Pure Kitchen Catering

Attended a wedding for my brothers beautiful young daughter. She was full of excitement and joy for months previous to this big event in her life. The City View Loft is great Chicago experience, thank God for the space. The dinner was a failure due to this catering group. The dinner was served family style, and that is fine… But roasted vegetables were served refrigerator cold, unseasoned noodles, pickled Cale was a good way to mask the strong flavor and chicken extremely dry… served at room temp. Only saving grace was salad. Healthy food is without question a thoughtful choice for quests at a wedding. This catering group needs to perfect the art of service and perfection in catering. Just because it is organic does not mean you can rest on the ingredients and not the final result. Went home and had a chicken bruschetta pasta, served warm, all organic.

It took me a long time to write this review. We used Pure Kitchen for my daughter’s wedding reception. It was such a disappointment that I worked hard to forget it but as we had such good experiences with the caterers for my two other children’s weddings it brought back all the bad memories.
It all started before the wedding when communication was awful and full of misunderstandings. With all of the issues I actually tried to get out of the contract which they wouldn’t let me do so we were stuck with them. With some of the feelings I had before the wedding itself I was hoping that I would leave the wedding and say well the frustrations were worth it because everything was outstanding. Unfortunately that was not the case.
Here are a few of the small things that we encountered.
Let’s start with the rolls. At least one table did not have enough rolls. When they asked for some they were told that there weren’t anymore. They certainly weren’t gourmet rolls. You would think they would have brought at least one per person. I forgot to ask about the rolls beforehand but at my son’s wedding this past summer that caterer told me he would have 2 and ½ rolls per person. They didn’t even have one per person.
Serving the buffet was very slow. We had about 150 guests. They provided only one line and one server. It was the slowest buffet line I have ever encountered.
We had chicken and salmon. Guests were told they could only have one. That was not what we had agreed on. I was specifically told that it would be 6 oz per person of each item. Even in telling the guests that they need to pick one or the other the pieces were extremely small. When my brother in law asked if he could have a little more the server told him. Listen buddy we have 170 people to feed. Who would say that to guests! This was so upsetting to us.
Next it was dessert time. The cupcakes were not served as we had agreed to. The people had to get up to get them. Coffee was not ready when dessert was served. .
Well how cleanup could go wrong is hard to imagine but it did! It was extremely slow and many of our guests sat with dirty dishes in front of them all night. We watched one server walking around at a snail’s pace picking up a very small amount at a time. We and some of our guests had to finish cleaning up many items ourselves. You did not bring proper supplies for cleanup. I needed to donate my bins to you and the servers were asking me for garbage bags.
My daughter choose this company-​I never would have-​because she was swayed by your organic line! Don’t be swayed by them. We have had two other weddings now and loved our caterers and it was delicious food.

Pure Kitchen catered our November wedding at the Bridgeport Art Center Sculpture Garden. The food was delicious and I am still hearing from our guests how much they enjoyed it! We did family style service and served chicken thighs, broccoli, mac and cheese, and salad. They were delicious in the tasting and also at the event.
I cannot say enough good things about the service both before and during the wedding. We worked with Courtenay from beginning to end. She did an amazing job walking us through the menu options and adjusting various elements to fit our budget. Pure’s prices were lower than a number of other vendors we looked at, and Courtenay did her best to make sure we were not paying for extra items that we didn’t need. She was always responsive and patient throughout my dozens of emails and phone calls. She even came to the venue walk-​through on a couple hours’ notice (because I forgot to invite her ahead of time) and provided valuable insight about the room set-​up and flow of the event. There were so many little details I never would have thought of, but Courtenay knew how to handle them. She was also very flexible with the contract, as our guest count fluctuated a lot in the week leading up to the wedding.
The night of the event, the service was prompt and all of the servers were extremely nice and helpful. They set up the room perfectly and we barely noticed them as they quickly flipped from the ceremony to the dinner. Courtenay was there throughout to help manage the flow. She did an expert job of being around when we needed her but never being in the way or asking too many questions of the bride and groom. I was incredibly impressed with the entire process and highly recommend Pure Kitchen!

