Читать книгу Start & Run a Catering Business - George Erdosh - Страница 17

Few fields of work require such a high degree of skill in planning and organization as off-premise catering. Industrial catering with a mobile kitchen, bulk-prepared food for retailers, large-event catering, or even barbecues are relatively simple to organize, but off-premise catering compels you to plan and organize for each event.

In off-premise catering, all food and equipment must be brought to the place of the event. Nothing should be missing, and the food must be in prime condition at the time of serving, even though several hours may have passed between the crew’s departure from the kitchen and the serving of the first guests. The hot food must be hot and the cold food must be icy cold. The facilities at which you are serving may have no kitchen whatsoever or only a tiny office kitchen, so you must bring all your equipment. Imagine if someone miscounted the silverware and you are short one fork. What can you do? How can you produce a single fork in the next 20 minutes when the crew’s every minute is planned for the next three hours? The answer is to avert such disasters by careful planning. If an unforeseen mishap does occur, then you quickly switch to your next prerequisite skill as a caterer: resolving crises and emergencies.

If you think that you are a reasonably good planner and organizer, you can improve those skills by diligent effort and careful checklists. Review your first few events. Did you remember to take everything? Was planning adequate? Did what you anticipated happening happen? If so, you are capable of organizing and planning progressively larger parties.

Planning for an event must be done well in advance of its occurrence. Even the smallest event demands some thinking four to five days ahead of the date to schedule the various phases of preparation, such as defrosting food and ordering supplies. Large events need even more advance planning because you must reserve staff time, rental items, and maybe additional subcontracted services.

Advance planning and organization has five major parts:

• Securing supplies and rental items

• Scheduling food preparation

• Reserving staff time

• Preparing equipment and invoices

• Planning the event

The chapters that follow will deal with all these aspects of planning in greater detail.