Empire Event Center — Local services in Rochester

My wife and I hired Empire Events Catering for our wedding in Pepin WI and overall had a positive experience with them, with some things that weren’t great.

First, we did a taste testing to try out a trial wedding menu and fell in love with the food and knew we needed this food served at our wedding so we booked them well in advance. Unfortunately, several event coordinators had changed from when we first hired them to when we had our wedding which I think led to some confusion and things getting mixed up. When it came time to pay our invoice, the amount was much higher than we were quoted and after working the the current coordinator Mary, we were finally able to get it squared away and charged the correct amount but this left kind of a bad taste in our mouth. They then tried to charge us again for the original wrong amount on top of what we already paid and I had to message them again and get that removed. Seems to be some communication issues between the event side of things and who is actually billing stuff.

All that stuff aside, we were very happy with the thing we hired them for, the food on the wedding day. They set aside a plate for Cathy and I with each of the appetizers so we were able to try all of them and my word, the chicken lollipops and beef Wellingtons were fantastic! The main courses were also big hits with everyone, I heard several people say they have been to many weddings and it was the best food they had at a wedding so that was great to hear! They also handled everything from providing and setting up the plates and utensils, passing out the food, and bussing tables.

The only things that kind of sucked is we were not allowed to take joke any leftovers which sucks since we paid for all the food so you would think we could take any leftovers from those who didn’t show up back home with us.

Overall, though there were some issues with the payments and we wish their policy on leftovers was different, we were very pleased with the food quality and the taste and would recommend them for anyone who wants to wow their guests...

Chef Seth and the Empire catering team did such a wonderful job at our wedding. We were impressed starting at our tasting. The Parmesan wall eye was one of the best we’ve ever had. One of the main reasons we chose them was because Chef Seth had prior experience making Indian food. Our wedding was a Sri Lankan-American fusion wedding and he made a Sri Lankan dish he never made at our request. It was delicious. We must also say that they reached out to an outside vendor to get us napkins matching our wedding colors. We heard from multiple guests about how delicious the food was. We appreciate their effort in making our day a success with mouth watering food and highly recommend their services to any...

We had my son's 1st birthday party here on 4/2/2022 and everything was perfect! The rooms are large, perfectly clean and beautifully decorated. Everyone commented on how nice the space was, and working with staff to coordinate the event was effortless. Danielle is amazing & the front desk staff at the Best Western were very accommodating and helpful if we had any...