy with both meals. The incredients tasted very fresh and addressed everyone's dietary restrictions. This is a high value service and Ashley left the kitchen cleaner that it was when she first got there. 100% would recommend and book again. Thank you!

I am so thrilled to have found Tiny Village Picnic and Mary. I wanted to create a special, small…read moreBaby Shower for my sister-in-law, but was a tad overwhelmed thinking of all the details... fast forward to finding Tiny Village Picnic and Mary making all of my wishes come true! Mary is an absolute perfectionist all the while being so kind and caring. Every detail (Picnic set up, flowers, dishes, flatware, glass water bottle selection to all of the extra decor and not to mention the food, was incredible). I was so nervous hosting this event for my sister-in-law and with Mary involved that all went away, she held my hand through out all the planning down to the day of... which went off with out a hitch and will be a moment I will never forget. I can't wait to plan my next picnic! Thank you again Tiny Village Picnic.

The owner of this company is So incredibly sweet and easy to…read morework with. I wanted my daughters birthday to be as special as it could be during the pandemic and Mary nailed it! As an exhausted mom it was so amazing to have Tiny Village handle everything. From set up to break down and clean up I was able to enjoy my Kid on her special day. I would highly recommend, and have every intentioned using this darling company again!