Food For Thought

Throughout the planning, booking, and execution of our wedding, one vendor stood out above the rest. Meaghan Tiberio and her team made sure that we felt prioritized from the second we met them. They had a wonderful catered tasting ready for us at their test kitchen. They were prompt in communications. They ensured that all of the food options met our guests' needs.

They did a wonderful job managing our venue space. Their servers made the meal feel elegant, rather than catered. But above all else, Meaghan personally made sure that me and my wife felt taken care of, including helping us with other troublesome vendors. I would highly recommend FFT to anyone booking a wedding in Chicago. 5 star experience.

Last night this establishment was shot up WITH the employees inside. One employee that was there- who is also a mother of an 11 year old daughter- was almost shot in the head last night. The bullet just BARELY missed her head, but you know what the manager told her and the others that were there? He told them to STILL come into their shift the following day (today) after one of them LITERALLY almost died! Oh!

And PLEASE keep in mind that he didn't even bother to check on the lady who had a bullet fly past her head! From what I remember, the manager on duty was Jolie. Idk, you'd think an establishment would be more concerned for the needs and mental health of their employees after a traumatic near fatale incident, but instead they're just forced to act like nothing happened. No time off, no nothing.

Where to begin?! Our entire experience with FFT and Lorena was incredible! We had such a blast creating our dream menu. Lorena was an absolute dream to work with. Super responsive and totally understood the vibe we wanted. From start to finish we were wowed by everything and everyone at FFT. They were able to accommodate every single allergy and dietary restriction ensuring everyone had a fabulous meal. Our guests can't stop raving about how amazing our food and cocktails were and how incredibly attentive and kind the staff were on our big day. We are so grateful!

We'll never look at wedding food the same thanks to Food for Thought! Meaghan exceeded our expectations at every milestone, helping us orchestrate the evening and plan the menu of our dreams, customized with food that made sense for us and our guests! We could not have been happier with the delicious food their cooked for us, as well as the exceptional service from every person involved. Thank you, FFT! We could not recommend more highly to anyone considering world-class catering services.

Our daughter got married at the Adler Planetarium this weekend, catered by Food For Thought. Our advisor was Dana. The entire experience with FFT was flawless. The menu choices totally matched our vision and the tasting gave us a chance to tweak it even more. The real thing was even better. FFT also offers wedding planning. We decided to take advantage of their day-of planning and engaged Dana's services for that purpose.

Day of? No, She began her planning with our daughter and us 2 months in advance. She helped with timelines, vendor coordination and anything else we needed. She was always, always upbeat, accommodating and responsive. To say she went above and beyond anything we expected would be an understatement. Thank you, FFT and especially Dana.

Food For Thought was the easiest, most enjoyable, and rewarding catering company I've worked with. I was in charge of a lunch for 25+ people for a school department and F4T helped make the event a success. They were great communicators. The responded to emails and phone calls promptly, and gave me a quote for a meal incredibly fast (within half a day) with food descriptions, quantities, and total cost.

They were able to meet me where I was at. I don't know much about what makes a great meal, but I told them our budget and dietary restrictions and they came up with a great meal. I even tried going DefaultVeg where 70% of the course was vegetarian and 30% was meat and they helped to accomplish this. And when I needed to shave off cost to meet budget restrictions they quickly gave me a new quote by changing food quantities. People were satisfied. Everyone in our program enjoyed the meal. It was a conversation piece and filling. What a treat! Will use again.

We worked with Brian for our wedding and I can honestly say that from our tasting to our wedding itself the food was absolutely amazing. Not only did they plate things uniquely and have a variety of options, but they went above and beyond to help create a donut wall and drink wall for our guests. These details really made a difference and the quality of everything was more than we could have expected.

There were so many people who complimented the food, the staff and the drink wall. Thank you Brian and the rest of your staff for an incredible wedding. Highly recommend for any event!

We had our wedding catered by food for thought and it was incredible. The appetizers were unique and delicious with excellent presentation. They did an entire customized dessert bar for us and blew it out of the water. The professionalism, linens, everything was 100%. Highly recommend.

My daughter-in-law hired them for her wedding 5 years ago. The tasting we did before was absolutely wonderful but at the wedding the chicken entree was totally inedible. As I walked around to the tables, the guests were trying to be polite but obviously they couldn't even cut it with a knife and fork to eat it. Most of it was left on the plates. It was so embarrassing and of course how awful for the bride and groom!

I wondered if because her wedding was small with under 100 guests, perhaps they sent their B team who couldn't execute. The food was all prepared in their kitchens and trucked in and reheated. but they had used this site's kitchens before and certainly knew the equipment since they were one of the 3 recommended caterers. So no idea how it went so wrong.

