P
rofessional
C
aterer’s
H
andbook
The
How to Open and Operate
a Financially Successful
Catering Business
Lora Arduser
Douglas Robert Brown
with CD-ROM
THE PROFESSIONAL CATERER’S HANDBOOK
How to Open and Operate a Financially Successful
Catering Business—With CD-ROM
By Lora Arduser and Douglas Robert Brown
Published by ATLANTIC PUBLISHING GROUP, INC.
ATLANTIC PUBLISHING GROUP, INC. • 1210 SW 23rd Place • Ocala, FL 34474-7014
800-814-1132 • www.atlantic-pub.com •
SAN Number :268-1250
Member American Library Association
COPYRIGHT © 2006 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise,
except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without the prior written per-
mission of the Publisher. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be sent to Atlantic Publishing Group, Inc.,
1210 SW 23rd Place, Ocala, Florida 34474-7014.
ISBN-13: 978-0910627-60-3
ISBN-10: 0-910627-60-6
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Arduser, Lora.

Crisis Management 20
Sales and Marketing 20
Assess Your Skills Profile 21
Assess Your Finances 22
Catering and Profits 23
Types of Catering 24
Off-Premise Catering 24
Teamwork 25
Subcontractors 26
Five Keys to Success in Off-
Premise Catering 26
On-Premise Catering 27
Four Tips for On-Premise
Catering 27
Catering for Businesses 28
Social Event Catering 30
Chapter 2 Getting Started
Planning Your Business 33
Develop a Mission Statement 34
Define Your Industry 35
Conduct a Feasibility Study 36
Build a Network 36
Keep Up with Food Trends 37
Know Your Competition 37
Choose a Legal Business Form 38
Choose a Name 41
The Business Plan 43
Description of the Business 44
The Marketing Plan 46
The Management Plan 49

Permit 106
Sign Permits 106
Zoning 107
Historic Buildings and Districts . 107
State Liquor License 108
Internal Revenue Service
Registration 109
Federal Tax Identification
Number 109
State Tax Assistance 110
Insurance Requirements 110
Pre-Opening Activities 116
Open the Business Bank
Account 116
Contact Purveyors and
Suppliers 117
Organize Payroll and
Employees 119
Contact Utility Companies 120
Set Up Security Measures 122
Arrange for Regular Services 124
Organize Your Office 127
Chapter 3 Computers and Software
Computer Systems and the
Catering Industry 141
Point-of-Sale Systems 141
Software 142
Back-Office Software 142
Kitchen Software 143
Catering Software 144

Taking Your Media Campaign
to the Next Level 188
What’s News? 188
How Is PR Different from
Advertising? 190
Launching a PR Campaign 191
Special Events 191
Customer Loyalty 192
Community Relations 194
Remediate Bad PR 196
Chapter 7 Managing the Event
Handling Inquiries 200
Meeting with the Client 201
Site List 203
Types of Service 205
Quotes and Contracts 207
Writing a Contract 208
Paperwork 215
Event Order Sheets 215
Banquet Event Orders 223
Chapter 8 Setting Up the Event
Tips for Room Setup 230
Floor Space 231
Table Allowances 231
Dance Floor and Entertainment
232
Caterer’s Space 232
Buffet 232
Beverage Stations 233
Utility Space 233

Per Person 267
Per Hour 267
Flat Rate 267
Regulating Beverage Service 268
Alcohol Inventory Control 268
Alcohol Serving Control 269
Service 274
General Conventions 274
Whiskey 275
Straight Whiskey 275
Blended Whiskey 276
Malt Whiskey 276
Other Liquor 277
Beer 279
Bar Terminology 280
Wine 281
Wine Terminology 282
Wine and Food 282
Reds 282
Whites 283
Rosé 283
Fortified and Dessert Wines 283
Wine Resources 283
Tasting Tips 284
Wine Labels 287
Serving Procedures 288
Cocktails 290
Mixers 291
Mixing Techniques 293
Garnishes 293

