Smoky Jon’s catered our wedding reception on August 24th, 2019 for about 150 people in Dodgeville, WI. Smoky Jon himself handled every detail. From our first conversation there was no doubt in my mind we picked the right caterer, Smoky Jon lives and breathes BBQ and catering. We knew by hiring Smoky Jon we’d be receiving 5 star professional service, 5 star food, and just the best experience overall. Thank you to everyone at Smoky Jon’s for making our wedding oh so delicious! Our guests have not stopped complementing us on the food! Truly THE BEST in the business!

The food was great! At the end of the day, people raved about the ribs, the sides loved the food. It wasn't a traditional choice, but perfect for a barn wedding. We are SO glad we choose this over plated meals from another company. I went through a brief period of struggling to reach Smoky Jon himself (which was concerning) but once I got in contact with Paul he was really responsive with helping us and didn't have a problem after that. My fiance is a chef and had brought sternos, but forgotten part of what you need to use a sterno (and keep food hot) so Paul was nice enough to hangout for a good 30 minutes until it was time to seat guests to make sure our food was hot (talk about going above and beyond). Thanks Paul for saving a potential disaster!

Smoky Jon’s as an entity is a really great thing. The food was delicious. Everyone said it was the best wedding food they’ve ever had.. The staff (restaurant and catering) were wonderful. They were in and out at our wedding in a snap. Five stars for sure!

However, working with Smoky Jon himself is difficult to say the least. Half way through the planning, my fiance had to take over all communications with him because I couldn’t handle it. Some examples: He asked us to up our wedding head count since this is a “small” job for him. We had estimated 175 people. When our final count came in 10 people under predicted, we had to argue with him to get the contracted price. We then had to either pay in cash or a money order ahead of time. When scheduled a very specific time to do so, he was late. The day of, he claimed that we “screwed” him over by serving an additional 40 people. (This was not the case) Of course, he didn’t say this directly to us, a friend overheard him say this in the parking lot as he was leaving our wedding among other things. When confronted about this, he denied it all.

In summary, they arrived on time, served delicious food, packed up leftovers and left it clean. The only negative was dealing with Smoky Jon himself. If we had known what we were getting into, we would have looked elsewhere for catering options.

Now it’s comical to us and a great story. But during the wedding planning process, it was a pretty big stress.