Elephants Catering and Events

I’ve used Elephants Deli’s and Catering Service for decades! They are the best Portland has to offer. The food is always prepared perfectly and served hot when ready to serve. The staff and delivery staff r top notch. They always make my events perfect! I think I may have tried all of there products over the years. I also have deliveries that r always on time. I no longer live in Portland and really miss them. I visit regularly and prefer to have Elephants catering for r family gatherings as to going to a restaurant. Easier for the parents and grandchildren and great grand parents in there 90’s. For the Holidays… take a break and enjoy a wonderful feast and stress free gathering from Elephants.

I was lucky enough to enjoy Elephants catering in the VIP tent at Dressage at DevonWood this year; it was fantastic! Everything was put out at the right temperature, properly cooked and delicious!

Wow. These people must pick and choose who they want to work with. I wanted to use these guys as caterers for our wedding because I really liked their menu. We submitted a request for a quote. It took over a week to get anything from them (24 – 48 hours business days is what they say it takes for a quote), and it was at my prompting that we received any sort of response. We set up a time to meet. Actually went in and met with them and discussed our ideas. I was told by Lindsay to expect an updated quote in a «couple of days — so early next week», and she cited she had some others to get done first. Three weeks went by — nothing. I sent an email asking where this updated quote was two weeks ago. Lindsay never bothered to respond. We never got an updated quote as they had promised. Now we’re looking at other caterers because there’s not a chance we are going to give them anything but this poor review.
Lindsay wasn’t prepared for our meeting. We had to go over to the catering kitchen to get someone to call their office to let us in. She seemed totally unenthused by the entire thing, as if we were an inconvenience. That said, she suggested some neat ideas. We were actually excited about working with them. How silly.
Much like other people have said, I had to beg for any sort of service from Elephants. And even then, that got us nowhere before I finally got upset and took our business to a professional company that cared.
On top of that, the pricing was outrageous. Nearly 6k quoted for a very small wedding. Nope! The only thing I’d recommend doing with their catering is staying as far away from it as you can.
EDIT ⁷⁄₂₇:
Was contacted by Elephant’s after they apparently read this review (day after I posted it). While they did try to make good on improving their service by having someone else work with us, the fact stands that I had to leave a review to get them to do anything. I wasn’t trying to evoke a response, just share this cruddy experience we had. We are WELL over a month from when we were told to expect an updated quote by their «senior event planner». We aren’t expecting to hear back at this point, which I am fine with, as we are using someone else instead. Frankly, while I appreciate their quasi follow through and offer to give them a re-​try, I can’t bring myself to use a company that can’t even give me the pleasure of telling me how much money I have to fork up for them to cater. We’ll pass and use someone more reliable. I can’t in good faith recommend them to anyone. We decided to take our money to Première Catering. INCREDIBLE experience with them. Reasonable prices. Great food. And very professional. Everything Elephants should’ve been, but wasn’t.

Elephants catered our small wedding last Sunday. I didn’t bother to go sample food because I know the quality that they serve at their NW 22^nd location. The people I dealt with on the phone were professional, kind and helpful. Even though it was only a small event (dinner for 20), they took a lot of time going over the menu with me and answering a lot of questions. By the following day they had emailed a copy of the invoice as promised. Because the venue was an hour away, we asked if we could just pick up the food and take it. They said it wouldn’t be a problem, and they even have a number to call so when you get there they can meet you at the curb to load it up for you. Then they told us not to bother cleaning the dishes before returning them! The food was of high quality and presented beautifully, especially the Willamette Valley salad and the salmon with cucumber and dill sauce. And it all tasted great, except for the marionberry chiffon cake — it was spectacular! I felt that it was worth the cost. To have something exactly like I want it — priceless! I would not hesitate to recommend Elephants to anyone looking for a caterer.

How can this place still be in business? Overpriced low quality flavor lacking food served by snooty stuck up employees with a chip on their shoulders? Apparently their food must contain gold because it’s a rip off and very sub par. I would rather stand in a soup line than to eat this crap ever again. Blek!

Love the food at Elephants, but the catering department has some serious issues.
I left a voicemail with one of their two catering managers about catering and staffing a wedding reception. She returned my call two days later (it was May/​wedding season, so I didn’t think much of it). After getting the information on date, services, etc. I was told I’d get an email «in a couple days» with a full bid. Ten days later, I’ve heard nothing at all. At this point, we just went with a caterer who was more responsive and professional.
(Aside: For those wondering, it was a $ 100 per head catering job, so I don’t think the lack of response and interest was because of a low budget).
When it comes down to it, wedding receptions are a pretty lucrative client for a catering company, so I hesitate to «beg» someone to take my business and money.

