This is the fifth story in Restaurant Business' weeklong series marking the fifth anniversary of the pandemic on the restaurant industry.
Restaurant catering came to a screeching halt in March 2020, when COVID-19 swept the country. Offices closed, weddings were canceled or postponed, social gatherings ended and business meetings went virtual. The pandemic sucker-punched restaurants that relied on catering sales for a big chunk of their revenue.
“Overnight, bookings dropped 85%,” said Cindy Roche, CMO of ezCater, the digital catering platform that focuses on business-to-business office catering. ezCater expanded into industries where employees had to keep working, like warehouses and health care. “We deepened relationships with people who had to ‘work at work,’” said Roche.
By 2021, catering orders were up again, she said, but office catering took on a new look. “There was a surge in individually packaged meals vs. tray catering,” Roche added, and offices started using catered breakfasts and lunches as an incentive to get employees to return.
Although tray catering and buffets are back, individually packaged meals now make up 25% of the marketplace, according to ezCater.
B2B catering as a growth driver
While offices are not yet at pre-pandemic capacity, 2024 saw many major companies issuing mandates that workers return at least three days a week. That trend, along with a push from franchisees, prompted Los Angeles-based Dave’s Hot Chicken to ramp up its catering program.
“We started small in 2022, emulating Raising Cane’s and sending out hot boxes filled with 10 chicken tenders or 10 sliders,” said Jim Bitticks, COO and president of 275-unit largely franchised Dave’s Hot Chicken. “But our franchisees urged us to get on ezCater for bigger group orders.”
Dave’s Hot Chicken recently partnered with ezCater to roll out catering franchise-wide.
The fast casual joined the ezCater platform at the end of February after working on the launch for over a year, offering trays of chicken tenders, chicken and cauliflower sliders and sides, including mac ‘n cheese and kale slaw, as well as individual boxes. Drinks are usually part of the package, too. So far, the average order exceeds $500, and the brand expects catering to represent as much as 10% of its business within a year.
“We’re very excited about the opportunity to drive sales and new use occasions,” said Bitticks. “We see it as 100% incremental sales and as a newer brand, our awareness is fairly low, so catering is also a marketing opportunity.” Toward that end, his team is designing eye-catching new boxes to launch later this year “that will look good on Instagram,” said Bitticks.
For Dallas-based Cowboy Chicken, “bulk catering was always our sweet spot,” said Brittany Mercer, director of marketing for the 18-unit chicken chain. Buffets were a tempting way to show off the brand’s signature wood-fired chicken and sides.
Cowboy Chicken offers individual box meals but likes to show off its wood-fired chicken with tray catering.
“After COVID, we scrambled to find another catering solution,” said Mercer, and Cowboy Chicken started doing box lunches in the months when people were still social distancing and wearing masks. They still make up 30% of catering business, but the chain uses ezCater’s newer Relish platform to make it easier on restaurant locations to get the orders out—and easier on workplaces to place individual orders.
“We launched Relish as a way to offer individually packaged meals and adapt to the fluctuating number of people showing up in offices,” said Roche. “Each employee can order from a restaurant they love, and Relish organizes the meals into a group order that arrives in the office. We’re outsourcing ordering to the eater, taking the stress off the admin or office manager.”
Relish is designed for inidvidualized workplace catering.
Many employers subsidize Relish orders as an incentive to drive office attendance, offering up to $15 a meal. “For some companies, Relish is the office cafeteria alternative,” Roche added. About 28% of workplace leaders use free meals to incentivize employees and build team culture.
At Cowboy Chicken, Relish orders come in around 9 a.m. and go directly to the restaurant locations, charged to a company account or an employee’s personal credit card. ezCater then picks up and delivers the boxes. It’s working out well, but now that COVID restrictions are mostly in the past, Cowboy Chicken is focusing on ramping up full-service event catering. “It’s less labor intensive and we can get more orders out in a day,” said Mercer.
Large catering orders need more attention than third-party delivery can typically provide, especially when setup is required, she added. That’s led to a boom in delivery companies specializing in catering.
“We’re now working with DSPs—Delivery Service Providers,” said Mercer. “They set up everything and it looks more professional when you’re doing trays and buffets.”
ezCater offers ezDispatch as part of its platform—a network of professional delivery people that is growing in popularity.
It’s not just lunch
The business catering program at San Antonio-based Taco Cabana was just beginning to gain momentum when COVID hit. “Corporate was the last to come back, so we started building partnerships with school districts across Texas,” said Ashley Reed, director of off-premise operations for the 140-unit Mexican fast casual. “We were an affordable option for teacher lunches, sports team practices, games and other events.”
Initially, Taco Cabana designated a few stores in each area as catering hubs, but as office workers and social gatherings returned, demand went up. “Now all 140 restaurants do catering and we’re experiencing 40% to 50% growth,” said Reed.
Taco Cabana’s Fajita Bar is popular for build-your-own customers.
Breakfast is the strongest daypart, she said, with a menu that offers individual breakfast taco boxes with churros and hash browns at about $6 per person, both custom and prepped to go. “But we can cater to a lot of different occasions with our flexible menu,” Reed added.
Office lunches can be individually boxed meals or buffets, with inclusive, fully customizable bars serving tacos, fajitas and nachos. “Some customers prefer to order fajita meat, tortillas, queso and chips for build-your-own setups,” said Reed. “In San Antonio, our bars are particularly popular at weddings.”
Taco Cabana uses ezCater to expand its reach, but catering orders can be placed directly on the website too.
