3 Summer Catering Mistakes You Don’t Want Make

Summer is here, and that means outdoor cooking and eating. If the crowd is manageable enough, you might want to plan and cook for your own party. When the crowd is too big for that, hiring a caterer is the logical next move. Either way, there are plenty of mistakes that are easy to make. Here are three of the most common summer catering blunders – do your best not to repeat them!

1. Greatly underestimating (or overestimating) your crowd size

As an event or party organizer, crowd size is one of the hardest things to pinpoint, and the RSVP process is so important for this very reason. But even that does not always result in a predictable crowd. Depending on your RSVP process (if you have one), situations can easily arise in which the crowd is smaller or lager than you expected. If the crowd is smaller, you’ll effectively have lost money by order way too much food; but at least you won’t have to worry about running out. A crowd that exceeds the planned size should be no problem for a highly professional caterer, within certain limits. Professional caterers always have contingency plans, but there are cases when the amount of food ordered is simply not enough for the crowd. In that case, errors must have been made during the planning or RSVP process.

2. Mismatching your menu items

Knowing how to design a menu isn’t rocket science – but it’s also not something everyone is particularly good at. Professional caterers should always be in the category of talented menu designers. This is, after all, a big part of their job: Helping people plan important events by making informed and successful menu choices. However, for various reasons, the menu offered at many catered events is uninspired and even clearly mismatched. Having something for everyone is a good policy, but the menu should still feel like a cohesive whole, and season touches are always great – especially at a summer picnic.

3. Hiring a unprofessional catering company

When a company licensed and insured to provide catering services in New Jersey, or any other state, you would assume that these services would all be highly professional. Many of them are; but there are plenty of caterers who generate way too many complaints to be considered reputable or professional. People often neglect the process of carefully choosing a caterer and reading the information that’s available about their past work. The result is often that people end up contributing their own mediocre or negative review. Catered events are important, and people put a lot of thought and care into them. Hiring an unprofessional catering company will not make the event any better.

A different kind of caterer

Not all caterers are the same, but some are very much alike. Some never reach beyond a certain level of service and quality, and they end up leaving more clients shrugging than smiling. But there are caterers who want not only your business, but your positive review. They are the ones who will work hardest to build their reputation by delivering where it counts at your summer event.