Café Primavera

Erika and her team provided a wonderful catering service for my husband’s birthday (about 100 guests). We could not have wished for a better outcome.
We asked her for a Hawaiian Luau Theme set around our swimming pool, and she pulled it off flawlessly (complete with big Tiki God statues wearing leis).
The food and its service by roving, charming waiters was delicious and fit the party theme perfectly. The variety of offerings and the bar-​tending (Erika even had a Tiki Bar to fit in with the scheme) were ideal.
Café Primavera made the arrangements easy for us with advance on-​property visits and offered choices for pricing ranges, and helped us zero in on the best approach. The day of the party they set up independently and made us feel assured all would go smoothly (as it did indeed).
Many guests remarked on both the delicious food and the delightful service with the staff’s genuine charm and smiles. Erika truly cares about her clients and their guests (she looked after the hosts’ nutrition from the start to make it easier for us to greet our guests).
This is the second time we have had Erika’s professional service (she served a more intimate Thanksgiving dinner for about 50 guests which felt like «home cooking» and not at all catered).
Café Primavera is our GO TO caterer! We will use Erika and her team for our events in the future.

I had my wedding a couple of weeks ago and I am so happy that I went with Café Primavera. We checked out a lot of caterers, and found that Café Primavera’s food was not only great but fresh. They really worked with us to personalized the food, and we found their prices very competitive. CP worked extremely hard to satisfy everything we wanted. I worked primarily with Erika Garcia-​Traverso for months. Erika was spectacular! She was warm and you felt like she really cared about the event. Wedding food is usually bland, but our guests raved about the food, which was nice to hear!

I went to a party that was catered by Café Primavera. The food and decorations they did were wonderful!

Had my 40^th birthday catered by Café Primavera and they certainly delivered. Great food and flavor combinations, everyone was very happy devouring every single bite.
Service was on time and very professional. Would recommend them to anyone who wants to have amazing food and great service. You’ll be happy you chose them.

(¹⁄₃) Café Primavera thank you for making my son and husband party a success. I have used them twice since they changed owners and I have nothing but excellent
(2÷3) comments to make about the food, decoration and staff. They have oustanding ideas and suggestions. Just hire them and you will not have to worry about an
(3÷3) ything and the most important thing you well be able to enjoy your party or event. THANK YOU. :)

Just enjoyed their yummy bites at a birthday party which they catered. Staff was very nice & helpful.

I worked with Nance when organizing a 40^th birthday party for my husband. Nance not only helped to find a beautiful venue, but she went above and beyond by paying attention to every detail discussed during our meetings. She and the other staff including the servers and Chef, executed the event with quality that far exceeded my expectations. The food, service, décor and clean up were phenomenal. All of the guests were really impressed and we couldn’t have been happier that this company took such care in helping us make memories on such a special day. I would recommend Café Primavera for any event, large or small due to the affordability, quality, attention to detail and overall excellence. Thank you!

NOTE The 5 Star Rating is for their CATERING portion.
The 3 Star Rating is still for their actual Café @ The Tech.
Onward!
Their foods are outstanding! I wish I can name a few but I just can’t in fear that the foods will get jealous of not being mentioned as well!
If you ever want to have a event and you’re looking for high quality food and get what you’re paying for? This is the right catering! Their options are wide! And appetizers are various, depending on what you want. Quality is very strong with this company.
Their service is spectacular. They make sure they bring enough and THEM SOME! Not like other caterers where they just bring the right amount and thats it.
Think about it, would you rather have seconds? Or just be settled with one times the charm? SECONDS! Please! How can that even be a question.
The staff is dedicated to your happiness and wonderful event.
–SN

Overpriced food is to be expected, after all we are talking downtown San Jose. This is a horribly inefficient cafeteria style food-​store (restaurant doesn’t seem like the right word). The food is «okay» at best.
The fryer was broken, so they offered chips to go with my «meal». Then this other employee was like «you can’t have chips, you have to have fruit! If we give out all the chips we won’t have them anymore». When my hotdog was finally ready, there was fruit on the plate. They saw I had chips in my hand so after they handed me the plate, they reached over and took the fruit back off my plate!
I get that I wasn’t supposed to have the fruit also, but to literally take it off my plate after giving it to me is rude and crass. I guess this is what $ 10/​hr minimum wage looks like.

