Opening Your First Restaurant
A First-Time Owner's US Guide to Prime Cost, Lease Negotiation, Health Permits, and Opening Without Running Out of Cash
Food & Retail · $0.99 PDF guide
Starting a Catering Business
A Practical US Guide to Licensing, Commercial Kitchens, Per-Person Pricing, Contracts, and Running Flawless Events
14 chapters · about 9,013 words (~30 pages) · instant PDF download · by Omer Muneer Qazi
What this guide helps you do
- Set up a licensed catering business with a commercial kitchen arrangement.
- Price per person from recipe costs, labour, rentals and overhead.
- Write proposals and contracts with deposits, guarantees and cancellation terms.
- Staff and run events smoothly with timelines and checklists.
- Win corporate, wedding and social event clients.
Table of contents
Chapter 1: How Catering Works
- The main catering models
- Where catering revenue comes from
- Profit picture
- A week in the life of a small caterer
- Who does well
- Chapter 1 checklist
Chapter 2: Choosing Your Niche and Concept
- Niche ideas
- Evaluating a niche
- Corporate versus wedding catering
- Writing your service menu
- Chapter 2 checklist
Chapter 3: Kitchen Options and Startup Costs
- Can you cater from home?
- Commercial kitchen options
- Startup cost breakdown
- Monthly overhead and break-even
- Chapter 3 checklist
Chapter 4: Legal Structure, Licenses, and Permits
- Business structure
- Licenses and permits
- Health department requirements for caterers
- Alcohol service
- Sales tax on catering
- Chapter 4 checklist
Chapter 5: Insurance
- Coverage most caterers need
- If a guest gets sick or injured
- Chapter 5 checklist
Chapter 6: Menu Development and Recipe Costing
- Designing catering menus
- Menu structure example
- Scaling recipes
- Recipe costing
- Planning for dietary needs
- Chapter 6 checklist
Chapter 7: Pricing and Quoting Events
- The three common pricing methods
- Labor pricing
- Service charges and gratuity
- Full sample quote
- Pricing drop-off and boxed lunch orders
- Minimums
- Pricing review
- Chapter 7 checklist
Chapter 8: Contracts, Deposits, and Invoices
- What your catering contract should include
- Deposits and payment schedule
- Cancellation policy example
- Sample invoice
- Managing cash flow and seasonality
- Chapter 8 checklist
Chapter 9: Event Operations and Food Safety
- The event workflow
- Banquet event order (BEO)
- Production timeline example (Saturday event)
- Food safety for catering
- When things go wrong on event day
- Event day kit checklist
- Chapter 9 checklist
Chapter 10: Equipment, Rentals, and Transport
- Equipment to own
- What to rent
- Transport
- Working at venues without kitchens
- Venue site visits
- Caring for equipment between events
- Chapter 10 checklist
Chapter 11: Hiring and Staffing
- Building your team
- Employee versus contractor
- Hiring steps
- Wage and hour basics
- Scheduling on-call event staff
- Service standards
- Chapter 11 checklist
Chapter 12: Marketing and Sales
- Your marketing foundation
- Local SEO
- Building venue and planner relationships
- Corporate sales
- Online ordering and catering marketplaces
- Inquiry response script
- Running tastings that book events
- Writing proposals that win
- The holiday party season playbook
- Reviews and referrals
- Chapter 12 checklist
Chapter 13: Your 30/60/90-Day Launch Plan
- Days 1–30: Foundation
- Days 31–60: Systems and soft launch
- Days 61–90: Sales and growth
Chapter 14: Common Mistakes and Final Checklist
- Common mistakes
- Final checklist
Who it is for
- Cooks and chefs ready to cater for paying clients.
- Restaurant and food truck owners adding catering revenue.
- Home cooks planning the move to a licensed catering business.
Free sample · the first 613 words of chapter 1
Catering is different from running a restaurant. A restaurant opens its doors and hopes customers walk in. A caterer sells an event in advance, knows the guest count, gets a deposit, buys food for exactly that event, and then delivers. That predictability is the biggest advantage of the business.
