Many restaurant leaders hold off on catering because of the high stakes—the fear that one missed item can derail an entire event, and one bad order will undo years of guest trust.
I can’t say this never happens—ask me about the wedding cake delivered to an empty garage—but the good news is that the strains that threaten quality almost always show up (and can be fixed) before a guest ever complains. For example, a manager cross-referencing three systems just to figure out the day’s orders or a kitchen consistently over capacity at a certain time. I'll walk through the simple fixes that keep those cracks from ever reaching a guest.
Meanwhile, the upside to catering keeps growing. According to a report from Dinova, business dining is a $250 billion market—nearly 23% of all U.S. restaurant spend. Restaurants with catering programs grow 40% faster than those without one, and the average catering order runs about 10 times the size of a typical mealtime order. On the consumer side, guests are increasingly using catering for smaller-scale events and substituting home cooking with accessible restaurant catering.
Here's how to protect quality at every stage of catering, from the first order to regular business guests.
Wondering your restaurant’s catering maturity? Take the quiz!
What does a beginner catering program need to protect quality?
Beginning catering programs often only handle a few large catering orders and don’t have standard processes. At this stage, the goal is simple: make the occasional order repeatable, not build a whole program overnight.
- Create new processes. Treating catering like a bigger takeout order is the most common early mistake. Create a playbook for teams that details who owns which part of the process, from the first call to running the order, and stipulates appropriate lead times.
- Checklist everything—even utensils. Missing utensils and sides is the most frequent accuracy failure for restaurants just starting out. Packing slips and production sheets, used as mandatory checklists, fix it fast.
- Build for travel, not just presentation. Don't just enlarge the dine-in menu. Pick items that actually hold up between the kitchen and the guest, and keep packaging simple and functional (branded stickers on sturdy retail boxes work fine at this stage; you don't need custom packaging on day one).
And, starting a catering program can be quick if done strategically. Black Bear Diner launched holiday catering to 140 locations in six days, keeping the menu simple and the process light enough for operators to run without extra chaos. It gained a 4 to 5% boost in holiday sales and orders averaging 20 times the value of a mealtime order.
Download our free catering checklist
How can a growing catering program stay consistent as orders increase?
As catering grows from occasional orders to scheduled regulars, a little automation pays off fast. Digitizing order intake and locking in a lead time turns catering from a source of extra stress into a predictable part of the week.
- Digitize intake. Stop retyping phone and email orders into the POS. More than 80% of catering orders are now placed digitally, so every manual re-key is a failure point waiting to happen.
- Lock a lead time. A non-negotiable 24- to 48-hour window turns surprise rushes into predictable prep.
- Plan for exceptions. Tools like lead time bypass can capture same-day requests, but only with a clear alert process so store teams can act fast.
Above all, make the process mandatory. One restaurant brand got fed up with ad hoc phone orders and inconsistent guest experience across orders and locations, and took matters into their own hands. All digital catering orders fire to the kitchen display at a fixed time for dedicated prep, a mandatory PM closing checklist organizes non-integrated orders the night before, and order-entry access is restricted strictly to Area and Regional Managers.
Want the roadmap for a catering program at any maturity level, including the tools and metrics to track at each one? Download the Catering Growth Playbook for the complete guide.
How does a maturing catering program protect quality while owning the guest relationship?
At a certain point, catering evolves beyond a revenue line and into a relationship. One brand found that top B2B clients often discover their catering on marketplaces like ezCater, but are won over permanently once the brand builds a direct personal relationship.
Direct catering can be a massive acquisition engine because a single order exposes the brand to dozens of people who might not be familiar with the brand yet. By owning the guest data, brands can deeply understand exactly where their growth opportunities lie.
- Know your segments. Catering plays for businesses and for social events require different playbooks. B2B buyers want fast, predictable reordering and need sales or account management to maximize AOV and retention. Social catering orders need more visual guidance, plus capacity throttling or flexible lead times to avoid massive operational bottlenecks.
- Standardize the follow-up. Roughly 70% of catering guests reorder within 30 days when a brand sends a personalized follow-up. Tools like OmniRev can automate that outreach while keeping it consistent.
- Track what's working. Menu intelligence tools like Olo Guest Intelligence show which catering packages drive repeat guests, which items sell together, and which platters underperform.
Freddy's Frozen Custard and Steakburgers unified an ad hoc, franchise-by-franchise catering process onto one system and launched first-party catering across 525 stores in four weeks. The payoff: a 37.29% compound monthly growth rate in first-party catering.
What stays true no matter what stage you're in?
Growth that outpaces your systems, not growth itself, is what puts service quality at risk. To ensure your program is improving, track revenue (sales and average order value), efficiency (conversion rate and response time), and retention (repeat guest rate and 30-day reorder frequency),
The tools look different at every stage, but the goal never changes: every catering order should feel as reliable as a brand's best mealtime order, no matter how many are coming in.
Want a 30% increase in your catering AOV? Talk to one of Olo's catering experts for a free assessment of your program.
