A natural progression for a successful restaurateur is to add a catering program to generate greater profits. According to Soni Bode, author of “Successful Catering,” “a restaurant doing $1,000,000 in sales could earn an additional $200,000 in net profits in the first year if it adds a catering operation.” However it’s not as easy as it sounds. A lot of planning and organization is necessary because you’re basically opening an extension of your restaurant or a second restaurant depending on how you look at it.

Organization and planning are going to be your keys to success and should be your natural starting point. A great place to start is to examine your existing business structure to identify if you have the resources to accomplish your goals. Most pertinent action is to do a virtual stress test on your kitchen. Ask yourself questions like: If your line is weeded in the morning, can they get out sandwich planters for lunch delivery? How many people can your kitchen cook for? Examine your supplier: How long to get orders fulfilled? In addition, depending on your concept you may need to buy additional resources including; transportation, food warmers, chafing dishes, serving utensils, and custom packaging.

The next step would be to examine your menu. You should decide what your catering menu is going to focus upon. This is your chance to be creative and to work outside the confines of what you regularly serve to customers as you will have more time (in most cases) to prepare them. To help keep your menu fresh, remember to try and work around seasonal ingredients which will enhance your variety as well as let customers know that you work with fresh ingredients.

A key point that good restaurateurs know and understand is the fact that most people begin a meal with their eyes. So your catering food will have to be exceptional in terms of both quality and taste. Delivering artfully arranged dishes that also taste great will benefit all concept types from quick service to fast casual.

After the catering menu has been decided, you’re going to have to ask yourself whether or not you need extra staff. In most instances hiring additional staff members to make a catering team will seem like a large investment. However, your new catering team is meant to focus on the catering aspect of your restaurant business and enables your regular staff to focus on their current job and doing it well.

Another good idea would be to designate someone as your catering manager or specialist so they can answer all the questions potential customers might have. You will find as things get busier having someone to manage the jobs will become a valuable asset. Train your regular restaurant staff with scripts and keep them informed about your catering program so that they can refer guests to the appropriate people to speak to when asked for information. Advertising catering programs on table tops and in your menu can also be a valuable business development tool.

If you don’t already have a point of sale system (POS) in place you should definitely look into acquiring one as soon as possible for your overall restaurant operations, plus an additional one strictly dedicated to your catering program. Having a POS dedicated to your catering program will allow you to monitor ingredient inventory levels, orders, overall costs and profit, and history as well.

Now that you have a program up and running, the next step is promoting it. This can seem as daunting as setting up the program, but there are a couple tactics that I have been successful. First is contacting your local chamber and offering to cater an event for them. Next list yourself with sites such as PartyPop.com and LocalCatering.com. An additional effective tactic is to contact your local business magazine for a list of the biggest businesses in the area. Create packaging that holds food and your menus and then deliver them to office managers at the companies.  Why does that work?  Deliver menus they get thrown away, deliver food they get saved with the food.

This brings us to the idea that an increase in orders doesn’t necessarily translate to more profit over the long run. Instead it’s the relationships and building accounts that will help you to create a successful catering program. Using the POS to keep track of previous orders, preferences, and requests is a great way of maintaining relationships with other businesses. The extra attention to customer service and their details will show your sincerity and quality. After all, B2B clients are some of the most loyal customers when it comes to catering.

From here, the sky’s the limit or really what your kitchen can churn out is!

Need more help?  Contact Kuypers Creative Restaurant Consultants, we would be happy to help!