Obviously, there is a lot of controversy over City Stages going bankrupt this year, and indeed Bottletree has been extremely hurt by not receiving full payment on our catering services.  That said, our hearts go out to everyone who has been affected by this from sound companies to bands to the festival organizers themselves. Our only choice now is to trudge ahead and be as positive and hopeful as we can that we can get through this. So instead of focusing on the very inherent negative aspects of this calamity, we thought we'd share a blog that we wrote (before all this happened) about what our services entailed and what the overall response from our catering the festival has been. Here it is: 

You might be wondering why Bottletree was closed last Friday through Monday. Well, the reason was that over the weekend the enitre Bottletree staff (including brother/sister owners Brad and Merrilee Challiss) took on the gargantuan task of catering the entire City Stages festival in Downtown Birmingham. It was an immense undertaking feeding over 60 bands and miscellaneous crew as well as festival staff. Well over 850 meals were prepared in a 72-hour period. By all reports the Bottletree team passed with flying colors and got major accolades on both the quality of the food and the attention the staff gave to the bands.

Making a huge variety of meals for everyone from hip-hop diva Young Jeezy to the classic rock royalty of the Doobie Brothers, Bottletree itself became a veritable food factory with all our kitchen staff working harder than the Keebler elves making Fudge Stripes around the clock. Serving everything that met requirements of these acts was an immense catering challenge for any company.

What is different about providing the food and hospitality for a multi-stage music festival (than say a really large wedding) is the need to constantly be able to improvise. Bands, especially ones of such massive stature, can be picky and fickle and throw about as good curveballs as any major league pitcher. The kitchen crew not only served the diverse, pre-determined menu, but also made special meals and last minute addendums to keep everyone with a smiling face and a full belly.

Some staff served as runners that transported the food from the restaurant to various City Stages event locations; others were stage managers and dealt with onstage and backstage food and drinks. The main center for meal service was in Boutwell auditorium where a slew of Bottletree staff served everyone. It was a camp that was prepared to provide timely, delicious food that was both hearty and healthy from flounder to baked chicken and also satisfy vegetarian/vegan needs with everything from cous cous to collard greens. The feedback concerning the meals being leaps and bounds beyond anything catered at the festival before was overwhelming from both local and touring bands and crew.

You might think that making excellent food is all it takes to please hungry rock stars. Well, while indeed the quality of the food goes leaps and bounds as a crowd pleaser, it’s only a piece in the greater Olympian quest of catering a festival of this size. The other major part of the gig is hospitality, and that is something the Bottletree staff deals with on almost a daily basis.

As a venue, Bottletree can be host to over 300 bands a year. The restaurant/venue feeds the bands, takes care of any technical or personal requests, and provides the bands with a well-attention temporary home—even if just for an evening. The club has showcased some of the biggest names in almost every genre imaginable, boasting in little over a two year-period over 15 bands that have played on David Letterman and 3 that have performed on Saturday Night Live. Many bands come to Birmingham specifically to play Bottletree, often doing an “underplay” just because of the reputation of the venue. In other words: bands who could possibly draw theater or even auditorium-size crowds choose to play an intimate show at Bottletree, because they know the vibe and hospitality is absolutely legendary.

So, needless to say, the experience of dealing with bands day-in-and-day-out was a skill well used at City Stages. With longtime promoters / hospitality staff like Rebecca Davis and Tina Pilgrim leading the charge at the various festival sites, even the most particular of tour managers (the people who get paid by the bands to yell at other people when anything isn’t right) were tamed and contented by both the laid-back personal touch and the attention to detail that our Bottletree staff employed. There were rave reviews coming from the armada of rock star-filled tour buses and crew driven semi-trucks parked all over the downtown area.

So, if you were wondering, yes, Bottletree can handle any size catering job, small or behemoth, that is thrown our way. From say a birthday party to a corporate dinner to even something on the unfathomable scale of feeding an entire music festival, Bottletree can serve it up and serve it right. And remember, Bottletree can satisfy anything from a group of health conscious, retreat bound vegetarians to hungry carnivores ready to chomp down before the big game! If you have any questions concerning our catering services, please contact merrilee@thebottletree.com. Thank you so much.