Corporate holiday parties at restaurants and event spaces were pretty much a no-go last year, with employees gathering virtually or not at all. But this year, catering is coming back with a vengeance, said Samantha Henry, director of catering for RPM Restaurants in Chicago.
“At this point in the year, the holiday season is pretty much booked and sales are exceeding 2019,” she said, referring to the venues she oversees: RPM Seafood, RPM Italian, RPM Steak and several dedicated event spaces, all part of the Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises group. Although events usually are booked starting in September, “it’s more last minute now, with clients delaying until early November,” she admitted. “But it’s shaping up to be an extremely busy season.”
Both business catering and social catering represented a sizeable chunk of the restaurant industry pre-COVID. In 2019, Restaurant Business’ sister company Technomic reported that catering sales totaled $64.8 billion and predicted that business catering would grow 5.6% in 2020, from a base of $25.4 billion. Social catering was projected to increase 4.3% from its 2019 figure of $39.4 billion.
Then the pandemic disrupted the industry.
During the 2020 holiday season, Americans were not yet vaccinated and health authorities discouraged people from gathering even for small social get-togethers, no less raucous office parties. Some companies turned to virtual events for employees, sending out restaurant meals and kits; gift baskets; wine-and-cheese pairing kits and other goodies before hosting parties on Zoom.
Face-to-face events return to fine dining
Last year, Henry organized a range of gatherings, from virtual wine tastings, interactive online cooking classes and creative digital activations for clients. They proved to be popular ways for companies to engage with employees. This year, there’s still a demand for virtual events, she said, as some companies are meeting employees at their comfort level and not everyone is ready for in-person parties.
RPM Steak wine tasting; photo courtesy of RPM Restaurants
But RPM is converting some of its successful virtual events into live events for the 2021 holiday season, highlighting the experiential elements. “In years past, clients were looking for a really wonderful, multi-course dinner with beverage pairings, but now we are being asked to create memorable experiences,” Henry said. “Increasingly, we’re bringing out the chef to have a conversation with the guests about what’s being served, or we’ll have the sommelier to engage in a wine tasting.”
Customers are also requesting high-end ingredients. RPM is setting up caviar and raw bars, selecting pricey wine pairings, creating elaborate seafood towers and launching chef-attended interactive charcuterie, carving and dessert stations that encourage guests to mingle. “We may organize multiple events and activations for one party,” she said.
RPM's Seafood Tower, photo courtesy of RPM Restaurants
At first, RPM removed passed appetizers from the catering menu, thinking they wouldn’t be in demand by guests emerging from a pandemic. “We discovered that 75% of clients want them,” said Henry. To make sure people feel at ease when they first arrive, the events team also arranges glasses of wine and cocktails on a tray and passes those around. “We have bars set up too, but some people may not feel comfortable crowding around a bar to order a drink,” she said.
For the most part, there’s less nervousness around social occasions, she added, and for gatherings of family and friends, plated dinners are prevalent over stations.
“A real benefit of the pandemic is that we learned how to exercise our creativity, and we can now do a lot of fun and interesting activations,” said Henry.
A casual-dining player revives catering
During COVID, the catering menu at Rock Bottom Restaurant & Brewery fell by the wayside. While other casual-dining chains adapted some of their catering items to family meal bundles and takeout items, the 19-unit chain focused on upgrading its core menu under the leadership of director of culinary Tim Griffin, who was hired by parent company SPB Hospitality a year ago.
“We are now positioning Rock Bottom as a gastro-brewery, highlighting beer-centric food and even using byproducts of the brewing process in our flatbread dough and other items,” said Griffin.
In overhauling the core menu, he expanded shareables from four to 15 items and was able to peel some of those off for the catering lineup, choosing a good variety that travel well and hit the right price points. Griffin and his team tested the menu over the summer and pushed to get it up and running for what looks to be a busy holiday season.
“This was a hard reset,” he said. “The new items really align with our brand now, offering broad appeal with a little bit of adventure.”
Among the shareables are deviled eggs with candied bacon and pickled Fresno chiles; duck wings with a sweet-smoky glaze and hatch chile ranch; a nacho bar offering beer-infused queso and a selection of toppings; and several types of sliders, including bison, pulled pork and grilled chicken with avocado. Each feeds eight to 10 guests, with prices starting at $26 for two dozen deviled eggs and topping out at $119 for a party pack of sliders.
Photo courtesy of Rock Bottom Restaurant & Brewery
All were developed with supply chain and labor challenges in mind. “The staff was already executing these in the kitchen and we didn’t want to bog things down with outliers,” Griffin said. “The supply of duck wings is more consistent than chicken wings and bison is cheaper than beef right now.”
Also new is a 128-ounce Beer Barrel complete with charger that can be filled with any of Rock Bottom’s craft brews. The mini keg sells for $170 initially, but refills are only $27.50. “We already offered growlers, but this is geared to larger parties,” said Griffin.
Rock Bottom also changed up its catering menu for individual orders, targeting the office lunch crowd. Among the most popular items are the Fancy Farmer Bowl, Southwest Bowl and Brewer’s Cobb Salad. “Bowls performed really well off the regular menu, so we transitioned them for catering,” said Griffin.
SBP’s virtual brands—Twisted Tenders and Roadie Sliders—are available in six-packs on the catering menu as well.
Optimizing real estate for a new fast-casual program
Fast-casual CAVA just launched its catering program from its New York City location in midtown Manhattan.
“That store has the real estate to position it for catering, with a separate production kitchen underneath the restaurant,” said Brett Schulman, founder and CEO of the 156-unit Mediterranean concept. “We’re excited to have our first storefront digital kitchen kick off in New York City.”
Earlier this fall, Schulman noticed that more workers were returning to offices, and lunchtime lines were “way out the door” at this particular location. He was also seeing groups of 20 ordering meals together, with sales of CAVA’s family meals, introduced during the pandemic, rising. Those observations, plus the acquisition of Zoe’s Kitchen in 2018, “gave us the unique opportunity to launch a catering program,” he said.
CAVA’s regular chef-curated bowls and pitas are available, too, but the pitas have also been downsized into mini versions for a shareable platter. Included in the mini pita assortment are falafel, steak, chicken and spicy lamb meatball variations.
Zoe’s menu also gave the kitchen access to a broader catering platform, including kabob platters. Customers have the choice of chicken, steak or roasted salmon kabobs, each marinated with a different Mediterranean flavor, skewered and grilled or seared to order.
Other catering formats available include family-style options for 10, such as assorted dips, a Mediterranean buffet or the mini pita platter, priced at $100 to $120. Guests can also order up individual boxed lunches from the catering menu, with a 10-order minimum, as well as a la carte salads, dips, proteins and vegetables.
Photo courtesy of CAVA
“We developed the menu in our test kitchen in Virginia and tested out the items,” said Schulman. “Guests have multiple options and can still customize,”—one of CAVA’s major selling points.
Early next year, CAVA will open its first freestanding storefront digital kitchen in Sandy Springs, Ga., exclusively serving the needs of digital order pickup, delivery and catering production. Additional openings will follow in 2022 and beyond.
“Our flexible real estate allows us to set up catering hubs from ghost kitchens,” said Schulman. “We’re orienting space and kitchens to meet the demands of customers.”