Broadway Catering & Events

Tom Romano & Linda Gilbert are phenomenal. Wonderful company that customizes every wedding exactly to the bride & groom. Thorough, professional, farm-​to-​table «sunset» cuisine with above and beyond effort. Broadway Catering exceeded my expectations in terms of food, drinks and wedding planning coordination! Thank you for giving us the perfect wedding day! :)

As several previous posters have said, the food is good but the service is lacking. I had a very mellow wine country wedding and chose them because they had a reasonable price point and could do set-​up of our tables, etc. The food turned out well, although I heard from a few guests that they seemed a bit stingy about portions.
The biggest issue that I had was that they were incredibly uptight, which made me a little uptight. They were very stressed about me not having a seating chart and doing a buffet and said it would take at least 30 minutes for people to find their seats, which wasn’t the case at all. They were very nervous about my brother running his own coffee bar, which turned out great. I wanted a very relaxed, low stress wedding and got that for the most part, but found their anxiety a bit off putting.

Giving this business one star because of the complete lack of professionalism. After looking at several caterers and getting a rough estimate for my upcoming wedding I emailed Broadway Catering to set up a tasting. Tom emailed me back to set up a date and time but kept talking about a meeting. After a couple of emails I sent one asking if this was just a meeting or if it was the tasting I had asked for. Tom replied and said that it was just a meeting. After the meeting they would send a formal proposal and only after that would they set up another time for a tasting. After realizing that their location is a half an hour drive from my home I sent Tom the following email, «Sorry for the all the questions, but why is it necessary to have an in-​person meeting to discuss the catering before we receive a quote or do a tasting? Can this not be done over the phone? Not to be rude, but it seems like a waste of time to drive all the way there and back just for a meeting.» We had been texting back and forth for an hour or more, but when I sent this I got nothing back. I assumed he just got busy and would reply later. After a few days I tried calling. I called several times, left a message, and sent another email asking someone to please get back to me. It has now been three weeks. No one has replied. Did I offend him? Who knows? I thought I was just asking a question. If this is what caters normally do, that’s all he needed to say. It’s really just childish. If you are not interested in my business that is absolutely fine– I have many options to choose from, but at least have the decency to say so so that I am not wasting my time trying to follow up.
Glad I discovered this early on and not after I put a deposit down! Definitely just not worth the hassle, especIally when planning a wedding.

Pros: Food was very good. People gave lots of props to them for the dishes they created.
Cons: We were very disappointed in our communication with Linda and especially Tom. In addition to many frustrating conversations with them, the day of our wedding they made us feel very rushed. Most people did not get to eat cake because they cleaned it up so quickly. We were left with a ton of leftovers.

Linda and Tom at BC&E can be credited with the success of my Bodega wedding this month, no questions asked. They hadn’t been recommended to me — I found them on Unilocal after the venue’s recommended caterers were all booked up for my date. But from the first inquiry we knew we had found a winner.
Once we described our favorite foods and potential cuisines, Tom whipped up a totally custom menu in less than a day. It was so hard to narrow down the choices — we knew he was our man. We weren’t able to do a taste test because we were planning remotely, but the food was so great — nothing cookie cutter, and I heard rave reviews all night. They even helped us set up an oyster bar due to our love for oysters, and when we said «italian» they went to «porchetta,» not «chicken parmesan.» Service was «invisible» but helpful and pleasant — just the way it should be. And honestly, their per-​person price was lower than any other caterer we talked to.
But they were so much more than their food! Linda is a total steal as a day-​of coordinator. For a few hundred bucks I got someone to manage everything all day, coordinate with my other vendors and with the rental company, check over my timeline, implement my entire set-​up flawlessly based on my cryptic notes, and keep things running on time during the event. Tom & Linda checked out the venue ahead of time since they hadn’t worked there, and immediately had a great vision for where everything should be set up — something I totally agreed with them on, although they were very flexible in working with my (kind of nitpicky) vision as well. Linda had really timely advice throughout the process to help things go smoothly. I’m not telling you the price, because she should totally increase it! In all the myriad of emails we sent back and forth, somehow I didn’t hopelessly confuse her! And at the end of the night, I knew she would take care of all the bits and pieces I had left hanging.
End of story — book BC&E for your wedding. :)