We used Pure Kitchen Catering recently for our wedding. The food was out of this world! They were helpful in guiding us through our catering options and working within our budget. The sales staff isn’t the most responsive and that was frustrating through the planning process. But the night of the event, the servers were great and professional and all of our guests have commented on how great the food was.

Pure Kitchen did our wedding out at Camp Wandawega in Wisconsin Labor Day Weekend 2014, and I definitely recommend them. A special shout out to Courtenay — who was so responsive and a joy to work with. If ease in communication and a positive attitude from your vendors are top priorities, request Courtenay and you won’t be disappointed. Courtenay also schlepped all the way out to Camp Wandawega a few months before our wedding to connect with our other vendors and check out the camp, which was above and beyond, given it’s almost 2 hours from Chicago.
Everyone loved the family style food and there was plenty to go around. Catering a wedding at Camp Wandawega is no easy feat (there’s no kitchen — Pure had to bring everything in), so the fact that the service was so good is impressive. They also set a beautiful table — we used their blue speckled plates, which looked awesome. I hardly had time to eat anything, but from what we heard the food was very good. It did look a bit different than at our tasting (the squash not nearly as colorful, etc), but I suppose that’s what happens when you cook for 150 people without a real kitchen! The price was also right for us — we averaged about $ 85 per guest (including place settings, rentals, servers, equipment, etc.) when all was set and done.
The only downside was the bar. We gave the bartenders cocktail recipes and ingredients, which somehow they ran out of before the end of cocktail hour (they were supposed to last the night), and then the bartenders didn’t transfer the wine/​liquor from the outside bar to the bar inside our tent — so when guests asked for bourbon or white wine, the bartenders insisted they were out (when really, there was plenty still outside). If high-​class mixologists are what you’re after, I would that isn’t Pure’s strong suit.
However, overall we were very happy. This is a mid-​priced, organic, family style catering spot with no attitude — willing to do wedding pretty far outside Chicago. Hard to find and definitely a good bet.

Courtenay is the best! We got married at Greenhouse Loft in August and Pure Kitchen excitedly took on the challenge of creating a cohesive family-​style meal to please both our Indian and Midwestern relatives, and we even needed a few vegan dishes to boot. PK brought great ideas to the table and made everything happen within our budget. Courtenay was such a huge help throughout the planning process, and it was easy to rely on her and PK to get things done, leaving us with low stress. Several guests mentioned the food at our wedding was the best they’ve ever had! Courtenay and PK were a joy to work with, and more than delivered on our wedding day!

We got married this past weekend at Bridgeport Art Center Skyline Loft and had Pure Kitchen cater our wedding. I do not know what we would have done without such a great company and their staff. Monika was so helpful during the entire process, she answered emails promptly, was always willing to update our invoice when we kept changing our minds about things and went above and beyond the call of duty the day-​of the wedding.
Don’t let me forget to mention how FANTASTIC the food was as well! I saw people swarming the servers for the appetizers and found out later that guests were asking for plates of the appetizers to be served with dinner– they were that good! Every bit of the hay roasted free range chicken was juicy, the parsnips were cooked perfectly and I heard guests were begging the staff to bring out more of the macaroni & gratin sides (my favorite!). The late night snacks of potato skins and mini grilled cheese were a big hit as well AND our cupcakes and macaroons were literally the best dessert I’ve ever had. Almost every guests from of our wedding came up to us at the end of the night and complimented all of the food and the great service.
One more thing I wanted to note was that Pure Kitchen’s staff was absolute first class. We had several staff ask us how we were doing, if we needed any more drinks during dinner, if the food was ok, ect! And they weren’t just doing this for the bridal party, I found out later that they were genuinely interested in everyone’s experience that night and were making sure to do everything they could to please all of our guests.
I had the opportunity to stand in the cocktail area before I walked down the aisle and remember thinking to myself how beautiful everything looked, more than what I could have ever imagined. It was because of Pure Kitchen and Monika that our wedding went as perfectly as it did. We cannot thank them enough! –E&B

Cannot say enough great things about PK and Courtenay! We got married this past weekend and everything was perfect. We ended up going with a family style menu and everyone raved about the food and service, and the overall uniqueness of ‘family dining’ — we had a very specific cheese that we wanted for cocktail hour and sure enough Courtenay was able to find it for us. You won’t be disappointed! Great group of people and amazing food!

