Comments on: A Visit To Super Suppers: Is It Worth My Simple Dollar?

By: Lorinda

Lorinda — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 00:48:28 +0000

I love super supers. I sign up and receive 12 meals and 2 sides for 144.00 a month. What a deal. I work out of my home and so I am very busy. I have two children and they love the food as well, They are not picky eaters at all.
We love the greek feta wraps, all the chicken recipes, we love the king ranch and our favorite is the poppy seed chicken. We usually have a side salad and fuit and I think it is very healthy because the portions are the right size and noone over eats. You can’t go wrong with the franchise super suppers. I have both of their cook books and love using them also.
I’ve gotten to know the staff and enjoy chatting with them about life as I pick out my selections every week. Super claps to super suppers. My huspand and my children love you!!!!!! Thank you for coming to Montgomery AL I hope you never leave.

By: Trinity

Trinity — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 01:21:13 +0000

I went to the Dinner A’fare a couple of weeks ago for my mom. It was a very plesant experiance for me. The lady that was there to restock the recipe stations and answer questions was very helpful. She checked on me throughout the time I was there and was very sweet. the recipes were east to follow and it took me less than the two hour provided. We have only had two of the meals that I made there by my mom says we will definately be going back. They were delicious and full of flavor (unlike some dishes made at home because of lack of proper spices). Everything there was easy, smooth, and looked good even though it wasn’t cooked. The only problem we are having is remember to take the meals out of the freezer in time to have them for dinner! It seems to be cheaper in the area I am in by $5 – $15 than anywhere else. But it is very reasonably priced.

By: Brad

Brad — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 15:45:23 +0000

We visited there Saturday and it seemed nice. We made some pork wrap things that we will cook later which we got for free. (It is worth doing one of the 101 demos – you get an entre for free.)

We also purchased a couple of prepared things to try and my wife and daughter signed up to come in next month and make 6 items. We will split these in half and make 12 “meals” out of them.

Very cheery lady and a nice clean place. You could probably make it cheaper yourself at home, but we never seem to make it, so this should be a decent alternative.

Brad

By: Trent

Trent — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 13:19:34 +0000

I will add that I’ve been very happy with the food from Super Suppers so far.

By: Jan

Jan — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 12:45:32 +0000

I manage a Super Suppers and resent the comments that our food comes from a can, is mushy etc. We pride ouselves in fresh or flash frozen vegetables and meats. How dare you malign us and lie at the same time. Occasionally, we’ll use a canned sauce or gravy – certainly not in every recipe. The ones we purchase are the finest. Our recipes are developed in a culinary college by experienced chefs and even this month, the chef’s from Martha Stewart’s Every Day Living magazine. They are produced to ease the burden of preparing our entrees at home, to freeze well and to appeal to most tastes. Also, to inform the above ignorant, our franchise corporation allows us a lot of leeway in what we choose for entrees of the month, ingredients, packaging, etc. One last note. The person above who worked for our old web design company is full of sour grapes. We now have a new web design company – what does that tell you?

By: Amy

Amy — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 05:17:49 +0000

I recently tried Super Suppers. I was a little bit concerned due to some of the comments posted here. I actually asked if I could see the “kitchen” area in the back of the store so I could check out the ingredients for myself. They didn’t hesitate to bring my in the back area. First of all, it was immaculately clean (huge plus for me). Yes, they had can goods stocked, but regular stuff that I too would use in my kitchen, like canned diced tomatoes. All the produce was chopped fresh. In fact, there was an employee hand chopping green peppers and cilantro when I was there. We’ve enjoyed the meals so far. Nothing that we’ve had was mushy. We had a wonderful pork tenderloin. The person giving me the tour (owner, maybe?) also let me know that the pork chops are cut fresh daily, which also tasted great. I love to cook, but this seems to be a great alternative for the nights when the kids have to run off in different directions (spots, etc). It was nice to put together dinner without going to the grocery store or ending up with fresh ingredients that go to waste. We will go back and do it again.

By: Barbara

Barbara — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 02:06:40 +0000

I love Super Suppers. It has made dinner time so much easier on those nights when I just do not have the energy to cook at home but want to serve my family something better than take-out.

I find the meals to be generally of good to excellent quality. The Parmesean Chicken with Creamy Sage Sauce is a family favorite, luckily my local Super Suppers always carries it as a customer favorite.

I have tried all of the different kitchens in my area and found Super Suppers to be the most consistent as far as taste goes. The entrees are generally easy to prepare and are of tastes that the whole family likes. There is another kitchen in the area that touts itself as gourmet (I’m sorry but no meal assembly dinner is gourmet in my book, but that doesn’t mean they are not tasty.) When I want gourmet I will break out my cutting boards and mixing bowls and do it myself. If you are expecting gourmet, you will never be satisfied.

The real value in companies like Super Suppers is that they give me time back. Time to spend with my kids, time to spend with my Husband, Time to spend reading a book.

When it comes right down to it, Super Suppers for me is a nice option. I can still cook my family favorites when I want to , My husband still has to take me out to resturants, I admit I still do take out once in awhile (Nothing like a good cheeseburger once in awhile!) and I have ready made meals when I want them.

By: Kari

Kari — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 19:32:27 +0000

I’ve used my local Super Suppers, and think it’s great. A lot of the ingredients are what you’d use at home. Some ingredients are fresh and some are not.

