Switchback Grille Reviews

Our daughter and future son-in-law have chosen The Switchback Grille for their Fall, 2018 wedding reception. Last weekend we all arrived to do our wedding dinner tasting and it was the most fabulous and enlightening of experiences...so beyond all of our expectations! Kristen Marriott, the wedding coordinator, was so warm, gracious, well organized and accommodating. She presented a wide range of tasty dishes, devoting so much time and input to our family in helping us create the perfect menus for our upcoming wedding guests at a price point respectful of our budget. In addition, despite it being a very busy Saturday night in the restaurant, Kristen took extra time to answer all of our logistical questions, down to the smallest detail...like our three options for how the napkins could be folded! Her level of responsive professionalism, detailed knowledge, and just sheer patience and kindness was so appreciated and very, very reassuring. We left the Switchback Grille that night just elated, knowing we were in the best hands and, with Kristen's leadership and expertise, we would hopefully be able to give our only daughter the wedding of her dreams.

I have nothing but nice things to say about Kristen and Switchback. First thing is first, Switchback has always been good to me, it all started here. I prosposed during the cold month of February and had requested a private dinning area for an engagement dinner. Derick reserved and set up the entire patio section for us with space heaters. He went as far as instructing the servers to close the doors behind them to make it more private for us. We had a wonderful time and took as long as we needed. The food and service was amazing and the staff went completely out of the way since this room is normally closed during these months, I am forever greatful for those accommodations. About a year later I was referred to Kristen, their wedding planner. I told her my situation and budget and she made it happen. She went out of her way, encorporated our event in the day since they had 2 other weddings that night, matched us for exactly what we needed in budget while providing that special service they always provide. We have ZERO complaints and only compliments. We were lucky enough to even have Derick manageing the day shift that day and he even cranked up the ac for us, it was 112 outside.

If you are traveling and want to get married in Zion, are on the small side and seeking for a laid back reception lunch/early dinner and on a budget pick this place, they will give you what you need and I can speak for that. If we would have gone a different route and wanted something more extravagant we would have also chosen switchback.

Kristen went above and beyond for us within budget and I feel we got a great day!

Management, including Derick is also amazing. Every time we visit this place we feel like family. This restaurant is in good hands.

Great venue, food was delicious and they made the experience very personal. Some problems encountered were: the event planner provided by the venue didn't always write down my requests in our meetings (it was odd...) and because of that I often had to re-answer and questions she asked throughout the process and I lacked confidence that things would be the way I wanted. I also heard from guests after the event that cocktail hour had all of the food placed in the sun and the catering staff refused to move any of it into the shade, where my guests preferred to be standing. The seating (which I had carefully mapped out), was done incorrectly and some of my guests had a free for all for where they sat, pushing my husband and our parents into the corner of the room, not where we were supposed to sit.
The staff overall was VERY friendly and accommodating at the reception. And the food really was incredible. I think the coordinator was a little distracted or something throughout the planning process, but she was very nice to speak with and loved all of my ideas.
In the end, our wedding turned out BEAUTIFULLLY!

The number one stress for my wedding was working with this venue. At first, they were very kind and flexible and seemed like they cared about our wedding. Leading up to the event, however, we asked for only two planning calls, and Kristen treated us like we were the biggest inconvenience. Some main negative highlights include:
- when we asked to meet the week before the wedding for a walk thru and to discuss set up, Kristen responded saying “what could you possibly need to discuss”…when we hadn’t talked about set up at all prior to this. Her lack of awareness that there were so many things left to go over was concerning.
- being told less than a month before the wedding that the bathroom vendor had fallen through and it was up to us to find someone (our contract included using Switchback’s preferred vendor). Luckily we found a company on our own, but Switchback didn’t offer to help at all. This was confusing mainly because they obviously needed to use someone for all their weddings this year?? So their lack of willingness to help arrange this was frustrating.
- I wrote out a VERY detailed timeline/itinerary. Specifically wrote (and discussed multiple times) that we wanted open bar for beer and wine and to pay for the bar service until 10pm. Yet, at our wedding Kristen told us at 8:30 they were shutting the bar down because it reached its limit?? She then admitted she confused us with another wedding. I get that they are stressed and way overbooked, but I feel like I did so much work planning, and emailed/printed out so many copies of easy to follow instructions. So to be approached during our reception, when we are supposed to be enjoying our night, and have to clear up something as simple as that be messed up was really frustrating. If they can’t handle keeping weddings straight, they should limit their booking capacity more.
Ultimately our wedding was at a gorgeous venue and all of my hard work paid off. But to be treated so poorly by the venue coordinator was heartbreaking.