Pure Kitchen catered our wedding and did a phenomenal job. My wife and I looked around at several places in the city and not only was Pure Kitchen easily the most affordable for what we were looking for, they provided food and service that were much better than the typical wedding fare.
We worked primarily with Courtenay, and from our first meeting found her to be responsive, easy to work with, open about costs and options, and a really fun person to work with. She made our wedding planning feel easy, and worked with us through the months to pick a killer dinner menu, appetizers, and signature drinks.
The staff was great, we heard from several guests that they were really quick to get food and drinks to all the table but were never in the way. My wife and I really appreciated how they brought us a sample of all the appetizers and a drink right after the ceremony, giving us a few minutes to spend to ourselves and sample all the food. They also did an incredible job flipping the space between our ceremony and dinner (they were in the same location), and in the short time it took it looked absolutely incredible. We really couldnt be happier with the work they did and felt like for the amazing job they did we really got a bargain.

My husband and I got married in early January, 2014, at Greenhouse Loft and hired Pure Kitchen to cater our wedding. It was one of the best decisions we made. Throughout the entire process, Monika was perfect. She responded to emails very quickly, she answered all the questions we could think to ask, and then gave us advice for things we never even thought about. When small details were creating chaos and we made a million changes, it was never a problem.
Because of Monika and the rest of the Pure Kitchen staff, we were able to enjoy every moment of our wedding. The level of attention that we received was above and beyond what we could have ever dreamed. The set-​up was perfect, our guests loved the food, and everyone commented on how wonderful the staff was throughout the night.

We chose Pure Kitchen Catering for our wedding reception and they did a great job! The food was very, very tasty and we were proud to serve it at our wedding. We worked with Courtenay who was always willing to answer our many questions… thanks Courtenay you were awesome. She and the other staff were always timely with e-​mail responses and worked with us to determine the best menu, rental needs, and helped us work within our budget. The catering and equipment rentals for a wedding are plain old expensive, but after much comparison PKC held its own among other Chicago area caterers.
The only annoyance I had with PCK is the format of their appetizer tastings. The PKC main tasting includes the salad, side, and main entrée options. Then to sample the appetizer or dessert options clients must attend group tastings, which take place once a month and only include six options that PKC chooses (meaning clients most likely will need to go to multiple to taste what they like). The schedule of these events didn’t seem to be consistent or well communicated to clients. We eventually had to schedule a private appetizer tasting to finalize our appetizer selection.
All in all we enjoyed working with PKC and would send friends in need their way.

Pure Kitchen catered my wedding at Kitchen Chicago in April. They were terrific to work with – professional as well as fun – and the food was absolutely amazing! We had a slightly non-​traditional wedding and didn’t want to have a sit-​down dinner. Kat at Pure Kitchen worked with us to help us make our vision for our wedding a reality. She listened to our ideas and made excellent suggestions. She and the rest of the Pure Kitchen team also did a wonderful job with the rest of the wedding and reception including the layout for the ceremony, linens, tables/​chairs, etc. They really made the day go as seemless as possible right down to the tiniest details! Thank you so much Pure Kitchen!

This review is from mother’s prospective, not an overwhelmed bride or groom who are so busy at their wedding that they are not able to pay attention to any details and barely eat anything.
We had a family style dinner at my daughter’s wedding in ²⁄₂₀₁₃. The biggest problem was that they did bring enough food to serve everyone at the table and then acted surprised when asked for another platter. The timing of the meal was completely off. The side dishes arrived one at a time, and totally separately from the main dish.
The servers were not attentive, and did not care about the guests needs.
The dessert table looked terrible and very sparse and again I had to ask them to bring more items.
I could go on and on, but it suffice to say that the level of service was unacceptable and the overall execution was unsatisfactory.
My main reason for posting is to warn other potential customers and to prevent the
the kind of experience that I had.

