Childers Banquet and Catering Center

A Shout-Out to Courtney at Childers Eatery My wife and I enjoyed a wonderful breakfast at Childers Eatery, 3312 N. University St., Peoria. We shared omelets with hashbrowns—fluffy omelets with flavorful fillings and crispy hashbrowns. Courtney’s warm, attentive service was the standout. She made excellent menu recommendations, and her Tea Steeper for my wife’s tea was both charming and functional. We loved it so much we bought two. The atmosphere felt welcoming and cozy, reflecting genuine hospitality. We left full, happy, and already eager to return. Thank you, Courtney!

Everything was great.

Went to a retirement party. Ample parking, nice venue inside. Plenty of seating and space for buffet.

We don’t like to leave bad reviews, but felt like we needed to share our experience. We recently got married and hired Childers over a year in advance (Aug 2023). We spoke with their sales manager at the time, communication was great, she was prompt and available for calls to explain details to us. We wanted a somewhat unique plated dinner menu and asked if that was possible. She let us know it was going to be a longer dinner service (which was fine with us) but overall possible. We signed our contract and paid our deposit. Fast forward to spring of 2024, we had some questions and emailed this manager several times with no response. We ended up calling Childers and was told that the gal was no longer working there and was told someone would be reaching out to us. Which they did and we emailed back and got nothing. Fast forward to the month before our wedding, I had called and left several messages with staff and had their catering manager, Mary, call me and apologize for lack of communication, it appears she only responded to their staff in our emails and that’s why we never heard back. She was able to answer our questions and take our final guest count and order. Mary was nice. The next day, she let me know there was some modifications needed to be done to our menu and needed to talk to the chef. The chef was out that day, and we begin to panic since we are 30 days out, had our 3 course plated meal choices already selected by guests are told vaguely about a change needed. We spoke with the chef/Ryan the next day, who didn’t like our menu and could not believe that the previous sales manger agreed to this. We went over details and he let me know it was going to be a longer dinner service, which again was fine by us. Next days, he sends us a final invoice and which didn’t line up with our previous discussion. We speak again with Ryan to clarify and at this point, he’s extremely rude. Turns out Ryan is the owner too. He made it very clear he didn’t like our menu once again. At this point, we are stressed and upset and tell him he’s really made us feel bad about our menu when we were told it was possible. I said after their previous sales manager left, no one from his company looked at their current clients for almost a year and no one reached out about our menu or giving us a new point of contact. He then called us the “unfortunate ones” since we were promised this by the previous manager and had lack of communication from his company. We were paying additional for a plated meal and it just seemed like he didn’t want to do the work. I told him if they would have reached out when the other manager was no longer there and our menu was not something Childers wanted to do, we would have changed our menu in advance. He said dinner service would be a “free for all” and I told him I would add guests order to the back of their place card for guidance and have them flipped at start of dinner service. Thankfully, he did accept the fact that we were 30 days out from the wedding and had already made a promise to our guests of the menu. I was scoffed at by Ryan multiple times and in tears by the end of the call. He badmouthed the previous manager very poorly, which is ironic because she is mentioned in so many of their 5 star reviews. Ryan really puts child into Childers. We luckily did not have to contact with them from that point on and had our coordinator handle it. I made a cheat sheet of all our tables to help servers with dinner service too. Dinner service went fine and food was great. We received many compliments from our guests and the servers were very polite. Even though dinner service was good, if we would have experienced the phone call with Ryan more than 30 days before our wedding, we would’ve forfeited our deposit and chose someone else with the way he treated us, but since we were so close to our big day we felt like we had no other option. Food was great however it was not worth the stress and disrespect. If communication and customer service is priority to you, I would stay away from Childers.

The catering for our wedding was great! Everyone I spoke to was super easy to work with. Any questions I had were answered in a timely manner.

We couldn’t have asked for a better catering experience for our wedding! From start to finish, they were absolutely fantastic. The team was professional, attentive, and made the entire process stress-free. The food? AMAZING. Every dish was delicious, beautifully presented, and guests are still raving about it! Plus, they managed to provide such high-quality food at an incredibly affordable price. If you're looking for a catering company that will truly exceed your expectations, this is the one! Highly recommended!