Other Interview Tips 316
What to Look for in Potential
Employees 316
The Final Selection and
Decision 317
Create a Personnel File 319
Employee Handbook and Orientation 319
Policy Manual 320
Orientation 322
Training and Motivating 328
You As the Leader 328
Teamwork 330
What Is a team? 330
Team Building 331
Building Trust and Team Spirit . 332
Employee Motivation 333
Unconventional Motivators 334
Compensation 335
Maintaining Performance Standards
and Conducting Performance
Reviews 337
Informal Performance
Monitoring 337
Formal Performance
Monitoring 338
Annual Performance Reviews 339
Handling Difficult Employees 341
Developing a Training Program 344
Establishing Training Objectives
345

Graphic Elements 385
Menu Production 385
Menu Design Dos and Don’ts 386
Menu Text 388
Name of Item 389
Descriptive Copy 389
Price Placement 390
Arrangement of Text 391
Sample Menus 392
Truth and Accuracy in Menus 397
Nutritional Claims on Menus 397
Nutritional Primer 398
Food Allergies 400
Chapter 12
Food Presentation and Production
Advance Preparation 404
Food Presentation 406
Plate Presentation 406
Guidelines for Tray and Platter
Selection and Design 408
The Extra Step 409
Tried and True “Wow” Factors 411
Presentation-Enhancing Products 413
Disposable Products 414
Chapter 13 Cost Controls
What Is Cost Control? 422
Critical Areas of Cost Control 424
Types of Losses 425
Operational Losses 425
Operational Loss Control 426

Time and Temperature Control 484
HACCP 485
HACCP’S Eight Key Steps of the
Food Service Process 486
The Difference Between Clean
and Sanitary 497
Sanitizing Portable Equipment 498
Sanitizing In-Place Equipment 499
Maintain a First-Rate Facility 500
Personal Hygiene 505
Hand Washing 506
Training Your Staff 511
Kitchen Safety 512
Chapter 15 Equipment
Kitchen and Service Equipment 521
Major Equipment 524
Ranges and Ovens 525
Grills, Smokers and Rotisseries
527
Refrigerators and Freezers 529
Other Kitchen Equipment 530
Dishwashers 530
Washer and Dryer 530
Braising Pans and Tilt Kettles 530
Steam Kettles 531
Salamander 531
Slicer 531
Small Equipment 531
Pots and Pans 532
Food Processing Equipment 535

Linen 549
Dinner Napkins 550
Paper Goods 550
The Small Stuff 551
Additional Resources to Find
Equipment 551
Chapter 16 Recordkeeping
Setting Up a Records System 553
Essential Records 554
Defining the Accounting Period 555
Audit Procedures 556
Budgeting and Profit Planning 557
Budgeting 557
Break-Even Analysis 571
Chapter 17 Home-Based Catering
Health Department Regulations
and Finding a Home 577
Rent or Purchase? 578
Rent 578
Purchasing Food 578
Specializing and Sidelines 580
Kosher Cooking 580
Home Chefs 582
Rules for Home-Based Caterer
s 584
Chapter 18
Adding Catering to a Restaurant
The Best of Both Worlds 586
Staffing 588
Equipment 590

line.
12
The Professional Caterer’s Handbook
Due to the larger transaction size and the almost-unlimited niches one can
target for catered events, it gives a caterer an unfair advantage over other
food-related business models.
The time is ripe to be in the catering business. Whether you are just beginning
your journey or are a seasoned pro, The Professional Caterer’s Handbook is the
perfect catering business primer and guide. This book can almost stand alone
as an operations model for you. I wish it had been around when I started my
company because it would have taken a lot of pain out of my learning curve!
This book gets to the nitty-gritty and leaves the fluff behind, with information
on choosing a location, obtaining financing, staffing, and operational and
marketing issues. You’ll find many resources to give you an even deeper
understanding of the issues that will affect you.
I’m not sure where I heard the quote, “School’s never out for the professional,”
but it is vital to your survival that you and your staff never stop learning
and growing. I urge you to invest in extra copies of The Professional Caterer’s
Handbook for your key personnel so you can profit together.
Happy catering!
Michael Attias, President
The Results Group
Brentwood, TN
www.ezRestaurantMarketing.com
Foreward
H
ospitality is probably the most diverse industry in the world; it
is certainly one of the largest, employing millions of people in a
bewildering array of jobs around the globe. Sectors range from
the glamorous five-star resort to the less fashionable, but arguably more

