Beaches and Backyards Catering

If you want to get married in Hawaii and are in search of a caterer, there is no better choice than Vanessa Hollinger at Beaches and Backyards catering. Vanessa was professional, responsive, well priced and prepared amazing food for my wedding of nearly 100. We had rented a property on the beach, and Vanessa and her team were able to accommodate the unique layout of the property. Vanessa was quick to respond to emails and phone calls and always made me feel like my wedding was her top priority, even up to a year in advance of my special day. Beaches and Backyards are an incredibly professional team and I know that my wedding wouldn't have been nearly as wonderful had they not been an integral part of it. My advice: use Vanessa's Beaches and Backyard catering group. From the appetizers to the main course, all of our guests were quite impressed. Thank you Vanessa for making my wedding an amazing event to remember! :)

They were AMAZING!! Came on time, work very hard with a positive attitude. and the food was INCREDIABLE... Do not be afraid to use them you will not be disappointed. They made my sons wedding even more perfect. THANK YOU Beaches and Backyards. Sharon Custer

I don't even know where to begin. Vanessa (Owner) did such an amazing job at out wedding last weekend. When I showed up at the venue, I was blown away at how beautiful everything looked. Her staff was helpful, proactive, and extremely professional. I felt like they were all working as a team to make my day the best is could be, and is was a success. The food is gourmet! I even ate left overs for 2 days after. My guests had a fabulous time and commented at how great everything turned out. I would highly recommend Beaches & Backyard Catering for any event. They truly are the best on the island!!! Thank you Vanessa!

I highly recommend Beaches and Backyards Catering! My wedding planner had worked with them many times and they came highly recommended by her and I wasn't disappointed! The Appetizers were delicious! People are still talking about the Ahi Poke. The dinner was also 5 stars! A great comment that I heard from one guest was "When I first saw my steak and fish I was wondering where all the sauce was but then I tasted it and I realized it was so flavourful it didn’t need to be smothered in sauce" People raved about the food all night long. The purple potatoes were also so tasty and such a great way to add in a little local flavour to the meal. Their staff was extremely professional and I would highly recommend this catering company to others.Thanks again Vanessa for your thoughful handwritten card! The Johnston'sSeptember 7th/2011

Vanessa and her staff were the best!! I asked for a fusion of Mexican/Filipino/Hawaiian food and wasn't expecting much, but Vanessa sure delivered!! Kalua pork taquitos w/ sweet chili soy sauce, tropical fruit gazpacho w/ li hing mui, mini spam musubi's...and those were just the passed appetizers!! The bar tenders were thoughtful and always remembered what drink I liked and made sure my glass was never empty :-). I would highly recommend Vanessa and her staff to anyone who asks, thanks Vanessa! Sonny and Jen Perez

Outside of how wonderful my wedding was, my guests talked about the food catered by backyards and beaches for months on end! They had a tent set up on site to cook some of the food whilst the main courses were prepared earlier that day. We also hired their bartender who kept everyone at the bar extremely happy. The wait staff was very professional and provided excellent service. If you want an excellent catering experience, I would definitely call beaches and backyards!

Thank You Beaches and Backyard Catering! The food was DELICIOUS! many said "the best fried chicken they've ever had" and the passed canape and french fries in cones are still being talked about! I recommend Vanessa and her team to anyone who wants to have great food and rentals at their wedding without ever having to worry about a thing! worth every penny!

Vanessa at Beaches & Backyards was by far, the best vendor I worked with for my wedding. She was so helpful throughout the whole process and gave advice about other aspects of my wedding that didn't include catering. The food she provided was DELICIOUS and my guests thoroughly enjoyed it. She provided us with a lot of options and they were all so good that it was hard to choose! I thoroughly enjoyed working with her for my wedding and would highly recommend her to any bride in Honolulu!

Vanessa Hollinger of Beaches and Backyards Catering was my rock during the planning process, and helped out so much more than you would usually expect from a caterer. I could NOT have planned my wedding without her.In addition to her amazing service, the food was excellent, and her staff were also great! People are still talking to me about the food from the wedding, six weeks later. My vegetarian friends thought that our food was some of the best things they had ever eaten, and even my picky little sister is still talking about it. There was really something for everyone, and everyone was able to try out new foods that were innovative, but still accessible to the less adventurous palate. I also found her prices to be very reasonable for the quality and quantity of food she prepared. In addition, Vanessa provides a lot of her own equipment and will help with set up of tables and chairs, which can save a lot (some rental companies charge per item for this).Basically, Vanessa was a superstar! I highly recommend her services.

DELICIOUS food that wowed guests (and bride and groom!) - Warm, friendly service and waitstaff - Super flexible for dietary needs (created a custom option for my dad who has dietary restrictions). Vanessa was super helpful, accommodating and a pleasure to work with. She was particularly patient when I changed my guest count and menu for the 100th time. Her team is very professional and most importantly, the food is GREAT. The Kahuku Coconut Shrimp and Beef Tenderloin Crostinis were a HIT and the Pacific Rim, Hawaiian and Grilling Stations were amazing. Well worth it. USE THEM for your wedding or event!

