Sometimes, catering services go to great lengths to keep their customers happy. Whether it is preparing incredible food or creating beautiful presentations, the corporate caterer spares no effort to a lasting impression. The truth is you don’t have to dole food or drinks or be meticulous with your planning to pull off a successful company event. In this post, we show you how to save time and money with corporate catering.
Useful Tips for corporate catering in Chicago, IL
Whether offering full service or just food, there are a couple of things you can do to bring down costs and make life easier for your catering team.
Keep things short and sweet
Make sure the hosts pay attention to time. By keeping time during the business meeting or event, you can slash costs considerably. You can plan a cocktail reception with different action stations over the duration of the event instead of a cocktail hour followed by seated dinners and desserts, which usually lasts several hours. Guests are likely to enjoy the opportunity to mingle and the great ambiance.
Take advantage of promotional opportunities
Staffing fees in Randolph st can break your budget at the office or country events. To reduce staffing costs, consider using a “taste of…” theme. Another thing you can do is incorporate local restaurants or food products with signage into the event. Create stations for each and ensure participants provide a specialty item in the menu. Other companies participate for free and charge the cost of their food, product, and time in exchange for free promotion.
Eliminate labor costs
Boardroom meetings and small executive dinners and other small corporate events in town might not need servers. If your client is cost-conscious, you can arrange an un-staffed event where you just provide food. You prepare boxed lunches, set up the room, and offer suggestions to monitor and refresh the food. What this does is eliminate unnecessary labor costs, which happens to be one of the major corporate catering expenses.
Make limited bar offering appealing
If you want to control the costs at the bar, limit offerings to beer, winner, and a single, interesting specialty drink. Go for lesser-known wine varieties with complimentary small plates. You can also offer pours of local microbrews instead of common brands. To save more, consider creating a specialty cocktail minus spirits. A sparkling wine cocktail with seasonal flavors can do the trick.
Skip special glassware for catering menus
Instead of bringing special glassware to the official event, use all-purpose glass for bar rentals. Choose one type of glass that works for all the beverages you’ll serve. When you rent different types of glasses, you may find yourself ordering a lot more glasses per person than if you’d only used a single type of glass. Using one style of glass can also create a sleek and contemporary setup.
Control eating portions
Sit-down meals in restaurants are usually expensive as they require staff to prepare and serve them. Buffet service and good stations aren’t cheap as well. They require lines, serving pieces, and unusually large food quantities. When you let guests help themselves, you inadvertently lose portion control. Your stations might look splendid and all that until 50 people have dug and poked their way through desserts. Whether catering at the workplace or event space, make sure your front-of-house staff stays top of things with serving guests.
Avoid standard dishes
Moden dining trends allow catering companies to take their focus on traditionally meat-based dishes which usually form the main course. Instead of preparing a standard dish of steak, go for a unique, local farm-to-table, diverse charcuterie board that features stews, curries, braised meat, and veggies. You have plenty of options to prepare good food that won’t blow your budget.
Skimp on a service that no one notices
Another way to reduce catering costs at an event is to forego a service that guests won’t notice. You can avoid serving coffee as many guests don’t actually dance having a coffee drink. You can serve it at the bar where you can also save on items like sugar, creamers, rental cups, and silver display urns.
Be Smart about the venue
Venue selection also matters. Always choose venues with existing kitchens and flexible load-in and load-out times to save on rentals. The less kitchen equipment and fixtures a venue has the more it might cost you to provide a catered meal. You might have to bring in tents, generators and a water supply align with your food truck. It is a great idea to find venues with flexible schedules. You can work the pickup into your schedule. This way, you won’t incur extra fees for earning morning or late-night pickups.
Keep informal events relaxed
Summer is a great time to organize events. Try to keep things simple and informal. You can provide a style bar to reduce staffing costs. For example, you can arrange a ladle and a wide-mouth bowl of cherry limeade with beer and vodka at the side. Leave out the ice bucket to hold beer and wine bottles. You can also dress up bar stations with inexpensive accents like wildflowers. For the buffet table, try using a weathered door.
Are you looking for corporate catering services? Contact Corkys Catering to order corporate catering services today
If you are looking for a top catering company to help you prepare delicious food and beverage for any upcoming party or company event in Chicago, IL, or surrounding areas, get in touch with Corkys Catering. We offering catering services to small offices and large businesses with hundreds of employees. Our catering menus feature a range of tasty meals and drinks including desserts, salads, homemade cookies. You can glimpse over our breakfast, lunch, and dinner menu to see what our clients can eat. We take care of dietary restrictions Small parties, large parties, special events, or a work event, we’ve got you covered. Our great food is always served fresh. Call (630) 526-6418 to order corporate catering at affordable prices today.