The main catering models
| Model | What it involves | Typical price per guest (as of 2026, verify locally) | Staffing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drop-off catering | Food delivered in disposable or returnable trays; client serves | $12–$30 | Cook plus driver |
| Buffet with staff | Food set up and maintained by your staff for a set period | $25–$60 | Cooks, servers, attendant |
| Family-style service | Platters placed on each table | $40–$90 | More servers than buffet |
| Plated full-service | Courses plated and served to seated guests | $50–$150+ | Chefs, servers, captain |
| Food stations | Chef-attended stations (carving, pasta, tacos) | $35–$90 | Chef per station |
| Corporate catering | Recurring office breakfasts and lunches | $12–$35 | Small, efficient team |
| Specialty or cultural catering | Cuisine-specific menus for weddings, religious events, festivals | Varies widely | Varies |
Prices vary dramatically by city, menu, and service level. A drop-off sandwich lunch in a small town and a plated wedding dinner in a major metro area are almost different industries.
Where catering revenue comes from
- Weddings: high ticket, seasonal, emotionally important, demanding clients
- Corporate: frequent, repeat business, smaller tickets, weekday-focused
- Social events: birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, showers
- Nonprofit and community: galas, fundraisers, school events
- Holiday parties: heavy demand from November through December
- Funerals and memorials: short notice, often drop-off
- Film and production crews: long days, set schedules
Most successful caterers combine a steady corporate base with higher-ticket weekend events.
Profit picture
A catering company's costs often break down roughly like this:
| Cost | Typical share of event revenue |
|---|---|
| Food and beverage | 25%–35% |
| Event labor | 20%–30% |
| Rentals, disposables, transport | 5%–15% (rentals often passed through to the client) |
| Kitchen rent and overhead | 5%–15% |
| Marketing, insurance, software, admin | 5%–10% |
| Net profit before tax | 7%–20% |
Profit varies with service style and how disciplined you are with quotes. Drop-off corporate catering with efficient production can be very profitable per labor hour. Full-service weddings bring higher revenue but much more labor and risk.
A week in the life of a small caterer
Catering work happens mostly before and after the event. A typical week for a small caterer with one Saturday wedding and three corporate drop-offs might look like this:
- Monday: Answer weekend inquiries, send two proposals, confirm the final guest count for Saturday, place food and rental orders, invoice last week's corporate clients.
- Tuesday: Early kitchen shift to produce a 40-person corporate breakfast. Deliver by 7:30 am. Afternoon consultation call with a couple planning an autumn wedding.
- Wednesday: Receive deliveries. Prep sauces, dressings, and marinades for Saturday. Deliver a lunch for 25 to a medical office. Evening tasting for a prospective client.
- Thursday: Vegetable prep, protein marinating, dessert production. Confirm staff for Saturday and send them the timeline. Deliver a boxed lunch order.
- Friday: Cook items that hold well, cool and label them properly, pack dry goods, linens, and equipment. Confirm venue arrival time and parking.
- Saturday: Final cooking, hot-pack, load the van, drive, set up, serve dinner for 140, break down, return to the kitchen near midnight.
- Sunday: Clean equipment, return rentals, count inventory, rest.
The rhythm explains why many caterers cap the number of large events per weekend. One extra wedding can double revenue, but it also doubles the risk of mistakes when the same small team is stretched across two venues.
Who does well
- Cooks who can scale recipes accurately from 10 guests to 200
- Planners who love timelines and checklists
- People who stay calm when things go wrong
- Owners who are comfortable selling and following up
- People with stamina for long weekend days
Keep reading in the full guide.
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A practical method to price catering per person: food cost percentage, labour, rentals, service charges, staffing ratios and sample quotes for buffets and plated events.
Frequently asked questions
How much should I charge for catering per person?
Catering prices vary widely by menu, service style and market. Drop-off catering can start around $15 to $30 per person, buffets around $25 to $60, and plated full-service dinners often $60 to $150 or more per person in 2026. Calculate your own price from food cost and labour.
What food cost percentage should caterers use?
Many caterers aim for food costs of roughly 25 to 35 percent of the food price. Price the menu so ingredients fall in that range, then add labour, rentals and service charges separately.
What is a catering service charge?
A service charge, often 18 to 25 percent, covers event staffing, coordination and administration. It is not the same as a gratuity, and you should state clearly in the contract what it covers.
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