Broadway Catering catered our son and daughter-in-law’s rehearsal dinner at Thefethen winery just last week. It was fabulous! The reception was in the wine tasting room were the appetizers were set up, it was elegantly set up and the food was great. Then we moved outside to dining under the trellis in the garden area. It was beautiful! Our kids love ribs and chicken, so that was the menu. The side dishes included fresh vegetables and the dessert was fresh berries with cream. All of the guests raved about the food and service.
I also want to mention, that we contacted numerous other caterers around Napa for bids on the dinner. Many of them boasted their organic feed beef/​chicken, and vegetables; of course at a premium price. I asked Broadway to locally source whatever they could, and they were very agreeable, at a much more reasonable cost.

I struggle with 2 or 3 stars. Broadway Catering catered our daughter’s wedding, and we were disappointed. The service was very slow, some of the food was cold, and the chicken was very dry. It was unfortunate. I had to ask several times for things to move along (almost 45 minutes between the salad course, and when the buffet was ready). We had guests offering to bus dishes to speed things along. It was embarrassing. The day was not warm (not Broadway’s fault), so I asked if we could have coffee prepared during the dinner time, and was told there wouldn’t be enough coffee for later. I also asked if we could have pitchers of lemonade at the tables where there weren’t people who drank wine, but was told there weren’t extra pitchers, although they found one, and brought it later.
In short, we feel that the service and quality were not as they were represented at the interview. We were disappointed.

I am so, so happy and so thankful that we were able to work with Linda & Tom and their well trained staff for my recent wedding in Glen Ellen. Every step of the process was really a joy with them, and the final event went above and beyond my expectations. Thank you, thank you!
We had a lot of fun meeting with them initially and talking about our food preferences. We live in Sonoma county and love it here, and had a lot of fun talking about our favorite restaurants, our gardens, and the things we love to cook. We gave them a lot of freedom when it came to menu planning, we love interesting combinations, with our only request being we wanted to use locally sourced produce and products as much as possible, and they did not disappoint! The hardest part was choosing a menu from all the amazing internationally-​inspired options they sent us. I know for sure they used products from Strauss dairy, the Sonoma farmers market, and a local strawberry farm, I’m sure there was more.
Linda and I were able to do a lot of planning and communication by email, which is great for a working bride and makes it really easy to keep track of everything. She was quick to answer my looong lists of questions, and I was so thrilled that the answer to many of my questions was, «We will take care of that!» It made planning and wedding set-​up so easy. They had a lot of experience at our venue and had some great suggestions for décor. Day of, everything looked really spectacular.
The day of our wedding, we were actually moving a bit AHEAD of schedule, but they kept pace like it was no problem. We were extremely impressed. Their large staff of bartenders and servers were polite, attentive, and well trained. They did a really good job of making sure that my groom and I were well taken care of by bringing us plates of the passed appetizers, always making sure our wine glasses were full, and bringing us a dessert plate (since they knew we would be busy trying to visit with all our guests). I didn’t get to eat much, but what I did have was great — grilled spiced chicken with tomatillo-​avocado was great, and the plated salad was absolutely unreal! Heirloom tomato and peach, so good!
Should I need to cater an event in the future, I would not hesitate to call them again, and will highly recommend them to all friends planning Sonoma county weddings in the future!