The catering for our wedding was great! Everyone I spoke to was super easy to work with. Any questions I had were answered in a timely manner.

I am just reaching out to you regarding the service and staff that was sent to Stoney Creek for the Schmidgall/ Rhoades Wedding on 5/25. I cannot say enough great things about them! The staff was wonderful and thorough in the service they provided from start to finish! Your staff was so upbeat with positive attitudes and a willingness and drive to get the job done right, and great to just conversate with about the industry in general. The presentation and quality of the food was incredible and the bride and groom absolutely LOVED it! This was EXACTLY what we needed to be able to showcase the quality, of not only the food, but the service that Childer's provides, to our corporate company. I sent the staff home with a dozen mini bundt cakes, but please pass along a huge thank you again to them. And thank you again for providing your services and holding your staff to such standards. It does not go un-noticed nor unappreciated. I look forward to doing much more business with you and your wonderful staff!

Used Childers for a recent event for the corporation I work for. It's an upscale event, and we strive to provide an elegant evening for our staff. I viewed Childers Gateway building downtown with Leylan 2 months in advance. It was the PERFECT location. We had used the same facility year after year and were looking for a change. The atmosphere, the location, the scenery, it was all we were looking for. Over the next week or so I had emailed with Leylan letting her know what we were looking at food wise, we picked a menu and I let her know that I needed to have extra entrees because we have some bigger eaters. We also discussed appetizers and the fact that I would have to provide my own desserts. No big deal.Fast forward to the day of the event, Courtney from the catering side calls me and we discuss how I would like the evening to go. I look over the contract and notice that the amount of food is lower than Leylan and I had discussed. I asked Courtney if we could bump the beef entrée up and she said she would find out from the chef if they could. She was prompt in calling me back and letting me know that it was taken care of. (Now, I'm not going to put blame on anyone about this part. I should have followed up with the contract closer to the date and made sure my amounts were ok. I didn't and I will take responsibility for that.) The next morning (day of the event) I speak with Courtney again, as I read the contract again, and there's no appetizers on it. I had written down what had been previously discussed, so I knew that we had talked about it, but it wasn't on the physical contract. So, Courtney did what she could and made sure that we had appetizers that evening as well.I would say the one place that really fell short for me was the desserts. I was told that we had to bring our own, no big deal, I'll have them delivered, if you will please cut and serve them. For a fee, they were glad to do that for me. I asked for the dessert to be cut and ready to serve by 7pm. by 7:15, nothing was out and I had to go cut half of the desserts myself and serve them. I think that maybe there was a lack of people to assist in certain areas, but overall, the food was AMAZING and the staff was super friendly and helpful. Through the few issues we did have, they made sure they could make it right. We hope to use them again in the future!

Enjoyable atmosphere and wonderful menu!

Tried to get them to cater my wedding. They said they could do an entirely gluten-free catering. Upon further review, no package was all gluten free. This was not safe for my fiancée, who has SEVERE gluten alergies. Their solution was "well, she can brings her own food." Who says that to a bride?!?! EDIT: And then you see below how the try to blame the customer. Tell me then, why were we told by you and your staff, that you could accommodate a gluten-free catering service?

My employees were all very pleased with the quality of the food. They really enjoyed everything and I will strongly recommend to others.

Attended an event catered by childers. It was severely understaffed, everything came out late. The drinks were never filled, the tables were never cleared until the end. It was so bad that guests went in and helped to serve drinks and desserts. The staff that was there were very short and looked upset. Probably because of how understaffed they were. Worse yet the food was practically inedible. The chicken wing was raw and the chicken breast was rubber and served cold. Overall I would never hire them to cater an event. People left the show before it was even finished because of how horrible the catering was I was so sad because the show was amazing. The actors and singers didn't deserve to have their show ruined due to terrible caterers.

Everything was delicious during our tasting and Kaley was very friendly and informative!

Kaley was fantastic to work with! She was always very responsive when we had questions. The staff that delivered the food were also so helpful and very courteous. And the food........WOW! so delicious! Would definitely order from Childers' again.