Whole Foods Market Catering Austin

We had a fantastic experience with Whole Foods Catering! The process end to end went very smoothly and it felt like very good value for the price. We got SO many compliments on the food (appetizers: cowboy meatballs, empanadas and texas toast with mushrooms; dinner: all american steak (the biggest hit), roasted pork tenderloin, roasted potatoes and green beans with shallots; dessert: tres leches cake, mini pies and strawberries with mascarpone.) I loved that they could easily accommodate our vegetarians, vegans, dairy-​free, gluten-​free guests with meals that actually taste good. Food is a very important part of my life and my family’s life and I was so grateful we could serve delicious and healthy food to our guests. We loved that guests felt nourished and weren’t weighed down on the dance floor with some heavy meal. Megan was fantastic to work with, as were all the staff we encountered on the day. Can’t say enough good things — hire them!

Great catering for a company party!
We were able to get Whole Foods to provide both vegetarian and more traditional options for a holiday party for over 50 people. Everyone from their sales staff to the delivery crew were really easy to work with and fiercely accommodating for our every request. Great job.

We had our annual holiday party at our condo last evening. Whole Foods catered the event. It was awesome! Everyone complimented the appetizers. We had one small hiccup regarding our order. A couple of items did not arrive and we received one too many of another item. A quick call to after hours catering and the order was immediately rectified and delivered to us in warp speed time. Whole Foods catering is awesome in quality of food, variety of menu options and customer service.

We used Whole Foods Catering for a work event and had a great experience. It was easy to order, delivery went smoothly and our contact, Ji, ll was very helpful and great on follow-​up before and after our event. We ordered from the Holiday Buffet menu and everything we had was top notch delicious: turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, salad (the one with pecans), cookies. We had about 40 people in total. For the mains we had the right amount of leftovers, for the salad we had much more than we needed (we probably should have ordered for less than 40). The only nit we had really was the serving utensils kept breaking … other than that, all was great and we’d order again for an event.

Can’t say enough great things! From ordering our food to set up they are great to work with.
For our holiday party we ordered the fajita buffet and it was delicious, rave reviews by all!
There followup before and after the party was a very nice personal touch. Highly recommend them for gatherings so you can attend to the party!!!

The occasion was sad — a family funeral. We needed a delicious spread for our huge family, we needed it quickly, and we needed it to be affordable. I was surprised when shopping around that Whole Food’s Catering prices are very similar to most other options in the Austin area, but are of much higher quality. You’re getting way more than you pay for.
The biggest plus was the team member who supported our order: Genefe. She made the difference. She was so incredibly helpful, warm, and supportive — not to mention that she made excellent suggestions/​recommendations (they have SO many options!). She tracked our order and made sure everything was perfect.
I highly recommended Whole Foods Market Catering, and I also highly recommend asking to work with Genefe.

Whole Foods catered our wedding last Saturday and every step of the process was easy, seamless and enjoyable.
The process is great:
1. Pick out your menu and if you want bartenders and alcohol provided (we provided the alcohol and used their bartenders)
2. Taste your menu on site at the Whole Foods Catering office in east Austin
3. Make any needed changes to your proposal
4. Show up to your big day, Whole Foods handles the rest.
On our wedding day, the bartenders and servers predicted our needs, made sure we had as much food as we needed, and never let our drink cups run out. We were purely blown away with the level of service and care we received on the most important of days.
It’s important to note that they ran out to HEB and picked up more snacks toward the end of the event. Above and beyond.
We will sing WF catering praises to anyone we can. Highly recommend. Thanks, Ashley and team!

Hired Whole Foods Catering for a lunch networking event. The delivery was 40 minutes late. The room was already packed when the food arrived. Very stressful! We had to cancel a portion of our post-​lunch program. The catering manager was unapologetic about it. She explained it was their normal way to do business… thanks, but no thanks. She was evidently annoyed to talk with me. She asked for my number and told me that her supervisor would call me back. They never did. Got it! Nice way to say fuck off. On the positive side, the food was good. It’s a shame the service didn’t match up. I would give them another chance, just for the food. Let’s see how it goes. To be continued…

My event (60 people at my house) was so nice and was SO much easier on me because of Whole Foods Catering! All of the guests loved the server and she and her teammate were on the ball, re-​stocking and bussing the room!
Aside from trying to figure out what to do with all of the leftovers (next time, I’ll just send them back for the staff!), I was amazed how much work was really taken off of my plate (pun intended). I will definitely use Whole Foods catering again!
I went with the pasta bar and everyone had compliments. The Whole Foods Catering menu was so much easier to plan from than Central Market and a much better value too.
Do it!

It took a few weeks for me to get any kind of proposal from Whole Foods when I first reached out about wedding catering. I was bounced from person to person, promised deadlines weren’t met, and I was asked the same questions multiple times (when the answers could have easily been found online).
But, in the end, after I finally got one dedicated contact and the menu was ironed out, it was really an awesome choice. Their food is reliably delicious and they’re great about accommodating any dietary restrictions. (Our wedding was all vegan, with plenty of allergies for good measure.) The value for the food itself is very good, and the value for the service is comparable to other caterers.
At our wedding, our two servers were incredibly professional, efficient, and independent. With very little guidance they did a phenomenal job. Highly recommend — just have patience at first!

