Garver Feed Mill — Restaurant in Madison

Love the Garver Feed Mill, but I am going to review it as a wedding venue under this account.

Despite the number of times we had been at Garver, we did not expect to fall in love with it as a wedding venue! The brick façade, tall ceiling with modern chandeliers, the lounge space, Ians! Heck, if you want to leave with a plant at the end of the night, you can do that too. (At least two people bought a plant from the Grow Greenhouse via QR code haha)

Garver really has everything you need. Want to make travel easier for you and your guests? You can do both the ceremony and reception at Garver. The staff will room flip for you. The backdrop that IS Garver is wonderful for every picture. The brick and greenery is lovely. We did all of our photos in and around Garver. Even if you don't have a large floral/decoration budget, the venue still looks amazing.

There is a hospitality suite in the gallery if you want to get ready there or need space for storage. There is a very long mirror, single stall bathroom, and plenty of seating. Consider bringing additional lighting for makeup.

The various coordinators for the event and food/drink (Ashlie and Marilyn primarily) were quite lovely. They were great about answering our questions, making suggestions, and being accommodating. Great, consistent communication. They have reasonable response time in that I usually heard from them within the week. They're great about being a middle person for the vendors they partner with and vendors within Garver such as Event Essentials, Ian's, and Ledger Coffee. Event Essentials and Ledger were included right into our invoice with Garver.

Note that Garver is still open to the public, so you will have random people coming in/out the area to go visit the vendors within the building. As a busy bride with 130 guests, I hardly noticed the random folks.

Food and drink is included and you are required to use their catering. They can do the usual options of styles such as buffet, family style, plated, etc. Their bread and butter seems to be family style, so we went with that. They will have a discussion with you food you like, food you grew up with, favorite restaurants, etc. From there they will build you multiple menus. You can mix and match them as you please. (See photos for our specific menu). They even included some Filipino-inspo foods.

They have multiple packages for drinks. We went with 2 signature cocktails, 3 beers, wines, and NA options. There are higher and lower packages than what we did. Similar scenario where they took suggestions for us and will propose options. You do not get to taste test the food but people LOVED the food and drinks.

They can do dessert but you are not required to use them. They have a lot of options including vegan and gluten free. We used them for some vegan cupcakes but used another vendor for everything else. They had dessert platters free to use and they even made labels for the dessert for us. One less thing we had to worry about it!

Day of, I do not think I saw any of my coordinators. At least, not knowingly. I take this as a good sign, honestly. I do know they were around because Marilyn (food coordinator) took some shots with the staff at our photobooth! I'm happy that they did. :) I hope they got a copy for themselves.

+1 is that they keep a reserve of your signature cocktails. We ran out of the Calcifer quickly, but I was still able to enjoy a few glasses of it myself.

I'm sure I'm missing a few lovely things, but I think you get the picture. I loved my...

UPDATE:

Like the atom, it’s 99% empty space. $2 million in tax money, a stunningly beautiful renovation and we are left with a place that is mostly ..... an event space. Heartbreaking. Fill it with vendors. I’d hoped it would be something similar to the Milwaukee Public Market but no. A pizza and coffee joint - which are both cool, but situated in a huge empty echo chamber whose potential is immediately obvious and will, by the looks of it, remain untapped - a cavernous rental hall which serves the community not at all.

Update: I've been coming in to use this as a workspace now and then, trying to make it work. But the internet....a blistering 4.6mbps. Not fast enough for remote work these days. It's also usually too cold. Additionally - there are couches and comfy chairs in the "Garver Lounge" but that is closed during the daytime, roped off with a tensor barrier. So...can people go in there to sit and work or not? It's not clear. I've seen it done. If it's not allowed that means we have to sit on hard wooden benches or at tiny tiny tables.

I still want more out...

I wanted to like this place but it was a confusing and uncomfortable experience. My husband and I came in for dinner on a Monday evening. We went over to the pizza counter and chose the pizza which was difficult because there were no labels or explanations anywhere. We were told to get the pizza at the pick up window. We stood by the registers and they sent us to the other side to a pick up window. We were unable to get the pizza because we didn't pay for it, so back to the register to pay . We finally were able to get the pizza from the the pick up window. The pizza was a bit burnt on the bottom but tolerable. The chairs are very uncomfortable and I ended up standing to eat. My husband found a soft chair but the area, which was occupied by several other people was off limits to us. We looked outside for a place to sit and only found a picnic table. After being on my feet all day, I just wanted somewhere to sit and finish my drink. It didn't happen. If we go back I will bring a...