I don't know many caterers who can pull together a feast of sweet potato fries, gold fish crackers, marshmallows, sushi and I don't even know what else. The food for my wedding was AMAZING!! Vanessa and her team put together the most wonderful wedding feast from my crazy requirements. As is typical of a bride on her wedding day, I didn't get a chance to eat much (though I made sure to eat my sweet potato fries which were sooo yummy!!) My husband made sure to get a plate and loved everything he ate. All our guests have told me over and over how wonderful the food was. Being a preschool teacher with 12 children in my bridal party and many more in attendance, Vanessa put together a Keiki table with all the kids favorite foods...guess what?! From what I hear it was the adults favorites as well!! Another major feat she pulled off was my insistant desire to have Dairy Queen Ice Cream Cake for my wedding cake. The nearest Dairy Queen was over an hor away, they didn't deliver, and no one had a freezer large enough to store my 8 cakes. Vanessa (and her sister Alicia- my wedding planner) contracted out a baker friend to pick up the cakes and deliver them in her van to be delivered just in time to serve. I couldn't believe it but the cakes made it and their friend added some beautiful flowers to make it look like a wedding cake! It was amazing! I almost cried when I saw it!! In addition to my crazy requirements, Vanessa also had the difficult job of working with my father, located in NY, via email to ensure the menu was up to his requirements as well. NOT an easy task. In fact it was the main reason I hired Vanessa to begin with. I couldn't handle it anymore! She rose to the occasion and though my NY father was a little frustrated that things were often done on Hawaii time, overall he was extremely impressed with the end result. One initial concern he had was how do they keep the hot food hot and the cold food cold? No problem! The Beaches and Backyard team set up a pretty tent off to the edge of the property where they cooked all the hot food so it was fresh upon serving. It was an amazing day and Vanessa really helped save the day taking over the catering! I would highly recommend them. Mahalo!!!

Vanessa was a great to work with. She was really flexible with our guest count & menu. The pupus we had were fantastic...everyone raved about them: mochiko chicken bites, pork hash, & mushroom spring rolls (also poke we brought ourselves from Yama's). Our dinner was miso salmon, pulehu tri-tip, grilled veggies, and mac nut rice--yummy. The prices were really great too. We initially wanted to go w/ Catering Connection, but they didn't fit our budget. Vanessa's full catering price was HALF of theirs, which was awesome! We used a bartender from them and he was great with the guests. We did bring a few things of our own (poke & ice cream), and Vanessa's team plated/served them without any issues. My only complaint is that since we were planning from the mainland, Vanessa's email response time was sometimes longer than I would have liked. Whenever we called her, though, we always got a response within a few hours.

Vanessa and her staff did a wonderful job at our wedding, very professional. Our food received many compliments from our guests, and was a big hit overall.

The Beaches and Backyards had amazing food. All of my guests (including the two of us:) were all impressed with how great the food was! I just wish I could eat more at the reception! The only things I was not very pleased with is that they told us we will be served at the head table, but during the reception, we were told to get up and go to the buffet ourselves. it's not that big of deal, but it was stated on the contract that we would get served. Also, they told us they will put lemons and limes in our variety of drinks, but there weren't any. But after all, we did love the food and Vanessa was pleasant to work with!

Beaches and Backyards truly did an amazing job with the catering and rental equipment. I wasn't able to contract a wedding planner, but vanessa and her team take care of so much, it wasn't even necessary. She's super accomodating and helpful, not to mention her food is out of this world. I only regret not being able to eat more of the food during the reception. Only issue I had was the length of time it took to receive a response to my email inquiries. The Company is relatively new and growing quickly (because her food and work is so amazing), so I understood why it took a while to hear back. All in all, my husband and I were incredibly happy with the way everything turned out. Small company with big results--absolutely fanstastic.

Our experience with B&B Catering was a real mixed bag. There were some real highlights, such as the quality of the food and it's presentation, however there were some real lowlights, namely the speed of response to emails and phone messages and an overall feeling of low customer satisfaction.Firstly, the highlights:The food was amazing! Every dish was perfectly presented in a buffet format exactly the way that was described before the wedding. It was freshly prepared in a private area out of the view of guests and the timing of the dinner was ideal for the freshness and temperature of the food. Many guests commented on the quality of the food and we at the bridal table enjoyed every bite. Being vegetarian, we were thrilled to find a vendor who was accomodating to our dietary needs. Vanessa worked well with us to form a nice mix of dishes that gave our guests both some hearty options and salad-based mixes. We were so proud to have this food on the table to our guests, knowing that they would enjoy the vegetarian food immensely even though several were non-veggies.The presentation of the tables, chairs, linens, plates, cutlery and chargers was exactly what we had hoped for. Everything looked beautiful, including the dancefloor and we were delighted with the layout and presentation.The lowlights:Generally, the only lowlights of our experience with B&B Catering were BEFORE the wedding. (The only lowlight at the wedding was that none of the staff from B&B said hi or congratulated my husband even though he had helped plan the catering with them on the phone even though they walked past him several times)In a bullet point format the lowlights for our experience with this company are:- Business hours are very limited. We were told not to contact Vanessa on a Friday (or the weekend) OR after 2pm on any business day! Thus, given our time difference from Australia, we found Vanessa to be frustratingly unavailable. - All phone calls were initiated by us. No offer to 'call us back' or 'can I call you?' was ever made from B&B.- Very, very slow replies to emails of normally 1 week for some simple questions or requests.- Slow changes to contract (e.g. 1 week or more, depending on the number of reminders sent by us)- A phone manner of 'everything is so wonderful and really great' was frustrating for us to hear since we were continually chasing things up.- Given that our wedding was non-alcoholic we were told that we had to pay for all of our non-alcoholic beverages on top of the agreed contract with B&B Catering. Thus we were advised to 'go to the store and buy the beverages AND mocktail items for our mocktail reception ourselves!' We objected to this strongly as we had overlooked this clause in the contract (who goes to the store and buys the mocktails for their own wedding?!!) and thus Vanessa compromised with us and covered the major portion of these drinks. My father did purchase some more soda and other beverages as a backup!Final comments:B&B Catering present outstanding food in a professional manner. However, leading up to the wedding we continually felt frustrated with the quality and frequency of communication. It was a feeling of relief when it all turned out as well as it did in the end.