I had my wedding a few weeks ago and it was catered by Pure Kitchen Catering. Pure Kitchen is as good as it gets. The pricing is reasonable, the employees are true professionals, and the food tasted great! Kat was great to work with– always quick to respond, organized, and really helped me out. Lizzie did our flowers… and I have nothing but the best to say about her. She is so nice and has great taste AND understood exactly what I wanted… need I say more? They were such a great team to work with and I was so happy with the way everything turned out.

I do quite a bit of entertaining and I’ve used the same company for 15 years. For my annual Oscar Party this company was recommended to me by a co-​worker so I thought I would try something different for a change. I called on Monday (6 days prior to the event) and spoke with Joshua in detail about what I was looking for. He said they would create a great menu and send me an email later that same day with options/​details. I never heard anything so I called the following day (Tuesday) and left a detailed message along with my phone # and email address. I never heard back, so I called again on Wednesday morning and spoke to someone who apologized and said Joshua was in a meeting until noon and he would call me back. I finally received a phone call from someone else at 1:30 (4 days prior to event) saying that they were unable to fulfill my request because they were catering Official Chicago Oscar Party. In my opinion, this is terribly bad business which leaves me in a very difficult situation with such short notice. I’ll continue using Catering by Michaels. They’ve always been excellent. Lesson learned. As they say, «If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

We used Pure Kitchen Catering for our wedding in 2012. I am sad to say that of all our wedding vendors, they were the ones who caused us the most stress and anxiety. A change in the primary point-​person of our wedding coupled with a lack of organization and communication led to major disconnect and stress in the days and hours before the wedding as well as some minor mishaps on the wedding day (the tables were set improperly — some tables had too many chairs, some had too few, and we didn’t have enough chairs at the head table, they had the end time wrong even though we went over it many times, the signature cocktails were not passed etc.).
After the wedding, though, they accused us of having 8 additional people at the wedding that day (we had two no-​shows, so they were actually implying that we had 10 unaccounted for guests show up). Even though I had provided numerous documents outlining the room set up and seating arrangements, the tables were still set incorrectly (there were open chairs at many tables, including my parents’). Therefore, they had the audacity to accuse myself, my husband, and our families of ‘sneaking in’ additional guests when the reality was that they had set the room up incorrectly. We tried many, many times to meet with Joshua and Kat after the wedding to sort things out, but after pushing us off for months, they stopped responding to our outreaches. So, this is our response.

I have to say that of all the caterers my fiancé and I met with, Pure had the fastest response time. We heard of them because they are an approved vendor at our wedding ceremony and reception venue: a place that places a very high value on green practices. They gave Pure high marks for that, which meant a lot to us as well. Along the way, we also heard from another bride who had used them in the past and she raved about what a good job they did at her wedding.
We dealt primarily with Coutenay and I cannot say enough good things about her. She was very helpful and assuring through the process and offered good advice, was very thorough, and very conscientious about following up without feeling pushy in the least. We came to them at a point in the planning process where we both felt a little burned out by decisions and overwhelmed in general, and that level of customer service was really refreshing and appreciated at that point.
Our tasting was fantastic and we were very well taken care of on that night. We met with Courtenay and briefly met the chef and another one of the representatives (I’m very sorry, but I forget her name just now) but they were all really great people and friendly and knowledgeable. They also were great at squeezing us in right after the holidays, which was kind of a crazy time for everyone — and in fact, when none of our other places were able to see us.
Though we did end up going with another caterer, I can honestly say that we were very torn and it was not an easy decision. We were very impressed with this place,

I looked into using Pure Kitchen (earlier this year) as the caterer for my upcoming wedding.
While they were very nice, and the food was overall very good (some things were excellent, and some were meh), it seemed that there was not a lot of flexibility in the menu (or at least not without a steep price).
Pricing is not clear (I didn’t ever get a sense that there is a line-​item list available), and things like adding a bread basket with olive oil would add up to crazy costs.
While I respect and appreciate what Pure Kitchen does, I signed with a different caterer that was more open about pricing and options and offered a larger selection.
If budget were not an obstacle, I probably would have gone with Pure Kitchen.

