Starting a Catering Business? Here’s What Nobody Tells You

Starting a Catering Business? Here’s What Nobody Tells You

Thinking about starting a catering business? Here’s the real truth about cash flow, operations, labor, customer issues, and what it really takes to survive.

Lou LaMedica Lou LaMedica
May 20, 2026
Apple Spice Behind the Scenes Sales & Strategy Process Leadership
Starting a Catering Business? Here’s What Nobody Tells You
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Thinking About Starting a Catering Business? My Advice: Don’t (At Least Not for the Reasons You Think)
Cash Flow Will Kill You Before Bad Food Does
Take Deposits on Big Catering Jobs
Customers Will Try to Transfer Risk to You
Humble Pie Comes With the Job
Nobody Tells You About the Crazy Stuff
Labor Will Break Your Heart If You Let It
Customers Don’t Pay for Effort. They Pay for Execution.
Then Something Like COVID Can Just Wipe You Out
Your Job Is Not Cooking
So Should You Start a Catering Business?

Thinking About Starting a Catering Business? My Advice: Don’t (At Least Not for the Reasons You Think)

People imagine catering as food.
Creative menus.
Happy customers.
Beautiful spreads.
Satisfied clients.
Sometimes it is.
But a lot of the time?
It’s something else entirely.
It’s perishable inventory.
It’s labor problems.
It’s payroll coming whether sales come or not.
It’s customers who loved chicken marsala last year but suddenly want gluten-free Korean tacos this year.
It’s buying food before you’ve been paid.
It’s employees calling out at 5:30 in the morning.
It’s delivery vans breaking down.
It’s customer expectations that don’t always match reality.
Food is the easy part.
Here’s what I learned after years in this business:
Catering is a marketing business that depends on repeat customers, but it cannot stand on its own without strong operations.
You need both.
Because if marketing stops, the phone gets quiet.
And if operations break, the customers you worked so hard to win disappear.

Cash Flow Will Kill You Before Bad Food Does

Most catering businesses don’t fail because the food is bad.
They fail because cash gets tight.
Food has to be bought now.
Labor has to be paid now.
Rent is due now.
But customers?
Sometimes they want net-30.
Sometimes net-60.
Sometimes they “forgot.”
That’s why I would tell anyone in this business to build a real cash management system early.
A Profit First-style approach changed how we thought about money because it forced us to separate payroll, tax, operating cash, and profit instead of treating the bank account like one big pile of money.
Nothing teaches you respect for cash flow faster than payroll coming due when sales are soft. That’s something I wrote about in Butterflies Before Payroll: Small Business Cash Management.

Take Deposits on Big Catering Jobs

One mistake I see?
Caterers acting like banks.
If someone wants a $4,000 event, why are you financing it?
My rule:
Jobs over $2,000 should require a 50% deposit.
That deposit buys inventory.
Protects cash flow.
And creates commitment.
Without it, you’re carrying risk that may not belong to you.

Customers Will Try to Transfer Risk to You

One customer hired us to cater a town summer BBQ for 400 people.
We prepared for 400.
Bought the food.
Staffed the event.
Did the work.
Only 300 people showed up.
Afterward?
She asked us for a refund on the food that wasn’t eaten.
Think about that.
The turnout was her risk.
But somehow, she wanted to transfer that risk to us.
Food doesn’t magically go back on the shelf.
Labor doesn’t get refunded.
The grill doesn’t say, “Never mind.”
That experience taught me something important:
Not every customer request is reasonable.
If you don’t understand boundaries in business, people will sometimes decide them for you.
That tension is something I explored in When Generosity Meets Taking, because generosity in business only works when it has boundaries.

Humble Pie Comes With the Job

One of the clearest memories I have from this business?
Calling a customer from the hospital the day my son was born.
Not to celebrate.
Not to rest.
To apologize because my team had delivered a build-your-own sandwich platter…
…without the bread.
That actually happened.
And if you’ve ever run a business, you know that feeling.
That sinking feeling in your stomach.
Because catering can humble you fast.
You spend weeks building trust with a new customer.
You land the order.
You feel momentum.
And then one operational mistake wipes all that goodwill out.
Forgot the dressing.
Wrong food.
Missing bread.
Late delivery.
Dietary mistake.
Packed incorrectly.
I can’t tell you how morale-killing that feels.
To go out and win new business…
…only to lose it because the operation behind the scenes wasn’t tight enough to support it.
That’s one of the hardest lessons in small business:
Growth isn’t just about winning customers. It’s about keeping them.
That’s something I wrote about in When Business Gets Quiet: Why Repeat Customers Matter Most.
Because catering really is a marketing business.
But marketing cannot save broken operations.