We interviewed several caterers for my daughter’s wedding over a year in advance. The one thing my daughter and her fiancé’ wanted was for the food to be memorable and delicious. They wanted a family-​style served dinner (many of the caterers either would not do it or said it would be much more money), along with passed and stations of hors d’oeuvres during games, cocktails, and band between the ceremony and dinner. We gave caterers all the information about the type of wedding, styles, favorite foods of the bride and groom, and their least favorite foods or ingredients, and asked for them to come up with menus they think would fit the occasion.
We were blown away by Joanna at Café Primavera. She developed an incredible menu, invited us for a tasting (okay, full dinner!) of all the main dishes and salad, and then worked with us to fine tune it. The appetizers were a collection of our daugher and son-in-law’s favorite foods (mini empanadas, mini Reuben sandwiches, an array of cheeses, grilled sausages with dipping mustards, fruit, olives, nuts, crab cakes, brie in phyllo w/​jalepeno chutney.) Dinner was served family style (a HUGE hit with our guests) and included whole filet of beef with chimichurri sauce on the side and halibut with fresh tomatoes and corn, creamy smashed yukon gold potatoes, grilled asparagus, and a beautiful green salad with apples, dried cranberries, seedless grapes, & candied walnuts, and warm rolls.
She and Rosemary worked to obtain all the queens tables, chairs, and beautiful linens, as well as all the other tables and linens needed, and set everything up so it was ready when needed. Every detail was addressed and the servers and bartender were marvelous. Joanna and her team kept a watchful eye on the time and ensured we transitioned as needed. Joanna, for the year prior to the wedding, gave me GREAT advice and suggestions (as a mother of two daughters who had recently been married AND as a caterer of more weddings than she can count) that were priceless. She guided us and helped us save money. She put me in touch with other mothers of the brides that she worked with, and was always easy to deal with. I felt like I made a treasured friend in the process.
Best of all, we received many comments about how wonderful, delicious, extraordinary, and yummy the food was. We all LOVED it. It was like eating in a great restaurant and having the food prepared just for us. I cannot praise Joanna and her team enough and thank them for making my daughter’s wedding a beautiful, delicious, and memorable event.

We had a wedding at Clos La Chance Winery in San Martin, CA and Café primavera was our caterer. IT WAS THE MOST DELICIOUS FOOD EVER! We had 135 guests, buffet style, and EVERYONE keeps telling us how amazing the food was. It was! Hats off to the chefs, and staff. If you hire this caterer, you will not be disappointed! First Class all the way. Every dish was high quality. AMAZING FOOD, and completely professional. Vanessa was a pleasure to work with, listening and suggesting all along the way. The staff was so awesome, very, very professional. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!
–Robin Lipscomb

I live on the central coast, just shot a wedding at Clos winery and Café Primavera was the catering. WOW i still cant believe how inexpensive the food was and was it delish! Top 5 wedding food in 12 year being a photographer and def top 1 price– she really needs to charge more, book them before they do :) The staff was attentive and showed intersted in the guests too, not just snotty workers above being kind, LOVE this company, wish more out there were like these folks, thanks again, best dinner in a long time.

I want a $ for every compliment I got last night on the Churchill Club event food at the Computer History Museum («why, yes, I did whip this up myself.») ;)
Fantastic food and wonderful service. Thank you very much!

My husband and I had been to a few weddings catered by Café Primavera over the last few years, and loved their food, so when looking for a caterer for our own wedding in October 2012, we called them up.
We got married at Holman Ranch in Carmel Valley, and I had initially thought that I would go with a local catering company, but after meeting with Joanna, I decided that Café Primavera would be the best fit for us.
The planning and tasting meetings were great, and Joanna made the 90 minute drive out to Holman Ranch, not once, but twice to get familiar with the layout and meet with my wedding planner. She listened to what I wanted and really got my vision.
Our venue was an all outdoor ranch, with a rustic but beautiful setting. We wanted to make our guests feel at home, like they were at a party in a friends really, really (did I say really) nice backyard, and Joanna nailed it. I sent her pictures of all of my DIY projects and centerpiece vases, and she was able to incorporate some of her pieces in with mine to make the tables perfect. Oh and then of course, there was the food!!!
We received so many compliments on the food from our guests, and even though we didn’t have a lot of time to eat ourselves, what we did have was delicious. I’m sure you can’t go wrong with anything on their menu, but we loved our choices.
We had a long 90 minute cocktail hour and even though it went well over the typical 60 minute time frame, the food kept flowing and no one went hungry. We had passed crab cakes, brie in phyllo cups with mango jalapeño chutney, pigs in a blanket, chicken wonton tacos, risotto fritters and bruschetta. We also had a table set up with breads, crackers, meats, figs, fruits and cheese. Although we missed most of the cocktail hour, Joanna gave us a plate of appetizers to try while we were taking pictures. My favorite were the wonton tacos, and brie, but I’m a sucker for cheese.
To keep with our rustic chic theme, we went with family style dinner. We started with a plated salad, and then each table had their own platters of grilled tri tip with horseradish and chimichurri sauces (yum), salmon with basil butter, rosemary and garlic potatoes, pasta, and roasted veggies.
We decided to not have a desert course, and even though we did not use Café Primavera for the cupcakes and mini pies we had, they set up an amazing desert buffet and were able to incorporate a few of their pieces with the cake stands and wine barrels I had collected brought in for it.
We are so happy we went with Café Primavera for our wedding, and if I could do it all again I would!