My wife and I hired Tom & Linda to cater our wedding reception in Sonoma in August; we had 75 people at a residence. Wow, they did an incredible job. I was expecting a caterer to help with the food and service but they did SO much more.
We met with Broadway several months earlier and looked at several different, more expensive options. I was blown away by the tasting they did for us and all the advice they gave us on hosting the reception. They gave us recommendations on where to host a dinner that weekend, which wineries would be good for groups, wines to pair with dinner and more. They took a very, very complex event to which we both had wanted incredible detail and made it easy.
What else stands out was their flexibility throughout. We changed the menu a few times, had to shuffle numbers and generally had to navigate through change. They were so helpful and patient and then worked feverishly toward the deadline with the event looming. Another huge added touch was their work with the rental company– Linda coordinated it all once we picked things out. So she made the changes for us.
They were prompt the day of the event and set up, cleaned up and Linda generally hosted the event. She was our wedding coordinator.
All of this at a reasonable price.
They have my high praises and greatest recommendations.

My husband and I hired Tom and Linda to cater a party for our 25^th Anniversary last May (90 people, buffet style). What an incredible job they did! The food was outstanding, the service was above expectations!
The next evening Linda and two of her staff came into our home and prepared a dinner for 8 (multiple course, plated sit down). All of our guests, from both parties, had nothing but good things to say about the food and service.
We look forward to our next event with Broadway Catering.

Soroptimist International Sonoma Valley had Broadway Caterers prepare and serve breakfast and lunch for approximately 300 people who were mostly seniors from Sonoma Valley High School. Working with Tom and Linda was a pleasure. Everything went very smoothly, and the food was wonderful.
I would have no hesitation to work with them in the future.

We just had Broadway Catering cater our wedding on July 31^st. The event was absolutely spectacular. One thing that’s great about Broadway is they will provide your day-​of event coordination, and for us, that was definitely necessary as we had booked a venue that didn’t have any kind of coordinator.
The pros: Great food. The food served at the wedding exceeded our expectations. While our tasting with Broadway was good, what was served at the actual wedding was even better. All of our guests raved about the food (which for those of us who have several weddings under our belt, we know this is NEVER the case). Also, Broadway set up both our rehearsal dinner and the wedding reception and we had LOTS of little details that we wanted to make sure made it on the tables and various other areas. Setup was perfect for both occasions.
The cons: Well, the service did seem a bit lacking. On the day of the big event we had rented additional wine glasses for our tables as it was our assumption the catering staff would be filling these glasses with wine. That didn’t happen. Apparently, the staff that numbered probably 10 servers were too occupied with 9 heat lamps we rented to deal with empty wine glasses, including the bride and groom’s. Though the caterer insists that wine was eventually poured, it didn’t seem to us that happen. At least our glasses remained empty. Also frustrating, we had rented two water jugs so that our guests would have water once the caterer left the site. These weren’t ever put out and our caterer explained this as «being worried they would be damaged» though we had discussed on several occasions that the jugs would be put out and we would therefore not by bottled water as a result. When the caterer left at 11 p.m., we no longer had water. Finally, though we paid for coffee service, just as the coffee was put out, the caterer said it was time for them to pack up, so they put it out — but then packed it up so soon after, I’m not sure anyone ever got a cup.
At the end of the day, the food was fab, but the service to us felt lacking. I really wouldn’t recommend these guys for anything as big as say a wedding. And really, the icing on the cake was when we approached our caterers with our complaints (i.e. missing water, zero coffee, additional wine glasses that seemingly had no purpose) we were given a series of excuses rather than just a sincere apology.
For a small barbecue or less formal affair, go with them — the food is great. Anything requiring attention to service — go somewhere else.

Broadway Catering did an excellent job in the planning, preparing and carrying out of all aspects of our wedding! We met Tom and Linda on a rainy January day and instantly fell in love with their charming, funny, but professional personalities. They made us feel comfortable and personalized everything about our tasting and wedding set-​up.
LInda was wonderful as she took all the stress off us by coordinating the entire day. She called all of our vendors, made sure they had everything they needed and made up a timeline for everyone to follow. Both Tom and Linda even made special to-​go dinners for our band and photographers so they could eat and work at the same time. Little details like that showed us they knew what they were doing and actually cared about our wedding day!
It really means a lot to the Bride and Groom when on our wedding day everyone told us that the food was just delicious. Most people went back to the buffet two and three times.
Highly recommended!