We had a great experience working with Shannon at Whole Foods Catering for our wedding. She very patiently answered our questions and revised our menu (breakfast for dinner) multiple times, while always helping to keep an eye on our budget. We always felt we could ask questions and explore our options for the menu and rentals. She worked great with our venue & coordinator and, most importantly, we got rave reviews from guests about the appetizers, main course, and desserts. We also used Whole Foods’ bartenders and bar package and they took great care of our guests throughout the night. They even packed a special bag with food for us to take back to our hotel room that night, so we could sample some of the foods we were too busy to try during the reception!

The comment about the number of guests is incorrect.. I was charged for 39 guests. More excuses — a simple «we made a mistake would be appropriate and I’m sorry». You sent paper goods for 23 people. Even on the original invoice the number was 30, I’m very disappointed that whole foods would hire and keep someone with so little integrity.

Whole Foods has become my favorite caterer! I have used them for luncheons, dinners, receptions and even box lunches and have never been disappointed. I have experienced the highest level of service along with tremendously good food that is displayed and packaged to perfection.
Without exception, I have found them to be responsive, attentive and genuinely concerned with the success of my events. I recommend Whole Foods Catering wholeheartedly and without hesitation.

The whole foods culinary center classes are part of the reason I EVER became interested in cooking. I have been to over 5 classes — ranging from a weekday cooking course, a Hunger Games cooking course, seafood cooking, dim sum cooking, sushi, etc. It is important to note that all of the classes I’ve been to have been «Hands on» courses (there are different designations of classes, ‘hands on’ means you get your own station to work on)
And because I love lists, a few things I’ve noticed about classes:
1. All of the Chefs are VERY experienced —
The Lamar culinary center definitely takes pride in the chefs they choose to lead their classes. The chef teaching our sushi class had actually spent a lot of time in Japan, and explained how she worked her way up from someone who was just allowed to cook the rice, to someone who was actually given responsibility to make/​check the finished product being served to customers. It was informative AND really interesting!
2. They are not cheap about their ingredients —
I have to say — these classes are kind of expensive. But when you’ve been to one, you realize that it’s worth it. In many cases, the ingredients they give you would cost close to the price of the class. Beautiful salmon, lamb, and the freshest herbs and veggies are available for you to work with. Plus, for those of you who drink, you’ll enjoy the complimentary wine they put out for each class.
3. The learning goes beyond just recipes and cooking instructions —
You learn what to look for with ingredients, where you can get harder to source items, and the weird tell-​tale signs all chefs look for to know when something is done/​raw/​right/​wrong.
I could not be more thankful that I decided to take a few of these classes — they helped me understand how simple cooking could actually be, and helped me break through the lack of confidence I had.
Thanks for helping me learn how to adult, Whole Foods!
5 stars.

I was incredibly disappointed in the service I received from the entire team at Whole Foods Catering.
I first reached out to them to get a quote for my November 2014 wedding last spring and they were quick to respond and helpful. Things were very promising! I had been in contact with Leah, my rep every month or so until mid July when I had scheduled to have all the vendors meet me at the venue to do a walk through. I reached out to Leah the week before to touch base and didn’t hear back. Finally the day of the meeting I heard from Leah’s manager, Sara, that she was out of town and that the manager and another rep would come in her place. During the meeting I discovered from the other rep, Lora, that Leah had not quoted me the correct pricing for servers, only having servers there for 2 hrs of the 5 hr reception. Not promising. I asked to have Lora as my rep, apologies were made and we moved forward.
Lora was very helpful and actually helped me cut costs by bundling all my rentals together. She replied quickly and was very attentive. Until about a month before the wedding when I reached out to her about glasses and finalize numbers and got a reply back from Sara that Lora was gone. Sara apologized for the late notice but didn’t seem too concerned that I was now on my 3^rd rep in less than 6 months and just promised that everything was on a shared file and it would go well. At this point I could change caters being a month before the wedding so I stayed.
My last rep was Amy. I went over my whole contract again with her to make sure everything was correct. I had a custom cocktail that I gave her the recipe for and specified how it should be served. I wasn’t feeling super confident but figured they had everything they needed and my coordinator for the wedding had copies of everything so it should be ok.
The day of the wedding the rep didn’t show up, I was told they would in July but I suspect that got lost in the multiple reps I had. The managing person that came I had never met and seemed to have little knowledge of the plans. My custom cocktail featured a homemade sour mix and was to be served in a champagne flute. This was not done, the bartenders instead poured the drink into a pint glass. Because the 5 oz cocktail must have looked pretty small in the 12 oz pint glass, they made their own measurements and ran completely out of the cocktail mix in about 10 minutes. Once this was discovered my wedding coordinator had to fight with the managing caterer to have them go and get new sour mix.
The food came out slowly, we had passed appetizers so people were constantly looking around for food. We had a ton left over because they didn’t serve it quickly and then they didn’t put any of the food in the large refrigerator at the site so all of it was ruined when we came back the following day to clean up.
I had no follow up from Amy or Sara after the wedding either. Basically, Whole Foods Catering doesn’t put a priority on customer service and doesn’t care how product ends up.
Go somewhere else for better service. The only reason this gets 2 stars is because the food itself was good b

