3 Catering Trends to Help Your Venue Get Noticed
Catering is having a moment in the hospitality industry. It’s become popular as a safe way to have quality food delivered to whatever venue clients choose during the pandemic. However, the competition is getting fierce as more restaurants have expanded or added catering services to their business.
What can your restaurant or catering company do to stand out among competitors in your area? Start offering the trends that clients are craving. We found three trends from restaurants and caterers that will help you get noticed.
1. Food towers
A catering spread is always a feast for the eyes, but why not take it up a notch? A food tower is an excellent way to show off tall tiers of anything you can imagine: sliders, bagels, desserts, fruit, and — the most popular trend — seafood.
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This seafood tower from Sequoia in Washington, D.C., has everything that seafood lovers dream of: East and West Coast oysters, Maine lobster, jumbo shrimp, mussels, jumbo lump crab meat, ceviche de pescado, and a crown of Alaskan king crab legs.
2. Displays and decor
Sometimes the food is part of an event’s decor. You’ve seen donut walls, appetizer shelves, and ice sculptures full of seafood.
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Crave Catering in Minneapolis offers several food displays that will make any catered event look fabulous and delicious. Their hanging salads option features six different salads served in mini paint cans, hanging from a three-tiered display. If you’re looking for carbs, their Bavarian bites option uses the same display to present savory or sweet soft pretzels. There’s also a skewer bar featuring a choice of eight different types of warm skewers — presented on hot rocks — or four types of room-temperature skewers standing in a wooden box of wheat grass.
3. Individual servings for everything
Individual servings are an excellent way for clients to have a safe, socially distanced event. There’s no need for guests to stand in a long buffet line close to each other, touching the same serving utensils.
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You can easily turn every course of a catered event into an individually-served option. Encore Catering in Toronto will serve just about everything you can think of in an individual container. Their corporate catering includes boxed breakfasts, salads, sandwiches, and bowls. For social events, clients can order individual appetizer platters with four different apps per person. There are also individual snack boards, nacho kits, focaccia with balsamic and olive oil, and much more.
Manage it all with TripleseatDirect
Once you add some new options, make sure you’ve got the right software to manage your catering business. TripleseatDirect enables restaurants and hotels to offer on-premise and off-premise events and catering to be booked by their clients, directly from their website, social media platforms, or EventUp. TripleseatDirect provides your customers with a simple online booking solution where they can book, plan, and pay for in-house private events, off-site catering, pickup, and delivery with zero friction.
If your venue isn’t using TripleseatDirect feature yet, head on over to our TripleseatDirect page for more information or to book a demo.