Hi,

I had the idea of having a pour-over bar at my wedding reception coming up next June. It's going to be in the SF Bay Area (San Jose) and I'd like to start approaching some local roasters or cafe's to see if they could set something up (small, just for 2 hours, 1 barista should be sufficient). I figured that pour-over should be easy to do, vs. espresso or something.

Questions
Do you know any people that have done this? Whom did they use?
What else could I do other than pour-over? Chemex for each table may be nice, but I'm not sure that all of my guests would be interested.
If I find a few vendors, what price range should I be looking to negotiate around?


Thanks for the help.

I haven't done this, but since I'm from San Jose you might approach two local roasters Chromatic Coffee and Barefoot Coffee here in San Jose. Barefoot Coffee has a mobile coffee van that serves coffee at food truck events and private events, the menu board is shown below from one of their food truck event appearances. The van may be limited to parking lot service which may or may not fit with your reception.

I'm not sure if Chromatic Coffee does catering, but I like their coffee. Bellano Coffee in San Jose is not a roaster, but they do serve good coffee and might do catering as well. If you're interested in Barefoot or Chromatic, you could order some of their coffee in advance (or ask for samples) to make sure you like their coffee.

As an update to this, I tried 3 different cafe/roasters:
Red Rock - said they only do large containers of brew, nothing fancier.
Barefoot - were happy to bring their van, but at $1000+ it was out of my price range.
Chromatic - waiting for a quote, met with them at their roasting facility and they were very flexible to discuss the best option for catering to a large group. Hopefully will do some espresso drinks!

I'm going to try and put you in touch with a new company named Bloom, here in SF. They might be able to arrange something, but it's up to the owner if they can accommodate you. They are a new start up that provides only the best 3rd wave coffees, best gear, and setup corporate accounts for coffee service. She's a brand new company that is very passionate, and eager to grow, so there's a chance that they might be willing to cater. They sell basically every top shelf coffee you can name, so that's pretty cool.