Russo's Catering — Local services in Overland

Oh, Russo's, where to begin?

I have past experience with Russo's through their Easter and Mother's Day brunches (which are both excellent, although now I may never go back). When my husband and I chose The McPherson for our wedding, we were totally comfortable using Russo's. The Russo's coordinator that works with The McPherson is Kathy Costello.

Before I go any further, I'd like to say that on our wedding day (3/23/19), the food was EXCELLENT. The service staff was EXCELLENT. The cake was EXCELLENT. That is literally the only reason they're getting more than one star.

Kathy was almost impossible to get ahold of from the beginning. She would take days and weeks to respond to emails and calls. We did an initial phone conversation and then I didn't really hear from her again for like 6 months. We almost missed the November tasting because we were never contacted about it. Our 50% payment was due in the first week of January and she never contacted me with an invoice. When I contacted her she said she'd send something out but never did.

I emailed her about 5 weeks before the wedding to get our food choices set - although reaching out really should have been HER job - and 10 days later, when she emailed me back, she said we could do a phone meeting because she "already had most of our choices". I asked for an in-person meeting because I was a little confused already at this point, and she agreed to meet in person (thankfully). At our meeting, we very quickly realized that all the "information" she already had about our wedding/choices WERE FROM ANOTHER COUPLE. She had gotten us mixed up with another McPherson couple. I didn't call her out on it, and we corrected everything (literally everything was wrong, including guest count, room set up, color scheme, cake flavors, and day-of coordinator's name), but it was really, really off-putting. Then a few days later she asked me for a picture of what we wanted on our cake... which I had handed her... at our meeting... and she told me she was going to show her grandkids because it had the Batman symbol on it. Thankfully she found it after that, but again, it really made me worry.

The day our final guest count was due - one week before the wedding - I called Kathy. I also needed to make some corrections on our menu AGAIN because they were still wrong - including our cake flavors. I got her voicemail, which indicated that KATHY HAD GONE ON VACATION UNTIL AFTER MY WEDDING! At this point, I was very angry, and demanded to speak with a manager. I got Courtney, who was very pleasant. I told her all the issues we'd had with Kathy, and that she was now ON VACATION and never told me or gave me any other point of contact or advised me how to handle issues while she was gone. Courtney made all my corrections and dealt with my wedding herself from that point. After that, everything was fine, and Courtney did a great job. In fact, it was Courtney who verified that Kathy had gotten us mixed up with another McPherson couple (both of us had Mc- last names apparently).

This is literally the ONLY less-than-5-star review I have given ANY of our wedding vendors. I hate to say it, but I'll never deal with Russo's again and aside from getting me someone competent, they never offered to make this right in any other way. Kathy has not even emailed to apologize. The service is definitely not worth the...

I used Russo's for my wedding a while back and had a friend ask for contact information because they enjoyed the food at my wedding. I will start by saying the actual service and food at the wedding was amazing. The servers were extremely nice and professional so my review reflects every step of the process up to the moment we sat down for dinner. I just don't think it is fair for other couple to go through the process without a warning.

I worked with Kathy and this is the main reason I would never recommend this place to friends or family. She was very nice the first time we met to go over initial details but all professionalism went out the window following that first day.

It took us 6 MONTHS to get a copy of our contract, after we were promised it would be to us withing 2 WEEKS. Every time I inquired about its status it was "coming by the end of the week". When we finally got the contract, it was incorrect and missing information about food selections and drinks. I actually ordered another wedding cake from a different bakery and used Russo's for the sheet cakes as extras because I was told that what I wanted "couldn't be done". The other bakery handled it magnificently and did "the impossible".

Kathy never remembered my face when we would meet; always had to ask who I was even though we met many times. She forgot details from a phone call or email from the previous day or week so I would have the same conversation repeatedly. Every step off the way was like pulling teeth to get anything done.

I took home napkins to pre-fold and dropped them off with table clothes (that I bought myself because of lots of hidden linen fees not explained to me beforehand) to be taken to the venue beforehand. Thank goodness they got there. I will say again the staff there the day of was so helpful with setting everything up, and my family did have to help because of the time crunch. But my aunt had to take over the planner role the day of because Kathy was zero help and was apparently only there for about 5 minutes (and we only know this because my aunt had to hunt her down to get information from her.) So after all the hassle, she was not even there to manage the chaos she helped create.

Again, good food, great day of service but the journey to get there made the whole thing not worth it in the end. I would have done it differently if the first meeting had been a true representation of how unprofessional my wedding planning was going to be handled. I don't personally think that catering should have been my biggest struggle with my wedding but it was and I just want to make sure...

Working with Kathy Costello of Russo's Catering was easily the worst decision of my life. She was inadequate, incompetent, and easily overwhelmed by even the most mundane of tasks. My experience with her will never be forgotten and that is not in a good way. Using Russo's started off rocky, as it took her 1 month to get the contract to us, even though we had already locked down our date for all of our friends an family. Luckily there wasn't another bride wanting to work with them at this time, or else our wedding date could have easily been taken. After we secured the contract, we immediately cut Russo's a check for the deposit payment. From then on, my experience was of what nightmares are made of. She showed up to the linens meetings with no linens, the glassware and tableware meetings with no glassware of tableware, and even stated to us that in fact you could fit 10 table settings (chargers included) at a 60 inch round, knowing each of our tables had 10 people at each, and a 60 inch round can only fit 8 settings. The food was so horrible at our first tasting, we had to take a second tasting to go over food. Per the contract, the tasting is complimentary. Russo's in fact charged us for said "complimentary" tasting. She also showed up to the tasting with nothing she was suppose to come with: ie; ALL linen selections, plate selection, silverware selection, glassware selection. She also first served us our wine tastings in PLASTIC cups. My dad was blown away and had to ask for a real glass for the tasting. I cannot understand how this woman has a job in this field. Skip to the day before our wedding, a diagram I completed was sent to her via email for her to set up the room, based on diagram. When i got there, nothing was right. I spent the entire day with a bridesmaid resetting up the entire room, which then in turn led me to not pick up my wedding dress, as they had closed for the day while i had to redo the entire room over, and we had lost track of time. On our wedding day, Kathy had 1 job, she just had to put tables 1-22 on the table. SHE COULDN'T EVEN DO THAT! She called my brothers phone 3 times in the middle of pictures and asked where to put tables 1-22. I will never understand how she couldn't figure that out and why she would call me about this dilemma instead of use her common sense. A few family members also told me they got sick the day after our wedding from the food, including my mother-in-law. We are currently taking...