The atmosphere at Dream Dinners in Waxhaw feels like a party. Friends are chatting. The staff is smiling. A staff member stands at a sample station and gives the Mango Curry Chicken a stir before plating it up for this afternoon’s guests. Dream Dinners believes meal time should be enjoyable from start to finish, and it begins when customers walk in the door to prepare their recipes.
Dream Dinners in Waxhaw has been open for about 11 years. The original owners decided to retire a little over a year ago, so the business changed management. Some of the original staff stayed on, one who has been working at Dream Dinners in Waxhaw for at least ten years. As an established business, the transition went smoothly, allowing staff to focus on the continuation of excellent customer service.
Dream Dinners offers 15-17 different menu items that change out monthly. Each menu features a variety of main dishes that include seafood, chicken, and beef choices. Additional side items and sweets are also available for purchase. Staff member Mary Sweeter said, “Meats and seafood are all restaurant quality. A quality that you can’t get in the supermarket. It’s a little bit higher.”
Guests choose which menu items they would like, then pick a session time. Meals and session times can be viewed both in the store and online. Session registration can be completed electronically or in person as well. When it is time for a guest’s session, they simply arrive at Dream Dinners and put together their meals.
Dream Dinners does all the shopping and prep work, plus the cleanup, so that a guest can put together a month’s worth of dinners in about one hour. Mary said, “We prep everything ahead of time where with [other meal services] The Blue Apron and Hello Fresh, which are beautiful when they come to the door, you still have a lot of work to do.” Dream Dinners is made for busy families that may not have the time to put together a meal in their kitchen every night. “We’re made for 40 minutes on a Thursday night to get dinner on the table and back out the door to soccer practice,” Mary added.
Family togetherness is what Dream Dinners is really about. “Food is just the vehicle,” Mary explained. When you prepare your meals ahead of time at Dream Dinners, it allows you to spend more time at home enjoying your family instead of shopping, cooking, and cleaning. She also mentioned it helped families avoid having to rush through the drive through when pressed for time. “On average, we save our guest 20 hours in prep time, shopping and clean up a month and about $150 on their grocery bill,” she said.
Dream Dinners believes meal time should be enjoyable, and Dream Dinners in Waxhaw is her way of bringing that opportunity to the community. Dream Dinners believes that meals should be both prepared and consumed with joy. Friends often come to sessions together, making the preparation a type of “girls night” or “spouse time.” Instead of a rushed, stressful necessity, the meal prep becomes a time to look forward to. And back at home, dinner time becomes stress-free, as pulling out a delicious Dream Dinners meal from the freezer has already answered the question of, “What’s for dinner?”
Dream Dinners in Waxhaw is located at 3909 Providence Rd. South; Suite E; Waxhaw. Their menu and session times can be found by going online to www.dreamdinners.com, then selecting the Waxhaw location. Or guests can call 704-243-3063 or email waxhawNC@dreamdinners.com. A tasting night is offered on the first Wednesday of every month. Guests can pop in the shop and try some delicious dinners for free. Dream Dinners states that on tasting nights guests can bring groups including their spouses, kids or even the local soccer team.