So I was at the Tech Museum for the Mythbusters exhibit and started getting hungry. Seeing as how this was right there in the building I thought it couldn’t be that bad. Man, I wish I could turn back time like Cher.
Ordered two kids meals, a chicken strip and a grilled cheese. Ordered a bowl of soup, stir fry chicken with rice. Ordered a tri-​tip sandwich and a Cobb salad.
What we got was a grilled cheese kids meal. a CUP of soup. a tri-​tip sandwich and a Cobb salad. And the chicken strips were replaced by a pulled park sandwich.
Not sure how they take orders and how they read the order slips but this place was busy and packed. Still, that is not an excuse for running the place like a shit show. Food should be churned out quickly and efficiently in a museum café. And having the kitchen prep area open to all to see how horrible things are ran here is not a smart decision. Maybe it wasn’t like this before but I hope they get their act together.
And as for the food… I think with prices that high they should at least make an effort to make the food slightly more palatable. Just not a good experience.

My company has been using Café Primavera the last few years for both our holiday and summer parties. They are the best! Food is always fantastic, innovative and consistent. During this time, we have gotten to know their outstanding staff and they never disappoint. Joanna, the owner has a great sense of style and understands the kinds of things we are trying to achieve in terms of ambiance, theme and venue.
One of the most important things in considering caterers, is in their ability to provide consistent outstanding service and food. Café Primavera has that over most other catererers hands down.
I have told many people that when my daugther gets married (whenever that may be), that I will have Café Primavera cater the entire affair (at Nestledown).
From personal and historical experience, I would highly recommend them for any catered event!

