The Odyssey Restaurant

This review is for my April 17, 2010 wedding reception. Overall, their level of service was impeccable. Here are the things they did right:

1. They worked with us to get the room we wanted. Once we assured them we would have the minimum amount to secure the room, they were fine with us having a slightly lower occupancy.

2. Value: we got a 3 entree buffet, with dessert and our cake, a 3 hour bar, champagne toast and a dessert bar for under $70 per person(not including gratuity--that's pretty darn competitive for Los Angeles).

3. They were willing to set up the special linens that I had ordered for the event. They were also willing to work with me and let me fold their napkins and have them placed on my chargers so that the staff would only have to place the chargers with the napkins already folded on them(so they didn't have to work twice).

4. When it turned out that the candy for my candy buffet would melt if stored in my coordinator's car, I was able to call them and they let my MOH and Fiancee(at the time) set up the candy buffet early the morning of the wedding.

5. They augmented our decor with additional buffet linens and lighting which made the room look even more spectacular with the uplighting I ordered along with the gobo projection on the dance floor.

6. Hospitality. They greeted our wedding party with champagne and hors d'oeuvres upon arrival. We had two waiters filling our plates when my husband and I went up to the buffet and they could trip over themselves fast enough to make us feel comfortable.

7. The food was excellent. Period.

Here are the things that they really need to work on:

1. They didn't cut our wedding cake to be served to our guests!!!! This really ticked me off. I went with the bakery that they told me to go with, and I paid $11 per slice over what was included in the package for this spectacular-looking cake that few or none of my guests even tried because no one bothered to cut it! And this was a service that was supposedly included in the package! Not only that it they ended up wasting over 40 hours of hard work I could have put in elsewhere other than my DIYed menus when I added in a diagram of my cake so my guests could know which flavor each tier was so they could tell the server which flavor they wanted. All of this work was wasted because they didn't cut my cake and serve it!

I actually have to have this cake served to my guests at my church one week later(no thanks to them).

2. Communication. They should have told me when I booked(almost a year beforehand, May 2, 2009) that the Garden Room's wiring was not up to code to handle the uplighting I had ordered. It was a "little detail" they left out of their documentation until they finally dropped it on me like a ton of bricks one month before the wedding when I met with them to finalize everything(and yes, my coordinator was there when they told me, so I wasn't the only one who heard it). It actually took two weeks me nagging and waiting after that for them to give me and my DJ a straight answer as to whether I would need a generator or not along with where to put said generator.

This left me scrambling the last week to let my lighting person know to get a generator which cost me an additional $120 to rent. This leaves us to issue #3

3. Building maintenance. Now I may be a clueless bride that doesn't know anything, but my darling husband and I bought a house two months prior to our wedding and last I looked in to the way real estate works, it is the responsibility of the owner of a building to maintain the wiring up to code. It's really a shameful they have neglected to do that on such a beautiful location! Seriously, this is a matter of pride and common sense.

Would I book another event with them? Yes, absolutely. But I would seriously watch my banquet manager like a hawk and insist that they cut the freaking cake like there were supposed to have done on the basis of our contract(yeah watching them was my my coordinator's job which I will go into detail later)! And I would insist on them telling me upfront on whether or not the wiring can handle extra stuff like lighting.
The second issue is extremely important to know so you don't end up scrambling at the last minute trying to throw more money into an already expensive event.

They were great! We had a lot of requests, and they worked with us on everything! We got a ton of food for the price! Just loved it!

Top quality service and the food was amazing!

Thank you so much!

I really thought they did a great job. They were very efficient and were also very flexible. The room looked beautiful and everything went smoothly. The only things I was not happy with is they didn't give us the iced tea that they were supposed to at dinner and they started clearing salads when people weren't done as well as took away water glasses when people were still on the dance floor. I think they were doing this so that they could clean up and get out of there as soon as possible. I would definitely recommend to use them but just make sure you tell them you do not want the servers to take anything away until the end of the reception (like the drinks).

I had both ceremony and reception at The Odyssey and was quite happy with it. The staff are very responsive and professional. Great service and great value for cost.

Spectacular view and value for your money. Great food and excellent service. Recieved several compliments on the quality of our venue.

Of all the places we searched, The Odyssey was the best location for the price.

We had both our ceremony and reception at The Odyssey and everything was amazing!! The location was beautiful with a gorgeous view of the San Fernando Valley and the ballroom was incredible. The food was perfect and the entire planning process was a great experience. I worked with Emily in catering-she did a great job and was very quick to answer questions and return phone calls.

We highly recommend The Odyssey!!