Nobody Tells You About the Crazy Stuff

People think catering is food.
It’s not.
Sometimes it’s food.
Sometimes it’s this:
Finding heroin needles in the bathroom.
Changing the locks because a disgruntled employee storms out after a fight and says he’s coming back with a gun.
Letting someone go because the dysfunction is poisoning the whole team…
…and then getting sued for wrongful termination anyway.
Refund fights.
Police situations.
Employee meltdowns.
Operational disasters at the worst possible time.
None of that was in the business plan.
That’s the part nobody tells you when they say:
“You should start your own business.”
They picture tastings.
Happy clients.
Creative freedom.
Beautiful food.
They don’t picture chaos.
They don’t picture that some days everything feels like it’s on fire…
…and lunch still has to go out at 11:30.

Labor Will Break Your Heart If You Let It

Restaurants and catering have constant labor friction.
People call out.
People quit.
People underperform.
People have life issues.
And somehow breakfast still has to go out.
You need systems.
You need accountability.
And you need compensation that rewards performance.
We found that graduated bonus structures worked better than random generosity.
Make the goal hard.
But not impossible.
Reward consistency.
Reward results.
Help people feel the connection between effort and outcome.

Customers Don’t Pay for Effort. They Pay for Execution.

This is one of the hardest truths in catering.
Customers don’t care how hard you worked.
They care if the order was right.
On time.
Fresh.
Packed correctly.
Complete.
That’s really the heart of Under Promise, Over Deliver.
Because in catering, reliability is often remembered longer than creativity.

Then Something Like COVID Can Just Wipe You Out

And then there’s this part.
The part nobody can prepare you for.
The part that has nothing to do with food quality.
Nothing to do with customer service.
Nothing to do with effort.
A global pandemic can just come along…
…and destroy your business anyway.
That happened to us.
Corporate offices shut down.
Meetings disappeared.
Events vanished.
The phones went quiet.
Revenue collapsed.
Years of momentum gone almost overnight.
It has taken us five years to get back on track.
Five.
Years.
That’s another truth about small business nobody likes to talk about:
Sometimes you can do everything right…
…and still get hit.
That’s why cash matters.
That’s why relationships matter.
That’s why repeat customers matter.
That’s why resilience matters.
Because sometimes survival is the win.
Sometimes the goal is not growth.
Sometimes the goal is simply:
Stay alive long enough to rebuild.
And rebuilding is harder than starting.
Because when you start, you have excitement.
When you rebuild, you have scars.
But one thing COVID also forced me to think about was this:
If I’m going to rebuild, I want to rebuild in a way that actually fits my life.
Not just more chaos.
Not just more meetings.
Not just more revenue for the sake of revenue.
That’s something I explored in Rebuilding My Business with Just Two Meetings a Week, because surviving something like that changes how you think about success.

Your Job Is Not Cooking

This one is hard for owners.
Especially if you got into this because you love food.
But eventually, your job changes.
Your real job becomes:
  • Building relationships
  • Growing sales
  • Following up with customers
  • Watching margins
  • Hiring and coaching
  • Creating systems
  • Bringing in new business
That’s why a CRM matters.
That’s why follow-up matters.
That’s why SEO matters.
Because if fresh leads stop coming in…
the kitchen gets quiet.
And when the kitchen gets quiet, you get back in the trenches.
That’s something I wrote about in When Sales Stop Coming In: Get Back in the Trenches.

So Should You Start a Catering Business?

Maybe.
But don’t start because you love food.
Start because you can:
  • Sell
  • Build relationships
  • Manage people
  • Handle stress
  • Watch numbers
  • Protect cash
  • Build systems
  • Solve problems
  • Execute consistently
Because catering is a marketing business that depends on repeat customers…
…but it cannot stand on its own without strong operations.
You need both.
The food just happens to be the part everyone sees.
“Know what’s enough. Build what matters.”
Lou LaMedica
Lou LaMedica

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