My husband and I were just recently married on October 17^th 2014. We had been to a couple weddings and events which were hosted by Whole Foods and decided we wanted to look into their services for our wedding! I reached out to them and was in contact with Amy Walker the Catering Sales/​Event Planner. From the first time we spoke on the phone and communicated via email she was very professional, provided suggestions, bared with us when we changed our menu multiple times and was just wonderful to work with. The day of the wedding the food turned out fantastic, our Mac N Cheese Bar was a HUGE hit along with everything else! My only complaint I received from a couple guests was they weren’t the biggest fans of the Brussels sprouts as they seemed under cooked. Besides that tiny complaint everything else was wonderful! Their customer service is fantastic and the food was delicious. I would recommend them and especially working with Amy!
We loved the take away box they prepared for us because as you know at a wedding you get about three bites of your food and then off to mingle, take photos, dance etc. It was a great touch and being able to eat at the hotel after the wedding was awesome!

I’m just going to post the letter I wrote to Whole Foods corporate this morning…
To Whom It Concerns:
I would like to express my incredible disappointment with the Whole Foods Culinary Center catering department. After reading reviews on Unilocal and WeddingWire I was really excited about using Whole Foods as a caterer for my upcoming wedding. It seemed like a perfect fit, with Whole Foods being headquartered in Austin, plus I could get the flowers and wedding cake there as well. I have been a long time Whole Foods fan, and regret to say that is definitely no longer the case.
On February 10^th, I first emailed Whole Foods inquiring about the catering services, as well as some questions I had. Every other catering company I have contacted has gotten back to me in a day or two. After two days, I called the culinary center and asked what the expected turnaround time would be for the email I sent in. A woman named Heather told me they usually got back the same day of the email, and that they must have never received it, and told me it probably accidentally went to the spam folder. I resent my original email and she replied back that she had received it and would forward it to the two girls that are the «resident wedding planners.»
February 18^th rolls around, and I still had not heard back from anyone at Whole Foods. I emailed Heather directly since she was the only direct email I had (as compared to the
), telling her that I still had not heard back.
A couple hours later I hear back from Leah (one of the «resident wedding planners») answering my questions. After I respond, she sent me a proposal to fill out, which I sent back to her the following morning (February 19^th).
It is now March 7^th. I have not heard from Leah. No one has responded to the proposal template I took the time to fill out. No one has called me. This is by far the worst response I have had from any caterer in Austin. I suggest you remove the email from the catering website, and probably not suggest that the catering center does weddings because quite frankly it was a huge waste of my time and a horribly disappointing experience.
Also, you will be happy to know that I did not have this experience with Central Market, and we are meeting with them on Monday to discuss our upcoming wedding reception.
Thank you,
Jessica

Whole Foods catered my wedding! The food was awesome and the staff did an amazing job. I chose Whole Foods because their food is consistently great and they did not disappoint. I am vegetarian and there were plenty of great options for carnivores and birds (like me) alike!
I have to subtract a star for a couple of errors that happened with payment and communication. Unfortunately, the original catering manager (Amye) left her job here at WF a month before my wedding, so I believe that it was probably a tough transition time when our wedding went down.
Anyway, they ended up accidentally charging an extra $ 1800 on my credit card! I also had to pester them a few times after scheduled payments were not taken on the day that they were scheduled. Of course they ended up remedying the situation, but just a word of warning. Watch your credit card statements, kids!
Overall, the experience was amazing and everyone was super impressed. I would definitely choose Whole Foods all over again for catering any event!

I’ve visited the WF Culinary Center for cooking events since it first opened a few years ago and let me tell you it is top notch! Every time I’ve been the food is beyond amazing, the teachers know their stuff, and you leave with a full belly and a list of great new recipes to try. My favorite event was an after work affair with only about 10 of us. It was much more intimate and we got to know the chef much better, even found out he brews his own beer — which of course we could purchase upstairs at the WF store. Pretty cool eh? If you are ever invited to one of these, or if you are ever looking to host an event that will impress clients — this is it!

My husband and I had the pleasure of working with Whole Foods Catering for our wedding on 3−23−13. We worked with Amye. She was awesome. No matter how busy she got and no matter how many times my husband changed our menu, Amye patiently updated our proposal. By our 8^th proposal I thought for sure we’d work her patience thin… NOPE! Amye smiled and was gracious with us down to the last staffing and equipment changes 36 hours before our wedding. She even negotiated with the linens people to keep our discount after we made a change to our linen colors after the promotion had expired.
The day of our wedding the staff was punctual and professional as they set up. I believe the 2 gentlemen’s names were Brandon and Zachary. They were friendly, courteous and helpful with all our guests.
The food was a hit. We chose from the Tapas menu (South America & Mexico) because our wedding was an informal cocktail setting and everyone raved about the food.
Whole Foods Catering from Amy to the wait staff to the food was top notch and all were a pleasure to work with. Above all, we were on a budget but the end result was still top notch quality.