Pure Kitchen Catering did not make us feel that their company really was determined to go above and beyond to make our wedding extraordinary. They made us feel like a smaller job, delegated to inexperienced staff, and that our legitimate concerns were not worth a proper, professional resolution.
We heard from our guests that they were impressed with the food at our wedding; it surpassed their expectations. Sadly, the service did not surpass ours. Communication and day-​of service was extremely poor.
We chose Pure Kitchen because we felt that they understood our vision and passion for an innovative wedding meal. In the end, communication turned out to be the most important factor. We met with Joshua and Dan a number of times throughout our planning process, and I appreciated that they both attended these meetings. Communication outside of these in-​person meetings, however, resulted in errors, delays, and excuses rather than solutions.
1. Communication throughout our planning process was inconsistent and frustrating. When we first signed on with Pure Kitchen, they told us that new customers would get a 24 hour response time (which we did), and existing customers could expect a 48 hour response time. On average, it took our planner Dan 7 days to respond to any email, and those responses were usually prompted by a follow-​up inquiry from me and started off with an apology and/​or excuse. We tried very hard on our end to have everything decided and done at least one week ahead of time; it was incredibly frustrating to be haggling over a final $ 17 with 24 hours to go.
2. We would have appreciated an immediate greeting, and consistent attention. No one introduced themselves to us, or made a point to make sure that my husband and I had what we needed at all times. As the person in charge of the event, we would especially have appreciated a greeting, check in, or even a goodbye from Dan. We received none of the above: he waved to us from across the room after we sat down, and that was the last we saw of him all night.
3. The rest of the wait staff was courteous and helpful, and many of our guests commented on the friendliness of the bartenders. But when we and our parents sat down at our table, it took a good 5 minutes to place our drink order, and that was only after one of our guests flagged down a server at our request, and asked the server to come over to us. (The head table is kind of hard to miss.)
4. Dan promised me via email that he was waiting for final answers from the chef on some final questions we had about the ingredients for our food, based on our experience at the final tasting. These questions were never answered.
5. We were also extremely disappointed that a vegetable dish was completely omitted. This wasn’t a last-​minute add — it was one of our requests from the beginning. Not to mention, it was a dish that was quite meaningful to us, as part of our story! In fact, when we asked two separate servers when it was coming, each said it would be coming out shortly. It never showed up, and there has been absolutely no explanation as to why.
6. We were charged $ 6 per «bowl» of berries, which amounted to a ramekin per table. This was also supposed to be the non-​gluten dessert option for our guests.
7. Our custom-​designed cake looked awesome — if you overlooked the four fingerprints right in the middle of it. The cake sat out for hours on the dance floor. For anyone other than my husband & I to have a piece, each guest had to carve it off for themselves.
8. The end of a wedding is a good time for someone from the professional side to look out for the customers, i.e. the bride and groom, and take just a little more time to make sure they go home happy. We were charged for to-​go containers, but no one from the staff made certain that we left with any of our leftover food, and Joshua confirmed later that there had been extras.
Our expectations were not met, and food that we pre-​paid half of our budget for was not served. We requested a refund, which Joshua promised he would look into. He then chose to pretend that we had forgotten about the whole thing. When we followed up, he promised a check would be in the mail shortly. We told him the amount that we felt to be reasonable under the circumstances. That was the last we heard from Pure Kitchen — Joshua has not responded to any of our follow-​up phone calls or emails since. This is our response.

I’ve worked with Josh and the Pure Kitchen Catering Team several times and have attended a variety of events they’ve put together: cocktail parties, etc
They’ll put together a drink list and food according to your requests and make fabulous suggestions along with those. I would highly recommend them for any of your catering needs, big or small.