Daniel B.
Yelp
We just had our company holiday party this past Saturday night at the Chop House at SunTrust Park and it was a blast. I heard nothing but great things about the party. It seemed everyone had a wonderful time.
This is my first year on my company's Party Planning Committee so I helped out in setting this event up. I was primarily responsible for hiring our event photographer, renting the photo booth, and getting some centerpieces for the space. Others on the committee met with folks from the Atlanta Braves to tour and book the space, finalize the dinner and drink menu, and other details. Another committee member and I toured the event spaces at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. While MB Stadium was certainly nice, the committee ultimately decided on the Chop House for our venue this year (we may use MB Stadium for a party in the future).
Expected attendance was 125. We all had to be screened through a metal detector at the Chop House gate just like going to a Braves game. We had the entire Chop House to ourselves. I found all of the staff to be friendly -- security, doorwoman, bartenders, waitstaff, even the lady who kicked us out at the end of the night.
The Chop House doesn't have enough space for 125 seated guests, so we did a mix of sitting and standing. This encouraged more mingling and created a more relaxed environment as opposed to a more formal dinner setting which is what a lot of our holiday parties have been like in the past. The more casual atmosphere was well received. I was in the Chop House from about 6pm to 11pm (the party officially ran from 7pm to 10pm) and time flew by because my fiancee and I were having such a good time.
The space was already nicely decorated with Christmas trees, gift boxes, and wreaths, but the tables needed centerpieces. My fiancee and I grabbed some holiday-themed centerpieces from Costco for the large seated tables and another committee member grabbed small poinsettias from Home Depot for the smaller high top tables. I thought the centerpieces turned out great. The space has a lot of TVs (kind of like a sports bar) so we displayed a slideshow of various company-related pictures, mostly from old parties. Those were fun to look at. We had Christmas music playing over the speakers.
We had access to the Chop House deck overlooking the baseball field. We had to pay for the lights to be turned on. It was worth it (why would you have a party at a baseball stadium if you can't even see the field?). We were also given the option of having something displayed on the ballpark's big screen at an additional cost, but decided against it.
Delaware North, a company that handles food service at sporting venues and airports among other places, provided the food and drink. We had the following:
"Build Your Own" Dinner Buffet (self-serve buffet):
* Maple-dijon-crusted chicken breast, roasted peach chutney
* Ricotta tortellini, grilled asparagus, fresh tomato sauce
* Braised seasonal greens
* Squash souffle, crunchy cracker crumbs
* Bacon fat fingerling potatoes
* Balsamic roasted Brussels sprouts
"Action" Station Enhancement (carving station):
* Oak-smoked brisket
* Assorted BBQ sauces and jalapeno cheddar biscuits
Dessert:
* Red velvet layer cake
* Key lime pie with graham cracker crust
* Molten chocolate cake
* Assorted cookies
I thought the food was very good. I only have one small complaint. The molten chocolate cake, while extremely delicious, was too hard to easily cut into using our plastic silverware. My fork broke into several small pieces as I tried to break apart the dessert's hard outer layer. I think all catered food should be "compatible" with the cutlery that it's served with.
Those minor gripes aside, we enjoyed the dinner. I think most people's favorite item was the oak-smoked brisket. It was fantastic and could hold its own against the brisket served by just about any barbecue joint in Atlanta. The chicken breast was decent too. The crust was flavorful and the meat was moist and tender. I really liked the key lime pie. It was so good; very smooth and creamy.
Coming from someone who rarely drinks, I thought the drinks were spectacular. The bartender was mixing some pretty tasty cocktails.
The photo booth, which was provided by Krisandra Evans Photography (https://bit.ly/2QzOiiO), was a hit. Thankfully, the Chop House had the space and necessary hookups for the photo booth. The Braves/Chop House/SunTrust Park folks did require a certificate of insurance from Krisandra and that certificate had to say certain things in it, as required by the Braves, so that was an unforeseen hoop we had to jump through. Krisandra had an assistant, Betsy, who worked the photo booth while Krisandra roamed the event taking candids and posed shots. If you ever need an event photographer and/or photo booth, I highly recommend her.
We had to park in the Delta Deck which is a several-minutes walk around to the Chop House.
The Battery made it very easy for pre-gaming and post-gaming.