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Lewis: Menus can be less flexible
(although Unique, which services
Hotel Baronette in Novi, and Jan-
ice Levin-Gorelick, at the Birm-
ingham Temple, provide custom
catering); but hotels provide their
own tables, chairs and linens; and
certain staffs — the Baronette and
the Sheraton Oaks, Novi, for in-
stance — are by now just as fa-
miliar with the structure of
bar/bat mitzvahs as some religious
institutions.
"If it's the site that's most im-
portant to you," Ms. Lewis says,
"then you'll probably not want to
go to a hotel. Hotels are kind of
square and (take extra work) to
make it look nice."
Hotels are also costly. For any
Saturday night event, the Hotel
Baronette requires a guarantee
that the client will spend at least
$10,000 on food and drink in its
250-person capacity ballroom. At
the Ritz-Carlton in Dearborn, that
figure runs anywhere from
$12,000 (for slow nights in the
Plaza Ballroom) to $35,000 (for
high-demand dates in the Presi-
dential Ballroom). Mind you, that
doesn't include flowers, band,
videogicapher, photographer, dec-
orations and the rest.
Baronette allows clients to book
dates up to 18 months in advance;
the Ritz recommends a year to 15-
months' notice.
Hotels do relieve hosts of the
cost and inconvenience of trans-
porting out-of-town guests to and
from another location. The staffs
will run the party, set up and clean
up. And, as Baronette's Kathy
Charnley points out, hotels by na-
ture are service-oriented, i.e. they
aim to please. The Ritz, for one,
spends hours training its staff and
recertifies employees in their spe-
cialty every six months.
(As for kosher meals, the Ritz
will prepare a kosher party on

nights when the kitchen is not
busy with other parties; Baronette
does not prepare kosher meals,
but will special-order up to about
a dozen).
Restaurants, such as Cafe Corti-
na in Farmington Hills, cater main-
ly to smaller parties, on the
luncheon scale, though this one
can accommodate up to 220 in
the entire building (open to pri-
vate parties on Sunday nights).
Adrian Tonon, who runs the
restaurant with his mother Rina,
says clients can choose a menu for
their party from anything the
kitchen normally prepares. That
can range from a $20-per-person
pasta to a $29-per-person veal
chop.
Still, party professionals in De-
troit lament that the city is woe-
fully short on spaces to throw large
(200-plus) parties. If a host wants
to use his own caterer, then the

choices are almost nil — "and that
hurts people who don't have the
budget to meet hotel minimums,"
says Janice Meyer Cherkasky of
Gourmet Parties in Franklin.
Leslie Sternberg is not one of
them. For her husband Mervyn's
60th birthday, Mrs. Sternberg
wanted to pull off something big
at an unusual site. She chose the
Gem Theatre downtown and
turned the patio and building into
her own personal palace. "It was
one of the most elegant parties
we've ever had at the Gem," says
Barb McAllister, special-events co-
ordinator for the Gem and neigh-
boring State theaters.
Saving a date at the Gem, as
Mrs. Sternberg found, can be pre-
carious. The theater hosts live
shows throughout the year, and
depending on their success, may
have no free weekends available
PARTY page C42

Checklist for a great party

* If your house cannot accommodate the number of guests you
want, think about either staggering arrival times, or even throwing
the same party two days in a row. It's cost efficient and saves you
from trimming your list.

* Investing in an extended homeowners insurance policy for the
day of the house party might be smart. You don't want to be li-
able for any injuries incurred on your property.

* Read the fine print in hotel contracts. Make sure you're clear
on Saturday-night minimums and cancellation policies, be it you
canceling on the hotel or vice versa.

* Synagogues offer convenience and preferential treatment to their
members, and rental rates are excellent, but their limited resources
can confine your creativity

* Even if the venue doesn't allow you the freedom to hire the cater-
er you want, you can hire someone to oversee preparations in the
kitchen that day.

* Book early. Hotels and synagogues are already filling weekend
spots for years to come.

* Holding parties in the slow winter months, January and Febru-
ary, may mean better bargains on venues as well as other party ser-
vices. But remember that weather can be tricky these times of
the year.

* In the case of bar/bat mitzvahs especially, talk with the venue's

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