We hosted a wedding on 10-10-25 at The Mountain Room at Mt. Southington --- working with Janalynne at Carmela Marie was so easy -- like working with your favorite cousin! She was so professional and helpful and very flexible. Best of all, EVERYONE commented on how excellent the food was --- from appetizers to filet mignon, everything was delicious and cooked perfectly.
We would highly recommend working with Carmela Marie catering!

Mom of the bride's perspective.
A month long search ended with us choosing Carmela Marie. Many caterers never even bothered to call us back. We liked their pricing options and even more so their food selection.
The bride, mother of the bride and the groom's mom met with the caterers at their store and were treated to some very yummy foods to sample. We got to meet the chef and he was able to help us choose a menu that met our needs and that of the our bride and groom.
They worked with us and our reception site. They provided us with linens and all of the plates, utensils, etc. They delivered the linens the day prior so that we had them to set up in advance.
The day of the event, they were timely, the food was well presented and the just as yummy as what we had sampled.
They cleaned up, took their stuff, and didn't leave a mess in the kitchen.... thank you! They also left us with a lot of the leftovers and all of the leftover desserts.
Our only snafu was a pricing discrepancy because we were not using their bridal cake. They quoted us a discount but it wasn't on the contract and we didn't have a copy of the contract.... so be sure you get a copy of the contract or take a picture of it. In the end, it wasn't a huge deal, it didn't break the bank, and we were more than pleased with the service.
Also, we went with the banquet stations and strongly recommend that serving method. They had 4 servers and this was perfect for 60-ish attendees.

John and Betsy were truly amazing. The food was incredible, the staff was beyond friendly and everything with so smooth with the their help. I will be hiring them for future events.

I was hosting a reunion party of college classmates. Quite a few responded that they would attend. My wife and I were in a quandary as to how to prepare enough good food. We met with Betsy at Top's catering / Carmela Marie. She made great suggestions for appetizers, main course, and desert. The food was excellent! All my classmates raved about the food and the presentation. We highly recommend this catering for your next party. And the people who run it are first rate at their business.

You need to look no further for a caterer for any special event. We used Carmela Marie for our wedding at a tent wedding at our home. John brought a team over early in the planning process so we could talk menus---they even drove an hour to get here. He also invited us to his burger restaurant in Southington to try his hamburgers (Pops-also highly recommended) and some options that we couldnt decide between. John came over the day before the event to set up all the tables and brought a whole team with him the day of. I still cannot imagine how everything went so smoothly. The food was PHENOMENAL!!! It is not your typical wedding buffet quality food-it is really amazing tasting and all of our guests are still telling us how great the food was. We really lucked out finding John and his team and I highly recommend them for anything. I should also mention value---you WILL NOT find a better deal. The food was great, it was priced extremely fairly, and the service was amazing. Thank you John and team. You helped make our day great!

John and Betsy are so helpful and we were able to pick such delicious options for our wedding buffet. I was very excited about having a dessert table and we had so many different options of little desserts for our guests. Their staff was so sweet and worked so hard to make sure things went well. Thanks for making our day so special!

Pros:
It was very nice meeting John and Betsy and they were very welcoming, having our food tasting at their home. The food we tried was delicious and we were excited to be working with them. At the wedding, the food was very good and I liked how the stations were presented- it was very well organized and was presented well for our guests. I especially liked how there were two chefs at the meat carving station, carving meat for our guests- it was a great touch.

Cons:
In our initial contract, Carmela Marie's said they could order and bring glass sodas from an outside store, as we wanted these as part of our rustic wedding. They also said they could include additional drinks, such as iced tea/lemonade. However, when it came closer to the wedding, they said they could not do this and so my parents had to do this and worry about purchasing, storing, and refrigerating about 100 glass sodas as well as iced tea and fruit punch containers. They also said at firs that they could not bring ice to the venue because it was too far away so they asked if we could bring bags of ice, which we ended up purchasing. However, after asking again later, they said they could bring ice. Additionally, we primarily met with Betsy and John throughout the process and John mentioned at one point that he would be at the wedding, but neither of them were there at the actual event. Additionally, in our contract, we had "italian cookies" written down as part of the desserts, but they ended up bringing cookies that looked like they were from "Stop and Shop" and placed on a black plastic circular tray that was not fancy for a wedding. Additionally, we purchased our own cake from an outside bakery we like to use, but Carmela Marie's said they would take care of the cake cutting. However, when it came time for the cake cutting, Carmela staff gave us one butter knife, no cake cutter, and no forks. Me and my husband were so confused. We ended up having a hard time cutting and sliding a piece of cake onto our plate because we just had the one butter knife, and then we fed each other with our hands because we were not given any forks. We were also provided no take-home box for the top part of the cake to take home afterwards.