Program assessment
Where catering sales come from today, what they cost to produce, which items travel, where orders fail, and what the kitchen can realistically absorb.
01
What catering consulting includes
Menu and packaging
A catering menu engineered for hold time and portion economics, with packaging specified against real transport conditions and branded to travel into an office.
Order flow and operations
Cut-off times, prep windows outside the rush, staging space off the expo line, delivery model, and the store-level roles that own each step.
Sales routine and coaching
Scripts, canvassing routes, sampling programs, closing and upselling, and weekly development calls until the routine holds without us.
Technology and marketplaces
CRM selection, third-party call centers, and marketplace listings including ezCater treated as storefronts rather than checkboxes.
Reporting and KPIs
Leads, conversion rate, average order value, repeat rate and channel mix, reviewed weekly so the program is managed rather than hoped for.
02
How to grow restaurant catering sales
Catering sales grow from six things, done in order. Skipping to outreach before the menu and the kitchen are ready is the most common reason a program stalls.
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01
Build a catering menu, not a copy of the dine-in menu
Most catering menus are the restaurant menu in larger portions, which is why margins disappoint and food arrives wrong. A catering menu is engineered separately: items chosen for hold time and travel, portioning that prices cleanly per head, a short list of signatures that represent the brand, and packages that make ordering for twenty people a single decision rather than twenty.
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02
Fix packaging and order flow before you sell anything
A great first order that arrives cold ends the account. Specify packaging against the actual drive, set order cut-off times, move prep into windows outside the rush, define par levels for catering-only items, and give assembly a staging area that is not the expo line. Then decide the delivery model honestly: internal fleet, third party, or pickup only.
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03
Make one person accountable for catering sales
Catering does not grow as everybody's side responsibility. Someone owns the number, has time protected for outreach, and reports on it weekly. In smaller operations that is a general manager with four hours a week carved out. In larger groups it is a catering sales role. Either works. Nobody owning it does not.
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04
Work the three miles around each store
Most catering revenue is local and repeatable: offices, medical buildings, car dealerships, schools, hospitals, hotels, apartment communities and construction sites within a short drive. Map them, route them, and get in the door with sampling rather than a menu drop. The goal is a standing account, not a one-time order, so the follow-up matters more than the first visit.
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05
Treat marketplace listings as storefronts
On ezCater and similar platforms, photography, item descriptions, lead times, minimums and response speed all move placement and conversion. A neglected listing underperforms a maintained one by a wide margin. Use them as one channel inside the program, knowing the customer relationship stays with the marketplace, and keep building direct accounts alongside.
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06
Measure weekly and coach against it
Leads, conversion rate, average order value, repeat rate and channel mix. Reviewed weekly, these tell you whether the problem is traffic, closing or retention, and each has a different fix. Programs that report monthly discover problems a month late.
Selected catering engagements
A fresh-format chain stuck at $50K a month
Software selection, third-party partners, packaging, sales tactics and introductions to the operators who could move it.
$50K to $200K a month in six months
A multi-state group building a growth engine
Thirteen months embedded: menu redesign per market segment, outreach programs, and sales training on closing and retention.
$3.7M in catering, 27% of total sales
A national fast-food brand with no catering channel
Menu architecture, packaging, order flow, pricing and a sales script, rolled out with training built for franchisee crews.
Deployed across the full system
“We redesigned our menu to appeal to different markets, then designed outreach programs to capitalize on them. The consulting also provided sales training on closing, upselling and maintaining client relationships. We have raised our catering sales 20%.”
03
Common questions
What does a restaurant catering consultant do?
A restaurant catering consultant builds catering into a managed revenue channel rather than an occasional order. That means a separate menu engineered for transport and volume, packaging that survives the drive, an order and production flow the kitchen can absorb during a normal shift, a named person accountable for sales, and reporting that shows what is working.
How do you grow restaurant catering sales?
Growth comes from six things in order: a menu built for catering rather than lifted from the dine-in menu, packaging and order flow that hold up at volume, a defined sales routine with someone accountable for it, corporate and local account outreach within a few miles of each store, third-party marketplace listings that are actually optimized, and weekly reporting on leads, conversion and repeat rate.
Should restaurants use ezCater and other third-party catering marketplaces?
Marketplaces are worth using when the listing is treated as a storefront rather than a checkbox. Photography, item descriptions, lead times, minimums, packaging notes and response speed all move placement and conversion. They work best as one channel inside a program, not as the whole program, because the customer relationship stays with the marketplace.
How long does it take to build a restaurant catering program?
A catering program assessment and build typically runs about a quarter. Sales results follow the outreach routine rather than the launch date, so the meaningful measurement window is usually six to twelve months of consistent execution.
Does catering hurt restaurant operations during peak hours?
It does when the program is added without changing production. A properly built program sets order cut-off times, prep windows outside the rush, par levels for catering-specific items, and a staging area that keeps catering assembly off the expo line.
Related
Start here
Evaluate your catering opportunity
Tell us what catering looks like today and we will tell you honestly where the ceiling is, what it would take to reach it, and whether the kitchen can carry it.