But today, my friend said she was thinking of using them to cater a party. and then I told her that was the group that served at my son's wedding - which she attended -- and left hungry! Since most of the reviews here are great, maybe it was just a sad one-off event. But, if it's YOUR wedding, well. They gave her some money back, and apologized, but all our guests left and the only food they had was Food For Thought.

5+ stars for Food For Thought! Anna Ditton is a true professional and made our vision come to life for our postponed wedding reception (245 people!) at Theater on the Lake. Anna is extremely knowledgeable, creative, responsive and was an absolute joy to work with. Due to covid, we weren't sure if we were going to have 100 people or the full 250 as we hoped. Anna created multiple proposals for us to reflecting the different capacities/options.

This was extremely helpful for peace of mind and budget purposes. The tasting was our favorite part of wedding planning (obviously) but for so many reasons. Anna and team created the perfect package for us after we got to hand pick the items and try out the delicious speciality cocktails on site at FFT. This made the process so much easier as we got to see the linens, napkins, chairs, flatware, glassware, etc. in person prior to our day.

The food was fantastic, specialty drinks were a huge hit (especially the Blueberry Fields Forever) and the service from the FFT team couldn't have been better. It rained on our wedding day but Anna had a plan B for our cocktail hour and moved it inside, making sure it looked just as we'd imagined. We're so happy we chose to work with Anna and the FFT team and I highly recommend them for a large wedding. Thank you Anna and team! Reception photos by @annkamphoto Florals by HMR Linens by BBJ Linen Cocktail signage by Steracle Press

I'm usually not one to write reviews but since my daughters wedding on April 2, I have had so many comments from the guests about how great the food was. I know I thought it was but you never know how others feel about their dish. Not only did they say it was delicious but that it was the best food they have ever had at a wedding. The service was was efficient and timely as well. Lorena was wonderful to work with. As pandemic restrictions were easing up around the state we were able to make their wedding happen.

I used this company for a small home baby shower I hosted this month. Before even contacting them, I fell in love with their menu options. For most of the baby shower planning process, I knew I wanted to go with mostly room temperature type lunch options. Most other catering companies I came across online had the same boring sandwich options (ham and cheese, tuna, etc).

The sandwich options at Food for Thought offered more unique items. The ordering and delivery process was very smooth. I'll list the menu options I ordered below. I only ordered 2 dozen meatballs for 11 people and should have ordered more since they were a big hit with guests. Sandwich Platter: Jamaican Jerk Chicken Wrap Turkey Fresco Kicked up Chicken Caesar Wrap Grilled Eggplant and Bell Pepper Sandwich House Salad Bowl Fruit Skewer Black Angus Beef Meatballs (bourbon and bbq braised)

We worked with FFT for our wedding at the Planetarium in September of 2020. Annie and Daniella were both AMAZING during this crazy time. We were able to have a tasting and felt very safe in doing so. All of the food was so good, it was tough to narrow down what we wanted. Our guests RAVED about the food we chose. We were very pleased with the quality and service of FFT.

Food for Thought is AMAZING! We had the best experience all throughout - from the tasting to our wedding; everything was perfect. My wife and I went in for our first ever tasting, not expecting much, but we were stunned. We ended up hiring them by the end of our tasting; it was my birthday as well and then even gave us a cake to have because of it.

Through and through, Lorena was exceptional to work with. She made this entire process so easy; she went above and beyond to help us with any questions and requests we had. We got married on 3/7/2020 and the food was INCREDIBLE; we still have guests to this day ask us who our caterer was and that the food was delicious. The entire staff was so nice, professional, and hardworking. We cannot recommend Food for Thought enough!

Wow, what an amazing experience (even for those of us who call ourselves foodies)! The food was prepared to perfection. One of our guests has been a lifelong butcher and he said the short rib that was served was DELICIOUS! The service was well-executed and entire staff was polite, hard-working, organized, and was attentive to every detail. As bride & groom, we had our own personal server who made sure we had first taste of everything and got seconds if we asked.

All of our guests felt very well taken care of. FFT also went above and beyond with our desserts which my husband got very excited about customizing; we had skillet cookies and mini cobblers as well as mini cinnamon donuts + apple ciders before the ceremony. He was not super happy with the cookies at the first tasting, so FFT had us back for a round 2 of cookie tasting at which point they were perfect, and this was reflected at the wedding as well.

Thank you for making our wedding even more memorable! Multiple guests have told us that our food was the best they had ever had at a wedding. From the beginning we were delighted with how flexible FFT was about what we wanted, and that they got excited right along with us. They made us feel that any of our wedding food dreams could be achieved - which in the end was true!

I cannot possibly sing the praises of this team enough. These guys are professional, kind, easy going, fun and amazing. They executed our wedding day menu perfectly and the food was unreal! Honestly, we tried several caterers and these guys were the tops no matter what. Even the tasting was done with such care and attention to detail. It made me so happy to see everyone so happy and not to mention that they were caring and fun to work with. I could not have asked for better. Thank you to the amazing team!