Breakfast catering is also getting more play at Schlotzsky’s, one of the brands within the Atlanta-based GoTo Foods platform that is known more as a deli sandwich-lunch destination. At the beginning of March, Schlotzsky’s launched catering trays and breakfast boxes, even though the brand doesn’t serve breakfast. On offer are breakfast sandwiches with ham, sausage or vegetables on sourdough buns; breakfast burritos filled with egg, cheese, hash browns and ham, bacon, sausage or roasted veggies; and breakfast tacos.
Schlotzsky’s recently launched breakfast catering, even though the restaurants don't offer breakfast on the menu.
Customers can also order trays and/or individual servings of fresh cut fruit, hash browns, yogurt parfaits and large-format sizes of coffee and orange juice. Schlotzsky’s also cross-utilizes items from sister brand Cinnabon to offer trays of cinnamon buns.
“Before COVID, only Moe’s Southwest Grill and McAlister’s Deli did catering,” said Kieran Donahue, chief commercial officer for GoTo Foods, “but as we moved through the pandemic we thought ‘these are our best practices for two brands, why not leverage them across all the brands.’”
Overall, GoTo Foods’ catering business still focuses on lunch, she said, but “we’re now covering all dayparts and all occasions.” Brands like Cinnabon, Jamba, Auntie Anne’s and Carvel are leaning into what their menus do best—snacking.
Jamba, for instance, may send out a 45-pack of smoothies for a workplace afternoon snack or celebration. Some Carvel franchises are trying out sundae bars as a sweet catering option, and Auntie Anne’s pretzel-and-dip packages are ideal for office “happy hours.”
McAlister’s Deli has the most varied options for the mid-afternoon snacking occasion. Grazing boxes with assorted meats, cheeses, spreads, crackers, nuts, fresh fruits and veggies can feed 10 to 15, and the menu also offers bite-size pinwheel sandwich wraps, fresh fruit or veggies with dips, and trays of cookies.
Snack breaks are gaining ground in office catering, with options like McAlister’s Grazing Box.
“We have more ways to bring in food that is not normally brought into offices,” said Donahue. “Everything we’re doing is focused on meeting consumers where they are.”
Indeed, ezCater sees snacking and treat “breaks” as a growing office catering trend. “Companies are using food to bring people together once they get them back to the office,” said Roche. “And not all companies can afford to do lunch for their employees, so snacks are a less expensive alternative.”
What about event catering?
For Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises (LEYE), the multi-concept full-service restaurant group based in Chicago, “our catering business reached its peak right before COVID,” said Samantha Henry, director of events at the RPM restaurants and Oakville Grill & Cellar. When everything closed down in March 2020, it took a couple of years to recover, as conferences, weddings and other large-scale events have to be planned in advance.
But in the last two years, catering is at “full speed with the number and multitude of events,” said Henry. “The difference is we’re under higher pressure to execute. Everyone has higher expectations and wants more high-touch and unique events.”
Lettuce Entertain You is doing more casual catering, like this pizza spread at The Oakville Grill & Cellar.
Although companies are urging workers to come back to offices—sometimes by mandate—corporate meetings and conferences have taken on more importance as employees tend to be more scattered than in the past.
According to the 2023 International Caterers Association survey, almost half of caterers identified corporate catering as their primary growth driver, up from 25% in 2022.
“Events are getting bigger,” said Henry. Her restaurants are doing more large cocktail receptions as a way to encourage engagement. And LEYE recently opened a large event space in an office building to accommodate these groups. Here, interactive stations featuring sushi, pasta and similar on-trend but casual food promote that engagement.
On the social side, happy hours and brunches have gained popularity as catering occasions and people tend to plan more last-minute events, she said. Except for weddings of course, where the season has extended to November and March.
“As we open new restaurants, we’re now making design decisions to accommodate catering, such as segmenting restaurants for large and small events,” said Henry.
Most of Lettuce Entertain You’s catering is done out of the restaurants’ kitchens. One Off Hospitality, another Chicago-based independent restaurant group, built a state-of- the-art commissary to centralize its catering operations, which opened last October.
“Before COVID, we handled most of our catering out of our restaurant kitchens,” said CEO Karen Browne. “But with the growth in catering business, our restaurants alone could no longer handle the volume.”
Those restaurants include Avec, Publican, Violet Hour and Big Star, and some of the off-premise “pivots” they made during the pandemic inspired One Off’s commissary model, she added. “During COVID, we curated a Supper Series in people’s homes with bread from Publican, cocktails from Violet Hour, entrees from Avec, desserts from our pastry chefs, etc., creating a feeling of hospitality and a differentiated product,” said Browne.
Chicago’s One Off Hospitality recently opened a large commissary to accommodate the surge in catering.
Now with the new commissary, One Off Hospitality is targeting corporate events, weddings and large galas, all fairly limited previously by kitchen space constraints. Customers can mix and match favorite dishes and specialties from all the restaurant brands, including signatures like the sturgeon and endive salad from the now shuttered but much beloved Blackbird. Or they can opt for The Blackbird Experience, an elevated, multi-course seated dinner focused on hyper-seasonality and wine pairings.
Specialty cocktails from The Violet Hour are a differentiator at One Off Hospitality’s catered events.
The company’s catering arm also participates in the Feast of The Bear, a dinner experience based on restaurants featured in the popular TV series "The Bear," several of which are One Off brands. “People are super interested in this,” said Browne.
Weddings are back at full speed and corporate catering has recovered about 60%, Browne estimated. To capitalize on the surge, she added two new leaders to the team: VP of Events & Catering Michelle Krage, who is tasked with training and maintaining a high level of hospitality at all events, and Executive Chef Gabriele Ausraite, who oversees and customizes all the catering menus.
“Business is back, but we have to bring a higher game,” Browne said.