I just had my wedding here two weeks ago. We rented both the grove and the spring. The entire process was a nightmare. We did our initial visit September of 2017. We had made an appointment to meet with Kristin at the restaurant. After driving all the way from Salt Lake Kristin was no where to be found and would not answer her phone. Just as we were about to leave and drive 4 hours back she finally called us and arrived 90 minutes late.
She communicates only through email and failed to respond a few times. She didn’t actually begin to contact us until about 4 weeks before the wedding. We traveled to the restaurant to do our tasting and had an ok experience. For our buffet we were including corn bread muffins. We were given two types at our tasting and asked if we could do half and half for the wedding. Her response was literally “NO”. Upon asking why, she said “I’m trying to keep you in your budget”. She wasn’t even aware of what our budget was. I’m pretty sure we could have afforded $40 extra dollars to add in some jalapeños.
The weather was forecasting for rain, so she told us that we could wait until the Wednesday before the order party tents. Wednesday arrives and we promptly emailed with our request to order tents. We receive an email back and SURPRISE... her rental company does not have any tents. Sooo I had to pay a crazy amount last minute to have tents sent from salt lake. Fast foward 4 days and we arrive at the venue. We do our walk through and the tents were put up in the incorrect places... we demanded that they be moved and Kristin would not accommodate us. Now forcing us to rearrange our entire seating layout and cram a buffet line and bar with it. Fast forward one more day to the actual wedding day. We payed for 6 portable heaters and they had not been moved to inside the tent. My guests had to go into the rain and move 100 pound heaters themselves. Our buffet food was incorrect and not the same as it was during our tasting. What was the point of paying $100 per person to taste food if they aren’t even going to use it at the wedding?? This venue promises you a 10 PM event end time. Well guess what? At 9 PM the bar tender announced last call and the music stopped. They turned on quiet classical music and began cleaning everything up!!!! Tables were literally being taken away and the bar was being taken down. Do not have your wedding or event here. Run!!!

RUN! This is not a wedding venue. This is a restaurant that wants to be a wedding venue. Yes, the views are stunning but it will not be worth the added stress you will have to endure in working with the owner. I was the wedding planner & florist for a wedding on April 8th, 2017. The bride had grown up in Utah and after both her parents passed away from cancer, she was left to plan her wedding without their support. Longing for a place to get married that would help her to feel their presence on her wedding day, she choose Switchback Grille. Growing up in Utah, she had ate many dinners with her parents at Switchback and it held a special place in her heart.

You would imagine the owner of the restaurant would be touched by her story and want to go above & beyond to ensure her day was extra special. Unfortunately, the opposite happened. I came on board as her wedding planner early on and helped her to plan her wedding in Utah from Los Angeles. When it came time to connect with the venue coordinator & owner of Switchback Grille, Kristen Marriott I was met with nothing but attitude and an unwillingness to work with me. She then told the bride and groom that if she was not her planner, she was going to charge her more. I'm still confused as to why anyone would ever charge more for less work?! Despite her attitude towards me, I did my best to work with Kristen. I tried to find a common ground with her and met all of her unrealistic demands with a smile on my face. However, Kristen continued to show a lack of care or professionalism in her interactions with both myself & the bride & groom. The night before the wedding, she was even texting the bride after 10PM to sort out logistics with her that should have been decided months before.

You can find the rest of my review on Yelp.

Do not waste your time with this place. The wedding coordinator Kristen Marriot is very unprofessional. We live out of state and had payed deposits to book and then ended up canceling once we made it to see the actual location, pictures looked alot nicer than it actually was. They wouldn't let us cancel the cake so I agreed to still get it thru them, the small cake was $400 alone and would be an extra $100 to deliver. She acted like I was retarded when I asked if we picked it up and drove up cedar mtn with it if it would fall or be ruined, she was like uh no it's built with pegs and won't fall. I was like okay trusting she knew. We hadn't even hit the mtn and the top 2 tiers had slid. By the time we were to the cabin it was a mess. We had a 2 tier cake we had to try to cover the falling with flowers. It had NO pegs holding it together! It was a total mess. Don't rely on this place