Aster Cafe — Restaurant in Minneapolis

We had our 53-person wedding at Aster Cafe's River Room! The River Room does not need much added decor - it has a perfect rustic look! Just a lovely place. The food was delightful; made a lot of our foodie friends very happy! About a quarter of the guests were vegetarians, and the veggie shawarma bowl was a hit. We rented the Hepburn Suite for the bride and a few others to get ready in, keep supplies, etc, and that was a $500 well spent. We did the ceremony and reception all in the River Room. The weather was beautiful and we had nice light coming through the big windows!

Oh! Keep in mind that if you bring in your own cakes or dessert, there is a fee per serving ($3). There is an additional fee if you want it plated by the staff ($5). We brought in tres leches cake from Cafe Latte and ended up spending more on the fees than the cakes themselves! It sounds pretty par for the course in the wedding venue industry, though.

We did have some difficulty communicating with the coordinator, Serina. My questions were answered minimally, so I had to think of follow-up questions and anticipate what I'd need to know, even as I was trying to figure out all the timing details in the weeks leading up to the wedding date. There was about a week before our contract was due to be signed where I hadn't heard back from Serina, and the day our contract was due I messaged her again, she said she'd been on vacation, and reminded me that our contract was due. This felt rude, because I had been trying to get information from her in order to have what I needed on the contract. Because we ended up being rushed to just sign it, I had forgotten to ask a few other questions to include the right stuff in the contract. There were some details I just let go (beer choices for the taps, for example) because I wasn't hearing back from her.

It is also a bit confusing to understand the difference between the overhead system and a fancier PA you can rent from them. I had scheduled a meeting with Serina to go over how the overhead sound system (free/included) would work, but she had somebody else meet me there. I thought I was asking the right questions, but apparently this other person didn't know the context and my questions hadn't really been answered. While there, I also went over the seating plan, and then messaged Serina about how many tables I wanted in the room. I wanted my guests to spread out a bit with 53 people across 7 tables rather than just 5. Unfortunately, the day of the wedding there was a delay when we didn't have enough tables. Serina had to wait for other staff to arrive to bring in the tables, and after that my family could finally set up the place cards and programs. My husband was late to get dressed/ready because of that, and we had to move our pictures back. Luckily, we had some wiggle room because our photographer, Jaylene Dawn, was wonderful.

So, all turned out in the end, but the coordinator was...

Let me start out by saying my wife and I love this place, both the atmosphere and the food. This review is specifically a "watch out" for anyone booking for holidays (Valentine's Day or Anniversaries).

We made sure to make our reservations 3 - 4 weeks in advance. They had plenty of space, so no issues there. In my reservation notes, I added that we would like to be near the window, if possible. The restaurant called the week before to confirm our reservation. During the call, I brought up my reservation notes and was told they would update the reservation to reflect our seating request, but couldn't make promises due to it being Valentines Day (I completely understand this position.)

Fast forward to Valentines Day, we arrive to a mostly empty restaurant. The Host takes us to our table, which is located nowhere close to the windows, despite there being many table open near the front of the restaurant. I bring up this point with the Host and am told that there's absolutely no way they can change a table assignment on Valentines Day, which caught me off-guard, especially since the tables we wanted were open (and some remained open throughout our entire stay.) I'm hoping there was just confusion on what our actual request was, but it was just hard to swallow given the table we wanted was open when we arrived.

We arrived at 5:15pm and needed to depart by 6:30pm for the next stop on our date night. Our waiter was great! He was friendly, knew the menu well, and was very quick an attentive to our needs. Absolutely no issues with him (wish we could remember his name!). The real issue was with the back of the house. My wife (vegetarian) ordered the risotto, which was a special item for Valentines day. After about 10 minutes, our waiter came back, and said that the risotto would not be available until 6pm since it was not quite ready yet. No big deal, a new menu can be difficult to master. He then came out 10 minutes later, however, and said that the risotto wouldn't be ready until 6:30, which would no longer work with our schedule. My wife looked at the menu, but had trouble finding something else vegetarian that "fit" the mood and atmosphere of the night. She settled for the vegan brisket tacos, which was definitely not the fine meal we were expecting for valentines day. Again, our waiter was great, and we could tell it was painful for him every time he had to come back and give us the bad news. He absolutely did the best he could (he even paid for our first round of drinks!)

Overall, its a great restaurant for a casual outing or a fun date night, but they just didn't seem prepared for an event like Valentines Day for the items mentioned above. We will absolutely be back, but not for a...

Do you enjoy being completely ignored walking into a restaurant for the first time ? Seeing 4 people walking by and not even lookingin your direction, standing at a hostess stand (that no one was at)? (And no, they were NOT busy!) finally someone with a non-inviting attitude asks "do you want to sit on the patio? There's a hostess stand out there (also with no one at it)". Well then this is the place for you!! We didn't see the hostess stand that was on the patio. Why would we when no one was at it and we were just told to go out and have never been there before? So we just sat down at an open table on the patio, confused. A flurry of what I believe was staff (???) -hard to know since it's a free-for-all on what they wear and no way to tell who was an employee and who wasn't - don't worry, we were able to figure it out by the ones who were texting/chatting it up by the "refill your own water" (come on man) stand while we waited (completely ignored again). When no one came, we asked if it was ok that we were at this table. It was, but we were not offered menus. My husband had to get up again and ask for them. A nice waiter finally came over and took our drink order. Drinks came, and we ordered an app. Again, waiter was very nice, but not accommodating at ALL. We sat for over 45 min with empty drinks and done w our app - which was nothing special- waiting to order entrees. We saw our waiter multiple times going to other tables but never close enough to ours so we could get his attention. By this time we had had it with trying to make it work as to not ruin our night celebrating our anniversary. We paid and left. Went to a place in StP that was wonderful and made up for this crappy experience. In this economy, things are not cheap. People are choosing where to spend their money that they work hard for. Do NOT spend yours here. *Side note- We ran into someone we knew there and they told us they had to order 3 times to get their food. Wow. Mismanagement...