Rehearsal dinner rooms, with the capacity each one prints

A rehearsal dinner is the one booking where the number you need is a seated capacity for a named room, and Long Island restaurants are unusually good about publishing exactly that while saying nothing at all about money. Every room below is named on the restaurant's own site with the capacity it prints, quoted as printed.

This is the same pattern as the rest of the site: the room is public, the money is not. Where a figure exists we print it word for word.

• La Piazza, Melville: “Silver Package $50/per person”
• Blackstone Steakhouse, Melville: “Sushi Station /pp $25”
• The Snapper Inn, Oakdale: “Luncheon (Sit Down or Buffet) $55 p.p.”

One of them is worth reading twice, because it publishes the whole shape of a party bill rather than a headline: a per person menu tier, an administration fee, a gratuity and a flat valet charge for larger parties. That is the structure every other restaurant has and does not print.

Sales tax applies to all of it, and the administration fee is not a gratuity unless the restaurant says so in writing: what gets taxed on a Long Island wedding bill.

2 publish a capacity for a private room they do not name, and 11 publish no capacity at all, including several of the best known steakhouses on the Island. Two publish only a whole venue range, which is a different thing from a private room.

They are worth calling anyway: a restaurant that does not publish a capacity usually has one, and the same call gets you the minimum spend, which nobody here publishes either. Ask for the room by name, the seated maximum, the food and beverage minimum and the service charge, in an email you can keep.

1. Is the room private with a door, or a section of the dining room? The published capacity rarely says.
2. What is the seated maximum, as against the cocktail maximum? Several restaurants publish both and the gap is large.
3. Is there a food and beverage minimum for a Friday, and does it change in season?
4. Is the percentage on the bill a gratuity paid to staff or an administration fee? It changes what you owe in tax.
5. Is valet or parking charged separately for a party?
6. How late can the room run, and does the restaurant have a licence for a bar past that?

If your rehearsal dinner is really a second wedding day, read the venue side of this too: venue minimums, what time Long Island weddings end and the alcohol rules.

One researcher read each restaurant's own site: the private events page, any PDF packet, and the room by room list where one exists. A capacity is only here if the restaurant publishes it, and a room is only named here if the restaurant names it. Nothing is estimated from a floor plan or a photograph.

Four restaurants we wanted to include could not be read: two have certificate or DNS failures, one returns a server error and looks closed, and one renders only in a browser. One that appears on other lists is in Long Island City, which is Queens, and one has a domain that now redirects to an unrelated site. We have named none of those as available.

Read on 28 September 2026. A restaurant that changes a room or a capacity should tell us: how to correct a listing.