A Moveable Feast

Omg. Do not miss it !
What a memorable experience!
The food was to die for.
It is what it is… Enjoy it

Micheal is the most talented, down-​to-​earth chief in the world. We attend his Monday night dinners and Sunday Brunch at the Cachagua General Storee whenever possible and recommend hm to everyone we know. He catered our 50-​person wedding at a private home in Carmel Valley and managed to pull it all off with aplomb, even thought the oven broke! He took care of the bar, linens, tent, plates, everything. I let go and put it all in his hands and he did not let me down. His appetizer and deserts «spoons» were brilliant. I am honestly dumb-​founded by the one-​star reviews I have read below. Micheal treats everyone as family, and none like a prince/​princess. If you want someone to put your trust into, chose Micheal, if you want to be a prima-​donna and meddle in the kitchen, find someone else.

I attended a private function in Carmel Valley — and the Moveable Feast was the only negative experience. The food was cold but acceptable by FDA standards — but there wasn’t much. The thing is — act nasty and ugly and put that energy into your service — and the food is not good. It sours the very essence of what you do.
The ‘line cook/​owner’ Michael is a glaring and obvious wannabe chef… exhibiting the behavior of trite and ugly modern day ‘chef’s’ seen on TV and movies. A weak, nasty little man who belittled his ALL female staff by slamming pots and pans, cussing, and more. He threw fits and condescended to each woman. The staff looked stressed out and absolutely unhappy. It was hard to watch a weak little sickly/​ruddy man talk that way to a group of women that, frankly, individually could beat the snot out of him. Instead, they dutifully took his abuse for the money, I suppose. I truly felt bad for his staff. The owner deserves no compassion. Arrogant, rude and ugly — this is the type of nasty little man that continues to get away with this kind of behavior because he’s too weak and small to be taught a lesson. You are weak sir. A pathetic little weakling who disgusted the entire group of people lining up in your badly displayed presentation.
I found myself wishing that a militant feminist group would hire this moron and witness his treatment of his staff. Also — the positive reviews on this site were written by friends to balance his bad reviews. Do read the other reviews. Avoid this person.

Although we don’t know him, we attended the same wedding as Raymond (see the filtered review section) and saw the same behavior problems from the caterer, except for the bursting into someone’s room, which we didn’t personally observe. We wouldn’t be surprised however at this as well, as the whole performance was really ugly, including the cursing at one of the middle aged women guests. Somehow we thought that the caterer was there to make the function a success, not make ugly scenes. You may like the food or not, but there is absolutely no excuse for this type of behavior from anyone, much less a hired caterer.

No communication. Contacted him 7 months before the event. Lead us on to believe he would do a great job and was excited about the gig, then never returned phone calls or emails. Totally blew us off and left us stranded a month before the event. I’m writing this so others aren’t surprise when he decides not to show up.

We tried to put on an event thru this caterer in Carmel Valley, after interviewing another caterer. The whole experience was just weird. First, the owner wouldn’t really give us a menu, it was just sort of give him the function, number of guests and trust him. This was about three months ahead but we swallowed our misgivings and decided to go ahead and gave him the job.
Then when we were getting close to the event, about three weeks before and were getting a little nervous and wanted to reconfirm, timing, location, service, chairs and all of that, we couldn’t get in touch with him, either by email or phone. After being totally ignored for a week with no followup or response, or callbacks, we had to pull the plug.
We were able to find a last minute replacement caterer who had a space in their schedule, and they saved the day. I guess we avoided a lot of grief. If you want even the least amount of confidence or communication, then Moveable Feast is not a good choice.

We LOVE Mike and his staff and the food was amazing!
We had a small wedding of 75 people and Mike stood and cut the lamb personally for every guest. It was a small gesture but very cool.
Everything ran great, our guests still talk about how awesome the caterers were!

A magical catering company, great food and wine and a great staff lead by the über talented Mike Jones. One of the best chefs I know!