To start off, we loved the food at our wedding! We got married at an outside venue with a rustic feel so a fresh, home style yet gourmet menu was what we were looking for and Café Primavera delivered. We loved that they were able to set up a dessert bar for our guests and even serve gelato as part of that, other caterers had told us that the gelato was not possible but Café Primavera said it was no problem! Also, the servers and bartenders were phenomenal at the wedding, those guys worked their tails off and made it look easy and seamless, the bartenders were super friendly and I think that the ladies at the wedding especially enjoyed them!
The reason that I gave four stars (and actually thought about doing three but stuck with four because the day of the wedding was so great) was that working with Erika as my main contact was not very smooth at all.
It started when I first reached out for information. Erika had me fill out a lengthy questionnaire and then sent me a proposal which was good but all priced out as a buffet vs. a family style sit-​down service which is what I’d indicated we wanted in the questionnaire. When I pointed this out Erika said she would revise the proposal, then proceeded to disappear for about a month. Granted, it was close to the winter holidays but a brief email to let me know she’d get back to me in January would have been appreciated. I followed up a couple times and ended up thinking they were not interested in our business. Just when I’d given up, Erika re-​appeared and said that she had been on vacation. Hmmm, people usually have an out of office automatic reply for that? She ended up revising the proposal to our liking and when we did the tasting we decided to go with Café Primavera based on the great food. The chef was very enthusiastic about incorporating some Ukrainian/​Russian flavors (my side’s background) into the mix which we really appreciated.
We got in touch with her a couple more times during the middle of the wedding planning process to ask general questions and each time it took a while to get a response. Each time there was some kind of excuse. Two of the times she was very sick. Again, very sorry to hear that but an out of office message would have helped me know that I was not just getting ignored.
Finally, towards the end of the process was when Erika’s lax communication style really caused some issues. When we’d first booked she’d sent me an email with a website from which I was eventually going to have to pick out some linens. About a month prior to the wedding I asked if we should meet to finalize things and that’s when she told me to look at the website and let her know what we wanted. She did not even mention which website so it was up to me to remember that she had at some point sent me a link and hunt that down in my email. Anyway, I picked out linens, we met with her to view them and decided on some patterns. That’s when things got interesting.
Our final proposal came and was a couple grand more expensive than the one which we’d previously agreed to, even though we were paying per person and had about 25 less people than in the previous proposal. It turned out that the linen we’d picked accounted for the difference. Eh, come again? Apparently all of the linens on the website had different costs which were not listed and the cost which Erika had included in the first proposal was for the most basic linen which she neglected to tell me. I’m not the kind of person to obsess over something small like linens so if I had known they were differently priced I would not have wasted two hours looking at the website and just gone with the basic option. Mind you, this was about a week prior to the wedding so not really the time to throw some extra stress into the mix. Now I had to switch to the basic linen without first seeing it and trust that Erika would pick the right colors to match our theme. When I first asked about why the linen was so expensive she claimed to have mentioned that they were all differently priced. I looked through my emails and of course that was nowhere to be found, nor did my husband or mother who came with me to the linen meeting remember her mentioning it. Like I said, if we’d known they were more expensive we would have gone with the basic option, just would have been good to see it first before the wedding.
Anyway, I think she realized her error and backed down. She also comped us the children’s meals and gave us a discount on the service fee to cover the cost of the pricier linens we’d picked, we ended up going with the cheaper linens anyway and just keeping the savings. This was a very classy move on her part and we appreciated it.
Overall I’d use Café Primavera again and recommend them. The food and the staff were lovely! However I’d probably try to work with someone other than Erika, although who knows, maybe she was having a bad couple months.

i didn’t expect the burger i paid for here would be really good. i was able to order from the kids menu so it was cheaper. even though it was a kids cheeseburger, the size of it was an average burger. it only cost me $ 5
it did take a while for my burger to come to my table but you can already tell they cooked everything fresh for you. i got my burger and it came with criss-​cut fries. and i loveee criss-​cut fries. overall its a good place to stop by for lunch if ur on a budget.

This is the Café attached to the Tech Museum. I would go here to eat even if I was not visiting the Museum, it was really good. I actually saw bunch of people do just that.
Great food and it was inexpensive and great value. I had the BBQ try-​tip which was excellent. The pizza was good too. The red velvet cake was delicious. I liked the open kitchen as well and service was good too. For a a café, that to me is a 5 star experience.

I can’t rave enough about how great Café Primavera was! They catered my wedding at Byington Winery on May 26^th. They were great in adjusting out menu to fit our food budget, were very organized with last minute rental amount changes and were overall very professional! On top of all of that the food was AMAZING!
When the caterers showed up on our wedding day they brought with them a crew that immediately got to work setting up everything perfectly and cooking delicious smelling food. I was immediately at ease when they arrived and let them do their thing– and their thing was to cook delicious delectable morsels that were enjoyed by all!
We had passed appetizers of won ton tacos, cheese empanadas, veggie spring rolls and crab cakes as well as a huge cheese, fruit and cracker display that disappeared in minutes! They also saved us two of each appetizer and had it waiting on our sweetheart table to have during dinner since we missed most of cocktail hour which was very sweet! Joanna (owner) also offered to provide us with a free cheese and cracker snack display in my bridal suite which was gorgeous and my hungry friends devoured! They even allowed us to bring our own non-​alcoholic drinks that we purchased at smart and final to save money
For our dinner we had caesar and caprese salad, roasted asparagus, sundried tomato and artichoke stuffed chicken, tritip in red wine sauce, mushroom ravioli, potato gratin and warm rolls with the cutest molded little butter balls. Everything was beautiful and tasted great! The steak was peppered nicely with rich marinated mushrooms, the chicken was crispy with a tangy sauce and the caesar was nicely garlicky and anchovy just how my mom used to make! The caprese had both sliced and little balls of mozzarella and the ravioli and potatoes were both so savory rich and tasty. They even cut and served our cake, and boxed up leftovers to be taken home by my friends and family which was much appreciated.
Book Café Primavera now! You won’t regret it.