your essential companion.
Philippe Rossiter, MBA, FHCIMA
Chief Executive
Hotel & Catering International Management Association
Introduction
i
I
f you are looking for one comprehensive book on how to plan, start
and operate a successful catering operation, then this is it! No detail is
left out of this “encyclopedic” new book explaining the risky but often
highly rewarding business of catering. Whether your catering operation is on-
premise, off-premise, mobile, inside a hotel, part of a restaurant, or run from
your own home kitchen, anyone in the catering field will find this book very
useful.
The Professional Caterer’s Handbook covers the processes of starting and
managing a catering business in an easy-to-understand manner; pointing out
methods to increase your chances of success, identifying common mistakes
that often doom startups, and showing you how to avoid them!
You will learn how to:
• Find a location designed for success.
• Draw up a winning business plan.
• Buy an existing operation.
• Market your business for success.
• Manage basic cost-control systems.
• Hire, train and keep great employees.
16
The Professional Caterer’s Handbook
• Plan profitable menus.
• Ensure food safety and follow HACCP principles.
• Layout and plan equipment needs.

—
more often than not, that person is you!
Remember, too, that catering hours are long and the work is done when
Catering Basics
1
18
The Professional Caterer’s Handbook
everyone else in the world is socializing. You don’t just work the event, you
work hard for many days, weeks, and even months before the event. And
when you are working an event, chances are you are forgoing your own social
events. For caterers, evenings, weekends and lunchtime are bread and butter
times, not down times.
With catering, timing is everything. You need to be able to multi-task, organize
your time with military precision, and be prepared for the unexpected. Caterer
Bev Goldberg, recalls a time when she encountered the highly unexpected: She
was getting ready for a cocktail party in a client’s home and double checking
her master list: linens, check; plates, check; glassware, check; soft drinks,
check; garnishes, check; hors d’oeuvres, check; ice, check. Satisfied that
everything needed for the party was ready and loaded into the van, she and
two of her staff left for the event location. Upon arrival, she discovered no host
and no guests! “The person who had contracted for the party had apparently
forgotten and was not at home,” she says with a laugh. A veteran caterer with
more than 30 years of experience, Goldberg, who co-owns Artistry Catering in
Chantilly, Virginia, with her son, Randy, has become used to the frenetic pace
and unexpected occurrences of this growing profession. “I love catering,” she
says. “People still think this is a glamorous job, but it’s just plain hard work.”
Not yet daunted? Okay, let’s see if you’ve got the skills to back up your
enthusiasm.
Skills Needed in the Catering Business
If you are an excellent cook, competent in artistic food presentation, possess

equipment, and juggling personnel. In restaurants, every day is fairly similar.
In the catering world, however, each day and each event is different; this
makes organizational skills vital!
Efficiency and Calm
As with any food industry business, efficiency is important. You need to ask
yourself if you can work well under pressure. Because each event is unique,
catering can be more stressful than many professions. It’s not that most
professions do not demand these skills, but in catering you not only have to
deal with the stress, you have to make sure your customer never sees the
stress. You need to be cool and remain smiling no matter what kind of chaos
is tearing at your insides. You may have just finished putting out a fire in the
oven after the praline topping for the French toast spilled over the side of the
pan, but as soon as you come out to greet your client, you should have your
20
The Professional Caterer’s Handbook
chef jacket on, a smile on your face, and a cool, calm air that reassures your
client that his or her event is going to be spectacular.
Crisis Management
As a caterer a good deal of your time will be spent “putting out fires” literal
ones like above, as well as figurative. Expect problems to happen, and be
ready to solve them quickly and inventively. You need a great deal of crisis-
management and problem-solving skills in catering, particularly with off-
premise catering because you are dealing with so many unknown variables.
You have to deal with event site problems, serving food at unfamiliar locations,
and trying to find delivery entrances and parking spots. You might find,
for example, that you planned to bake an egg casserole in hotel pans for a
graduation brunch, but once you arrive on-site, the ovens are not wide enough
for your pans to fit. The event must go on, so you need to be creative. You
either need to find pans on-site or send an extra staff person (if you are so
fortunate to have one) with petty cash to go buy one at a nearby kitchen store.