We had elephants cater two events in the same week. They did a fabulous job at both. Such yummy food choices and so easy to work with. I will definitely be using them again for our future company events.

I had Elephant’s cater my husband and my wedding this past December and I can’t say enough great things about the whole experience. Seriously I couldn’t have had a better experience and any bride and groom, ease is key in wedding planning! Here is what I loved about Elephant’s:
1. Contact. Our event planner was very timely in her responses. I can’t remember a time where I was waiting and waiting on a response, which happens sometimes with vendors.
2. Flexibility. My husband and I really wanted to make our wedding personal, which meant bringing in a couple of outside food such as chicken wings from a local vendor, our own bartender and alcohol and homemade cookies for dessert. I was very nervous about these aspects as I was afraid they wouldn’t allow them and force us to go with them for each of these pieces. But they were open to all of our requests! And they even helped set out our cookies that we made. I can’t express enough how much of a help this was.
3. FOOD. Even though we chose other vendors for some things, you definitely don’t need to because the food offered from Elephants is delicious. We both are frequent customers at their store on 21^st and the food for our even was just as delicious. The one thing I have gotten the most compliments from guests about our wedding was how delicious our food was. yum! Also, the coffee offered is Stumptown… yum!
4. I don’t know how to label this point, but I felt that one of the things I loved was the availability of their food to me at all times. When Holly gave us our menu, before we signed with them, we were able to sample each item at one of their stores. When we were thinking of having them do our cake, we just went to their store and ordered a slice and sampled it… no appointment necessary. That was one of the things I loved… if we wanted to sample anything before adding it to the contract, all we had to do was go to the store and try it. You just can’t do that with other caterers.
I could go on and on about Elephant’s but in the end I will recommend them to all of my engaged friends. I look forward to eating at their restaurants whenever we want to have a sentimental, nostalgic meal of the best day of our lives!
Thanks Elephants!

Delicious!!! Easy, convenient. The perfect choice for catering.
We hosted a family reunion in Portland and decided a nice way for everyone to be able to visit would be to have a picnic in the park. We wanted a simple, hassle free picnic. And also to showcase some of our fabulous NW cuisine. Elephants exceeded our expectations!!! The food was superb — everyone was complimenting it. And working with elephants was so easy. They had everything ready to do — and beautifully presented. We have leftovers to last us all week :) And we just drop of the dirty dishes back to elephants and we were all done!
Couldn’t recommend them enough!!!

Elephants Catering is a professional and delicious choice for events in the Portland area. I had Elephants cater a business lunch for our office, and the food received rave reviews, especially the mac & cheese and potato salad. They have a dedicated staff that is able to field phone orders, and it wasn’t a problem to have an order delivered with less than two days notice. I was able to change my order the day before as well, and they sent over a quote for review via email so I could verify all of my charges. My favorite part of the catering experience was that their default is to use actual dishes as opposed to disposable aluminum or plastic. They usually pick up the dishes the day after the event, but since we had leftovers I called to request that the pickup be postponed. This wasn’t a problem at all. Overall the food was a little more expensive than some other caterers I’ve worked with, but for those looking for a professional and established catering business in Portland I would highly recommend Elephants.

I used them to cater my wedding. The order was «almost» right, the stuffed mushrooms were not the ones I thought I ordered, but everyone liked them. They sent everything we needed to serve the food (plates, silverware and napkins) and they even asked me if we wanted compostable ones (we did). Will definitely consider them again for future events.

Ordered catering from Elephants for an in-​house workshop. So nice to have options other than deli sandwiches. Ordered BBQ Beef, Salmon, rice pilaf, etc etc. Food was great — presentation was professional. They came back the next day to pick up all the empty platters.

Elephants stands by its’ reputation for good food and good service!
Thanks Elephants!

Donna and Matt made this part of our wedding the easiest to plan and the most fun. We had no clue what we wanted to serve and they had so many good ideas we went with them all. Everyone at our wedding said the food was great and they loved the variety and how it was displayed and served. It was one of Portland’s 95 degree days, but that was no problem for Matt and his staff. We will use Elephant’s for all our big parties going forward! (The very few left overs we had disappeared quickly the next day.)