I used Broadway Catering for a very important reception to welcome two of the world’s important food lovers, the President, and the Executive Director, of Cittaslow International to Sonoma. They came to celebrate Sonoma becoming the first Cittaslow in the United States. Our whole town was anticipating their arrival from Italy, and we needed to show them the very best of Sonoma’s hospitality and food. I invited the whole City Council, and other community leaders, to dinner at my home to welcome the Italian delegates. Tom and Linda worked with me to create a menu that included 100% local products from an area just a few miles from Sonoma. We wanted it to be a truly American, warm and welcoming experience for everyone there. The results were beyond my wildest hopes for the evening. The food was not only delicious, fresh, and local, it was beautful! The colors, and presentation, the combinations of dishes, all of these were worthy of five-​stars. And, from the homeowners perspective, I could not begin to say how wonderful the staff was. When I walked into my own home after they had been there that afternoon preparing the meal, there was a sense of calm in the house, and a sense of camraderie among their staff that I have never experienced in these sorts of events before. This staff has worked together for 12 years! They are friendly, kind, skilled, and a joy to have in my home. In fact, they left the place cleaner than it was when they arrived, and a sense of peace and satisfaction permeated the place. They know food, they are committed to using the freshest and best ingredients within the budget, and they are just plain wonderful people to work with. The highest honor I can give to Tom and Linda is that I have now entrusted them this summer with the catering of my only child’s wedding. You would be so fortunate, if they are available, to work with these two talented people and their staff. Is there a six star rating?

Sorry to hear about the bad experience below. Ours was the opposite.
They catered our outdoor wedding in Sonoma and were awesome.
It all started with a recommendation from a friend who plans events in Sonoma. We then met the owner and his wife? /​girlfriend? and were instantly comfortable with their personalities — very down to earth and friendly. We then had our tasting and the food was A+.
The day of the event they were professional, friendly and the food was awesome. We got a ton of compliments on the buffet. They even did a special plate for my mom who has several food allergies.
If we had to do it all over again we would hire them again without a second thought.

I have never experienced such unprofessional business owners in my life. The rudeness was so uncalled for. As a business owner myself, I would be out of business treating my clients like this.
As far as the food goes — how can platters/​bowls of food be put out with portions that would serve 10 – 12 people at an event with 100+ guests. Some of our group got so disgusted waiting in line for food, getting up to the food station and there being none left, that they «gave up» and had nothing to eat.
Extremely poor planning on the part of the caterers. At one point the rack of lamb was not only cold, it was raw — not even seared.
I would hate to see how they would handle a wedding!

This review is solely based on the ability of the caterer to communicate. My daughter and her fiancée went up to Sonoma for a tasting and settled on a menu with the caterer. They agreed no salmon, shrimp instead, with tri-​tip. They even worked out a rehearsal dinner menu. Tom and Linda said they could meet my daughter’s budget. A week later, she received an email with quotes for the price of salmon, filet mignon, no shrimp. NOthing they spoke about and settled on during their meeting was listed or price figured for a proposal. My daughter confused, thinking he had the wrong party, wrote Tom asking what was the confusion. She got a reply back that said «thank you for coming up for the tasting, but we will not be able to work for you» Thinking she may have offended Tom, questioning why the menu listed did not reflect what they spoke about, she called. No replies, no answering her calls. What’s up with that? She was initially very pleased with meeting Tom and tasting their food and hoped they would be their caterer. But after this unprofessional behavior, me thinks not!

Great food, truly attentive to the details from presentation to plating to taste, no detail is spared. Tom and Linda are amazing and have been in the industry for a long time. They have a passion for food and it shows. They truly know food and can translate your likes and dislikes into some of the best creations imaginable. Thanks for catering a great wedding. Multiple guests commented on the pork and tri-​tip and the overall meal as the BEST food they have ever had at a wedding.