If you’re someone who loves to cook and has time for it, this probably isn’t for you. But if you’re too busy to cook, don’t know how to cook, or just don’t want to cook, Super Suppers is great.

My local store has a tasting night every month so I can try things in advance and see what fits my family’s taste. Not everything does, but enough does that it’s a good fit for us. Some months I’ll assemble my own meals, other months I have them do it for me.

For me, it saves me money (vs eating out), saves me time (about 20 hours of cooking time a month that I now have time for the family), and I make sure I pick meals that have good nutrition, so we are eating better.

My meals definitely weren’t “mush”. For this month, my favorites were the Pecan Mozzarella Chicken and the Chicken Satay with Peanut Sauce (although, I think the menu is sometimes different at different stores). Good Luck and have fun at the demo.

Kari

By: Brad

Brad — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 22:11:53 +0000

Trent, can you comment on the “mushy” charge? My wife and I (and my daughter) are not great cooks. I would rather live with Stouffers (with all its flaws) than eat expensive mush. :)

We did sign up for a “free” demo on Saturday where they say they will give us a single entre at no charge.

It is probably worth the $110 to try 6 of them (split in half) for 12 meals though.

Brad

By: Amelia

Amelia — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 14:40:34 +0000

Stephen, check out the website for whatever chain you’re thinking of using. They have nutritional info on there.

By: Stephen

Stephen — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 13:28:33 +0000

Just curious how healthy the food is if anyone knows. My wife and I are calorie counters and we watch how much stuff we eat and I was wondering as far as diet goes how good some of the food/meals are that you can make at these places?

I would be all for it we knew that info. I do not mind cooking dinner at home, I even enjoy it, but we both HATE thinking of what to make!

By: Cathy

Cathy — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 01:48:22 +0000

Please let us know what you think about the food. I tried Dream Dinners a couple of times last year and concluded that though there were some hits, the food was too often a miss and therefore not worth our money.

By: pam

pam — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 00:20:58 +0000

I wholeheartedly agree with Amber. I bought several meals to try it out, and only one, a slow cooker meal, was palatable even though it was too sweet for my taste. The rest were soggy, tasteless disgusting masses.

That said, I love cooking and creating delicious meals for my husband and children. If I don’t have time, then hubby cooks one of his “bachelor” meals, which are quick and (usually) tasty, if not the healthiest.

I won’t go back to Super Suppers. At a higher cost than the groceries I buy on sale and the sacrifice in taste, I would rather buy fast food if we aen’t cooking our own dinner.

If you are really short on time, check out restaurant.com. You can usually search online for a coupon code to buy a $25 certificate for $4.

By: mamacita

mamacita — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 00:01:41 +0000

Brad — I think they have the parties in the evenings. They have a lot of food that is already prepped for you (at no additional cost, I think) in some refrigerators in the front of the store. You could try one or two of these dinners to see if you like them before you go in and make some for yourself.

By: Brad

Brad — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 23:56:09 +0000

That said, I think they have convinced me to try to drag my wife to one of their demos Saturday…. :)

Brad

By: Brad

Brad — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 22:33:42 +0000

Could they have worse hours? Doesn’t anyone work during the day?

The ones I looked at all quit by 6 or 7 pm. I don’t usually get home until then….

Brad

By: mamacita

mamacita — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 21:20:09 +0000

Trent — I went last night for the first time, too, and I enjoyed it. I went to a “party” there with other people. The staff prepped half of our meals in advance so we would have time to chat, etc. They also served us appetizers and sangria. The party organizer got a lot of food for free. We’re thinking of making it a monthly event and passing around the hostess honors so we can all score some free food from time to time.

Also, I was worried about freezer space, too, but the dinners were packaged in gallon-size freezer bags. If you spread the food out you can flatten the bag and store a fair number of them in a regular freezer.

By: Amber

Amber — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 20:10:11 +0000

My husband and I just went to Super Suppers last week for the first time. We weren’t sure if we’d like it, so we just made 2 meals. They were really gross :(
Shortly after arriving, we realized that most of the ingredients came from a can or were general convenience foods. I decided that it’s a good place to go if you don’t have any time to cook because it’s more frugal (and has approximately the same health factor) than going out to eat. However, since my husband and I enjoy cooking and really really enjoy fresh ingredients, we definitely won’t be returning. If we decide to seriously try once a month cooking, I think we’ll just make heavy use of the food processor so we can have better quality food.

By: sc

sc — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 20:01:35 +0000

@MillionDollarJourney.com:
The savings comes in the form of time. Trent estimated that it would save him about 8 hours byusing the service.

Also, not mentioned in the article, is the cost saved by not buying an ingredient used only for specific recipe. Like needing to buy, say, a whole bottle of vinegar so you can use 1/4 cup. This isn’t always the case, obviously, but another thing to consider.

@Tordr:
The cost and time of using a car to drive there and back is trumped the time it takes to go to the store and indivually pick out all of the ingredients. Unless you live very far (like, an hour+) from the place (and close to a store).

That being said, I’ve not actually gone to either of these franchises available in my area (Dinner’s Ready and Dream Dinners). My reasons being:
1. The meals really don’t sound that appetizing, and most of them don’t meet my requirements for a “healthy meal”.
2. I don’t have the freezer space.
3. For the drop in quality, it’s not worth the extra cost. Even if it does save me some time.

I’m sticking with my crock pot :).

By: icup

icup — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 19:55:57 +0000

how do you get the food home? in a big cooler?