We had the misfortune last summer to go to a Carmel Valley fundraiser type function held at a local winery, that was catered by the Moveable Feast. The winery setting was beautiful and it was fun to drive out to the valley with friends. Everything was great with the glaring exception of the caterer.
Yuck! Not only were the appetizers uniformly greasy, but the people working seemed to need an attitude adjustment. Sort of a universal chip on the shoulder-​why? I later looked into who/​what this operation is and find out that it is the same management as the Cachagua Store restaurant. That explained a lot, as they have a well established reputation for nasty/​vicious behavior. It didn’t make us feel any better to find out that the food is prepared in the same establishment as the place with all of the reports of cockroaches in the bathroom.
Before we go to another winery function out in the valley, we will ask who is doing the catering.
p. s. Check the filtered reviews for other reviewers opinion.

I can’t get into the whole story… just bullet points
I am in the event business and hired them to have incredible food.
I was even ok with being refused a menu, I was just promised it would be amazing.
In the end? Fried sardines and a sh$@-ball attitude.
Don’t bother.
Can I give 0?

Rarely do I write a negative review on Unilocal,instead I prefer to give positive reviews to places and people that are outstanding. After my experience with A Moveable Feast, I felt compelled. The dinner that Michael Jones provided at a very good friend’s wedding I attended was FINE. It was not the meal that was the problem; I found him to be very rude and unprofessional.
As a favor to two very good friends of mine, they asked me to be the go-​to person the day before and of their wedding. I was absolutely happy to do it and glad I could help in any way. They gave me a list of things to do at the wedding venue starting a few hours prior to the wedding. Not a problem. Things started out fine and it seemed that Michael was fine to work with. Once I started to ask for a few things, the unwarranted ego and blatant rudeness unveiled itself.
The chairs that they brought and set up were absolutely filthy, so much so that the florist and her mother strongly urged me to talk to Michael about it. I decided to put on hold the 10 other things that I had to do to clean the chairs. The chairs had been set up for about half an hour and the entire backs of them were covered in visible, dark dirt. I started wiping things down and then asked about half an hour prior to the guests arriving, if someone could help me… there were 110 guests after all. Michael seemed annoyed that I would ask for that, however, did have two guys come over for a couple of minutes. At ten til, the job still wasn’t done since they went on to other things. This left me and the officiant to get wet paper towels to wipe things down.
As far as the chair set-​up, they created chairs and left an aisle down the middle. Great! The only problem: the aisle backed into the fountain so there was no viable way for the bride and the other 16 people (including parents) to walk down the aisle. Seriously, there was no way to enter the aisle. When I asked Michael about this he was now very annoyed about this and suggested that the entire bridal party meander its way between the large round tables that were set up for the reception. There was no way that would have worked.
During the wedding, we watched the cake cutting and everyone toasted. Then, because of the incredible organization there was a huge amount of lag time. Several people in the bridal party asked whether people should sit down, do we stand, is the dessert brought to the tables, etc., etc. I spotted Michael to find out the answer for them. I asked if I could interrupt his conversation for a second while he was talking to a group of my friends, I asked about the dessert. (That’s my job, the messenger). He was very dismissive and later made comments to my friends that got back to me. Brilliant thinking, guy!
Even though I had given the table seating chart to the staff, they had gotten the amount at different tables wrong. The officiant/​brother of the bride did not have a place setting. Someone in the family told me about this so I asked about the place setting. Frustrated, he shoved napkins/​utensils my way and told me to put it on the table.
He spoke so negatively about the other vendors («the witch that runs this place», the dj who played horrible music, etc., etc.) that were there and guests, proving that any glimmer of professionalism he may have had went completely out the window. Knowing that you are on the peninsula and there are a variety of enticing catering choices, this place would be at the bottom of my list.
Again, the food was fine and that part went well. Just keep in mind, you are dealing with someone who waxes and wanes between Mr. Dry Wit and Fun Life of the Party to a bipolar world-​class jerk.