We used Food For Thought as the caterer for our wedding and they really took care of everything! Megan gave us so much support throughout the whole process. She was extremely attentive and professional. She really listened to what we wanted and was a real joy to work with. The tastings were a lot of fun and their offices were great. On the day of, the food was delicious and the service was very fast and impressive looking! They made our signature cocktail just perfectly and handled returning the extra liquor to Binny's. Many of our guests commented on what a great job they did.

Day 5 after the wedding and I am still getting texts/emails about how amazing and delicious the food at our wedding was. FFT delivers through service, presentation, and taste! I was also blown away at our tasting- they made it so personal and the space was beautiful--make sure to make it a date night. and you can invite an additional 2 people - so bring some fun friends!

Food for Thought was a great choice for our catering. They helped us try everything during our busy day, and that was nice, because their food tastes amazing! the thought of the salsa verde makes our mouth water and the olive oil they used was such a high quality. After one month we are still thinking about their food and getting ravishing reviews from our guests! On top of all this they are extremely accomodating - even turning one of our signature drinks into a popsicle to offset the hot day :-

Easter Brunch at the McHenry Country Club was AMAZING! The food was delicious, the activities (Easter Bunny, photo booth, egg hunt) were super fun, the service was great and the decor was beautiful. The event director, Krystal Curtis, did a FANTASTIC job with this event. We will definitely be back for Mother's Day Brunch!

Food for thought was great. We worked with Lorena and she was very accommodating of our needs and responsive to all our questions/inquiries leading up to our big day. On the day of our wedding, the staff was again accommodating of last minute changes and the food, service and bar went well. My only issue was the chicken that was served to my husband was a bit dry, but everything else was fabulous. We got many compliments on the vegetarian meal!

We were recently married at Bridgeport Art Center. VenueLogic, who manages the venue spaces, provides a long list of preferred / exclusive vendors to select from and, from the onset, FFT was one of the few caterers that seemed to even read our RFP and tailor their proposal to what we were looking for. They were slightly more expensive than some of the other options we were considering (though by no means the most expensive), but we knew we wanted the meal to be memorable for our guests and our tasting convinced us the extra expense would be worth it.

I honestly can't say enough positive things about Lorena; hubby, in particular, can be pretty high maintenance - Lorena was super responsive, made us feel comfortable, and well taken care of throughout the whole process. We've received so many compliments from our friends and family about FFT's food and service. One of the servers, Portia (sp?), was amazing - she was literally everywhere making sure everyone's needs were met (in addition to the quality of the food, we had numerous guests call her out by name). The event supervisor, who's name escapes me, was also very attentive. Thank you FFT!

We had to go with the Food for Thought catering, as they were the only caterer that was authorized to work with Adler Planetarium, where we wanted to have our wedding. They were professional and responded timely to all questions and issues. The tasting featured great food, and we were really impressed and happy. However, at the wedding, our chicken entrees were dry, flavorless, and overcooked and lacked flavor and were not plated the same way as we asked for. I, the bride, essentially, could not eat what I ordered.

And that was sad. My husband and I are both very experienced cooks, and I have to confess it would be difficult to mess up chicken breast worse. Multiple of my guests commented that the chicken entrees were not good. Our vegetarian entree was mediocre. We complained to FTF and they refunded the price of the chicken, but how about the fact that at my wedding, I did not have a dinner, because the food was so bad?

How about the fact that I am embarrassed in front of my guests? The prices of linens and chair rentals were in thousands and even when we dropped the count of tables and chairs, the prices did not change much, and when we asked to explain why, we were told that it was not all linear, that they had a special software calculating it. We asked to see the itemized prices, but they declined. I actually can't believe that still! The company lacks transparency, and I would not recommend going with them.

I started to plan a very small informal reception for a few friends to meet my daughter's fiancee. My building manager recommended this company. I was randomly connected with Dana Morones. She initially made some off-the-mark suggestions, but after sending me a menu by email I selected some items and made changes to suit the informal nature of the event, thereby cutting down on the estimated cost. Dana was passive in this process.

She did not come to see the venue or do anything other than a few emails. Unfortunately the engagement was called off, 2 months prior to the selected date. I am now told I am liable for 50% of the deposit. I am disappointed in this response.

My husband and I used food for thought for our wedding in October. They did an amazing job ensuring our wedding day was the most magical day of our lives. Everything from the food to the planning leading up to it with our consultant Elyssa was spot on. I would absolutely recommend food for thought catering for any and all special events!

We visited our relatives in Chicago for Thanksgiving and they catered food from this caterer which included turkey, ham, bread, stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, brussel sprouts, ginger carrots, and desserts. We had a fabulous meal which was delicious and talked about for days. This caterer is definitely worth the money for the quality food. Thanks for making our Thanksgiving a memorable one.