The Picnic Basket

I have followed the Picnic Basket for years and have never been less than pleased with their professionalism, attention to detail, and quality of both product and service. The staff has always been courteous, friendly, and very attentive to our needs. Whether it’s a business lunch, family gathering, or special event The Picnic Basket will more than exceed your expectations. I recommend them regularly and highly!

Irresponsibility, hostility and dimwittedness is what defines this business on every front (it is certainly is not customer service).
I’ve used this caterer 4 times in total, one time when they did informal finger food they were decent, a solid B, and twice they were convenient and the food was passable (not remarkable, casual but ok, a C/​C+), then it fell apart and they were a nightmare in every way. Then didn’t listen, follow directions nor communicate, and when they made a mess of things they were rude and tried to shirk their responsibility and blame the client.
I ordered lunches for a party, simple small plain steaks either NY strip or filet mignon. They said they could do the order and took my payment info. Over the course of the two weeks prior to the event I called them 3 time to make sure they had the order correct, which, when Rachel (the person who «manages» orders) eventually got around to calling me back, she assured me it would be fine. SURPRISE! I go to pick up the order ½ hour before the food was to be served, and The Picnic Basket took it upon themselves to create a revolting thinly sliced beef dish smothered in garlic and some marinade that smelled rank and tasted like vinegar. With 30 minutes to go they had no backup plan for what to do or how to solve the mess they had created (note to owner: washing meat before serving is not considered a back-​up plan). Needless to say 100% of the order was dumped in the garbage! To then ice the cake of their incompetence, the dimwitted catering front of house lady hostilly attempted to blame me for them getting the order wrong because «I didn’t order off the standard menu”(despite them taking my order, arranging payment and confirmed that order in the weeks leading up to the event) – no apology for ruining the entrée for a party and no sense of responsibility or accountability, just unfounded irreverence.
If you call your business a catering service then make the orders you agree to and hire a staff responsible and smart enough to provide that service and interface with customers. If the only dishes you are capable of executing are chicken nuggets and sandwiches, then be a deli or sandwich shop and don’t pretend to be a caterer. To then stretch out this exasperating saga, the customer service after the fact was dreadful. I was told Rachel would call me to make the matter right. No communication from Rachel, a week later I call her and she thinks it would be generous for them to have me pay for 50% of the order that they took it upon themselves to ruined 100% – talk about ridiculous. Catering is a people business created of equal parts food and customer service (listening, working with people, and problem solving smartly when errors occur etc…) they fell short on all possible accounts, created a mess for the client and handled it terribly.

I am an employee at the Spring Luncheon that this person is talking about. I completely disagree with his review. For one, the food ran out due to not doing a head count correctly, but he yet to mention that food was brought in promptly to cover. Second, if the food was not good, where was all the left over? Third they have catered twice but if it was so bad the first time, why were they asked back? The Picnic Basket did extremely well under the circumstsnces. The food was great and hope they return, if you do not like you can skip Spring Fling next time. Our dept had no complaints. Great Job Picnic Basket. Bar B Q was on point!

2 years in a row they’ve catered our organization’s spring lunch. 2 years in a row the food was mediocre to bad and ran out before everyone was served. I don’t understand. This is an RSVP event so they had a headcount. But they still ran out of food before roughly ¼ of the people were served. We were left to wait over 20 minutes for them to refill only one of the main buffet trays. It was BBQ. It was mutilated into minced meat, not pulled like it should be. Rolls were stale. Potato salad tasted like eating a straight spoonful of yellow mustard; disgusting. Veggie burgers were dry and tasted lousy.

Though I haven’t been to their on-​site location, I have worked with the Picnic Basket on a handful of occasions; these were for catered functions at a previous job. I first met Eric (if memory serves me!) when he stormed the office to introduce himself to the event planner/​coffee-​orderer (raises hand: yes, I was that minion). He’s the marketing/​general go-​to guy at the Picnic Basket. He was talkative, confident, and a little pushy. He really wanted us to try their food. I decided to hard-​ball; they company had its annual «cleaning day» coming up. On cleaning day, we purged our offices and then stuffed our bellies, usually with pizza. I asked whether he’d be willing to cater the event gratis. He seemed a little daunted when I told him it would need to be full lunch for 50+ employees, but finally agreed. They didn’t disappoint. Eric himself showed up ahead-​of-​time to deliver and set up an assortment of sandwiches, a bowl of pasta salad, another of fresh fruit, etc. He also brought plates, napkins, and silverware. I was impressed at the amount of food and the care he took in setting up, considering they weren’t making a dime off of us that day. The level of service encouraged me to add The Picnic Basket to the list of caterers that I rotated through. I used to fax my order in, but they now offer the convenience of ordering online! The food is fresh, though certainly not gourmet. I’d definitely recommend them for casual get-​togethers.