nyc style food stations

As someone who lives in NYC, I wonder why are they called "NYC style"? Do other parts of the country not have them? 😆 We will have a few at cocktail hour: flatbreads, Mediterranean-style skewers, and a carving station. I wish we could have more, but our venue doesn't really have the right layout/space to do a whole bunch.

View Quoted Comment I was wondering the same thing. They are common here in Chicago as well. And I’ve attended weddings in several other states as well

Depends on how many stations you have is this for the main meal or during the cocktail hour? Personally I love stations! We are having a fried potato bar, pizza station, and a lo mein station during our cocktail hours as well 2 pasta choices 10 served apps, grilled veggies, hummus and pitas, salads, and fruit. Then there will be a plated dinner later in the evening. We were delighted with our station options as there were lots of vegetarian options ( we have a bunch of vegetarian and vegan guests attending so this was important to us). Happy planning!

View Quoted Comment As a whole, they are not presented the same in other areas. As an example, we are on the west coast in a major city and in speaking with several higher end catering companies that say they offer this service as an alternative to plated or buffet, their interpretation is essentially a self serve buffet where each table is a different theme. Unless you specifically ask for a chef/attendant to prepare and serve at each station for extra cost, they are not provided except with a basic carving station. We have friends in the NYC area who were excited when we brought up the idea of wanting to do stations because the cocktail hour stations are their favorite part and they get stuffed before the plated meal that doesn’t get touched, and they said what we are potentially offered by these caterers is not the same at all.

View Quoted Comment We were talking about doing this as cocktail hour and main meal combined. Friends we know who are local to NYC have mentioned that the full stations where they are are served at cocktail hour and there is so much variety and is plentiful at each one that guests don’t need or want a plated meal following.

I married a New Yorker and their wedding culture is more intense than my prior experience. The weddings we have attended as guests are super formal, and have multiple cocktail hour stations to the edge of almost being wasteful. It's only 1 hour, but everyone expects that the food will be better than the plated meal that follows. It is fun to wander, but can be a downer if there's not enough staff to remove empty plates, or not enough seats to sit.

For our wedding, our venue offered a plated meal with 2 cocktail stations and 6 butler-passed hor d'oeuvres as base. We added more self-serve stations for variety, but did not choose chef-attended meat or sushi stations. Serving chefs were extra $. Our primary choices were shellfish station (clams, mussels, shrimp) with chilled half lobster addition, and an Asian station with dumplings and satays. We added a Mediterranean table of babaganoush, salads, falafel for vegetarian options. Our 4th station with 2 risottos had 1 veg and 1 chicken option. Our choice of 6 hor d'oeuvres were mostly veg based with a chilled soup in a shot glass (my fav). We wanted to include a variety of palettes and diets, and didn't want our guests to fill up and get sleepy on meat-based protein before dinner.

While slow walking to their reception tables, our guests still made room for the plated 3-course meal: spring salad, entree with choice of shortribs, black cod, or vegan stuffed peppers, and lemon creme brulee. I think they were still hungry because the dessert table was a winner, and edible favors brought home. I guess they were ready to party and eat.

Oh, I once went to an evening cocktail-only reception with only butler-passed food. The selection was okay, kinda uninspired, and everyone just sent the servers to the older relatives who were seated. Guests were very drunk at this wedding, probably they didn't eat as much.

NYC Food style station sounds amazing.