To be a successful caterer you need to be able to prepare delicious food and
be able to present it in an appetizing, mouth-watering way, all the while
making a profit. If you are considering starting your own business and you
have never worked in the restaurant industry or for a caterer before, you
may want to consider looking for a position with a caterer to get a feel for the
business before you take off on your own. There are lots of opportunities to
pick up work during the busy seasons of late spring, early summer, and the
holidays, when catering businesses crank up for graduations, weddings, and
entertaining events. This is a great way to get a feel for both the back- and the
front-of-the-house work. Make sure to ask lots of questions from where they
rent china and tents to what type of accounting software they use.
If you don’t have restaurant experience or credentials but you want to get into
catering because your friends tell you what a great cook you are or you have
helped others host an event and it went really well, you really should consider
some formal cooking classes. If nothing else, you will improve your technique
and become more efficient. Check out local technical colleges for cooking
programs. You may also find cooking classes offered through some specialty
food stores and restaurants.
Before you sink your money into the business, ask yourself some questions
to see if this really is the direction you want to take. The answers to these
questions will help you determine whether or not you are ready to open a
catering business and whether you have the resources to do it.
22
The Professional Caterer’s Handbook
• What are your goals in relation to owning a catering operation?
• What type of personality do you have? Are you an early riser or a night
owl? Do you like interacting with people? Do you thrive on activity and
crisis?
• Does your family support this decision and are they prepared to
sacrifice time spent with you?

from each of these three credit unions for free once per year.
Many people dream of starting their own business, but you have to be realistic
and take a good, long look at whether you have, or can get access to, the
financing needed to create and sustain a business.
While your current finances are very important, just as important are the
potential profits your catering company can earn. You don’t want to invest
your money, or expect others to finance or invest, in a business that doesn’t
have a high likelihood of profitability.
Catering and Profits
Whether you plan to cater small intimate affairs every day, or huge
extravaganzas for thousands a people once a year, the profit margin potential
in the catering business is extremely high. Some caterers manage to walk
away with 66 percent pre-tax profits. This figure may seem hard to believe,
but when you stop and think about all the ways that caterers can keep their
overhead costs at practically nothing, it becomes a more credible figure. About
70 percent of caterers report that they have been profitable each and every
year of their last five years in business.
If you are working out of your own kitchen, you can start out with an
investment as low as $1,000, but outlay can be as high as $100,000 if you
want to outfit a professional kitchen. Despite the scale of operation, your pre-
tax profit remains high and revenues of between $200,000 and $2,000,000
often yield pre-tax profits of between $50,000 and $1,000,000.
24
The Professional Caterer’s Handbook
There is no doubt that successful caterers can be very profitable, but there are
many different ways to earn those profits within the catering industry. It is
important to choose the type or types of catering that fit best with your skills
and expectations.
Types of Catering
The sky is the limit with catering. You’ll find caterers in the catering

particulars of your space, and transportation, traffic and weather are rarely a
factor. With off-premise catering, each event is unique and so are the problems
that might arise!
Many people who start their own businesses will engage in off-premise
catering because it takes less startup cash than on-premise catering. All you
need to start is a kitchen facility—coined as a commissary—that will be used
exclusively for preparation of foods to be served at other locations. Because of
their low overhead, small off-premise caterers have the advantage of greater
flexibility when it comes to price structures.
Off-premise catering has other advantages over on-premise catering as well.
The experience can be more exciting and rewarding, especially if you’re the
type of caterer who enjoys the challenge of working in unusual and unique
locations and dealing with new people who you’ll probably never meet again.
One interesting specialization of off-premise catering is called Mobile Catering.
This is where a caterer specializes in feeding a basic menu to a large group
of people, such as forest firefighters, disaster relief workers, construction-
site workers, and people taking camping trips or excursions. The caterer
develops a seasonal menu and a picnic table concept on the back of a properly
equipped truck. The fare is usually hot or cold sandwiches, beverages, soup,
coffee, bagels, burritos, etc. Certainly this type of work is less glamorous than
catering a gala ball, but it is profitable just the same and provides a little less
stress on a day-to-day basis.
Regardless of the exact type of off-premise catering you do, there are several
important considerations you’ll need to keep in mind.
Teamwork
Build a strong team with strong leadership. Remember, the teamwork required
in an off-premise-type catering operation can make your company stronger.