Advantages of Outside Catering
Outside catering brings multiple advantages to your business and whilst the original outlay and workload can be large and it takes time to reap the monetary rewards the non-monetary returns can keep on growing and giving as time goes on. This growth and these advantages can be measured outside of the growth of your catering business and can benefit your venue in many ways.
Staff
Operating an outside catering service can offer many benefits for you and your employees. Firstly, operating an outside catering business allows you to provide your current staff with the option of extra, set, and easy hours. With these extra hours available you’re going to be able to hire more staff. Most of these new additions may be focused solely on working for your catering business however cross training those whom fit to work in your restaurant is not a bad idea. This will give you more opportunities when you’re in a pinch in your restaurant on a busy night, ensuring that great service we all strive to provide.
Equipment
In the beginning you may operate your outside catering business using the equipment already available to you in your kitchen. Yet, as your catering business grows, you’re eventually going to need more, or larger, equipment. The money raised from your catering side gig can help to fund this. This is of benefit not only to your catering business but also to the venue your operating out of. not only can your catering business help to provide you with better or bigger equipment but it may also allow you to fund equipment purchases that before may have been unobtainable. All of this allow you to up the standards of what you’re doing in your regular kitchen.
Promotion
An outside catering business is an excellent promotional tool for your venue -or venues- that already exists. You already own a business so your regulars will help you kick start your catering business but once it takes off other will attend events catered by you and then, after they’ve enjoyed said event, they could potentially come and patronize your other venue. This increased exposure can mean that both businesses nurture the growth of each other. This, however, can mean that each reputation leans on the other, and if one takes a hit their sibling probably will too.
Additional Revenue
The additional revenue raised from your catering business doesn’t have to be spent back where it came from, some of it can be directed back into your bar or restaurant and give you the funds to move forward with various projects that have been waiting for funding to arrive. These improvements can consist of new equipment purchases, aesthetic improvements or anything else which you may want to spend it on. You may wish to use the income to give a bonus to all your employees at the end of the year; the choice is yours!
Increased Ordering = Optimized Costs
If you’re ordering for your current location as well as a catering business then you’re going to be ordering a higher volume of product. This allows you to negotiate better deals with your suppliers for certain products and also to secure deals you may not have been able to attain before.
An outside catering business doesn’t have to start at full steam, it can be built slowly through regular customers and word of mouth. Either way, building this external product alongside your current business can be of benefit to everyone involved; customers, employees, your current business, and to you most of all!
