Partying at Crate and Barrel

Last night we attended Crate and Barrel's The Wedding Parties Registry Event at the store in Union Square in San Francisco.

Until I read Jem's post about the Macy*s Sip and Scan Event in NY that she was going to, I didn't know such evenings or brunches existed. (This is why I follow real brides - you learn lots!) I quickly Googled to see if there was a similar event near me. Initially I didn't find one, so I immediately started checking for events at any store we might register at. Voila! Crate and Barrel (a store that synched with MyRegistry - more on that in a later post) had events!

A little bit before 7 pm, cubes and I along with MooflyFoof of MooflyFood, descended upon the store. At the door we immediately saw that we'd have the entire store (all 3 levels of it) to ourselves (well shared with other couples of course). If you've been to Crate and Barrel before you'll know that on weekends (when I typically go) they're filled to the brim with people.

The staff was attentive, friendly, and knowledgeable. No one followed us around or tried to hard sell us on expensive ticket items. We weren't chided when we bypassed stemware or china.

There was food on the second and third floors - panini's and grilled asparagus on the second and croissant sandwiches with fruit on the third. The asparagus with a little balsamic vinegar was my favorite. The bruschetta paninis I think were cubes' and Mooflyfoof's favorites. I was in a white wine mood so I was happy. cubes was a little disappointed that there wasn't a red wine option.

The best part of the event was Nick's knife demonstration. We have nice knives but I wasn't aware of the differences in the knives we have or why I love our Globals more than the Wusthof Black Classics. We learned that neither of us really knows how to use our knives and that there's a different technique for German versus Japanese blades. (We're now even more excited about the boot camp-style cooking classes we'll be taking during our mini-moon.)

We hadn't started our registry before the event - that was no problem. At the end of the night we plugged our scanner into the kiosk and completed our information. A fun and painless experience.