When you throw a party, you need to have your own ideas on what will the party theme be. You also need to have your own catering menu ideas as well as the designs and concepts of the food. This way all you need to do is to find a good and reputable caterer that will work with what you want. The primary reason why you need to have your own say on these things is because you are, after all, the one throwing the party. Even with the help of planners and caterers, the guests should easily recognize that the party and you are one and the same.

Looking for a caterer that will work with you is easy enough to do if you have contacts or if you know others that can recommend a great caterer for your party. If you don’t have any of the two options above, you can look online for caterers that can serve in your area. Make sure that you have all the necessary information like the number of guests, the kind of meal that you want and the “when and where” of the party.

Here Are Some Catering Menu Ideas You Might Try:

Italian style menu – lasagna, seafood style pasta, antipasto salad, Italian soup and tiramisu

BBQ – in warm weather you can have an outdoor barbecue – consider hiring someone to come out and roast a pig and you can have interesting sides like cornbread, potato salad and green salad

Chicken – chicken is a mainstay of almost any event –serve Cornish game hens, roast chicken, chicken almondine etc….

If you always had catering business ideas and want to finally take an action in turning these ideas to food and cash then you need to ponder on the following tips in opening a catering business.

1.    What kind of catering business do you have in mind? There are numerous kinds of catering services such as weddings and birthday caterers, events caterers, corporate caterers, school caterers and home based caterers. You have to know your budget and the capacity of your resources before selecting the kind of catering business you want to open up. If your budget is limited, then you might want to start on home based catering. If you have a full means then you can try your skills and luck at bigger events.

2.    Think about your location and promotion. If you’re starting a business you have to make sure that you’ve advertised your goods well and good. Word of mouth is the most common and cheapest way to let the people know that you’re starting a business. If you don’t have a large budget on advertisement you can simply print out flyers on your own and paste them at crowded places like the market, near churches and schools.

3.    Ask for help or hire some help. You can’t do the business alone. You can hire at least 2 employees so you can have time to focus on more important things. You can delegate your employees to other tasks that require minimal supervisions.

Take your best catering business ideas and make them a reality – it’s your unique personality and attention to detail that will keep your clients coming back and recommending your service.

What is a catering service?

-    By definition, o cater is to provide what is wanted. The word catering is usually used and generally associated with food. It is the process of providing food and drinks for a social or business function.

How do you start a catering service business?

-    To start a catering service business one should have a vision and drive. Catering service is a lucrative yet tedious business. If you don’t have the patience to cook for a large number of people, if you have the patience to accommodate what they need and if you don’t have the patience to impart what your ideas to make the party better and grander than you don’t earn the right to be a caterer.

Aside form your skills in the kitchen; you also need to a cunning mind in finance and in the other aspects in business. Yes, the food is what you’re selling here but you or your staff also needs to have at least competent skills in marketing, advertising and managerial facets of the business.

How can you choose the right catering service?

-    Now that you have the answer to “What is a catering service”, you need to know how to choose one.  A good recommendation from a family member of a friend is one way on acquiring a great catering service for your party. However, if you and your family don’t have anyone particular in mind, you can search the local yellow pages or the online listing for caterers that are near your area. When you talk to the caterer, you need to have all the information he/she needs so that both of you can estimate the cost of the service. Some of this information and ideas are the number of guests, the number of courses and the location of the party.

So, to answer the question of “What Is A Catering Service?” simply – it is a service that you hire to serve food at any type of event be it large or small.

The following are some facts and tips that you can ponder on if you are thinking about starting your own catering service.

1.    What is a catering service?

A catering service is not all about the food that your business presents to your clients and their guests. It’s also about the overall supplies and services to social and corporate functions such as birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, graduations, engagements, corporate events, Christmas parties and so on and so forth.

2.    If you are interested in starting a catering service, you need to plan and organize everything first. This primarily includes your budget. How much is your starting money? Would it be enough to cater events or do you need to start off with home based catering first? If you can afford to start events catering, what kind of market will you target? Where can you find suppliers that can give you discounted but fresh ingredients? These are just few of the questions that you need to answer before starting the business.

3.    Don’t forget the little details. Sometimes new entrepreneurs tend to become overexcited with their business that they only focus on the larger scale of things and forget the small details such as the telephone line for the business, the advertising aspect, and the possible problems that may occur. As a new businessman, you need to anticipate everything, especially the bad, so you can easily counter attack them.

These are just the basics of starting a catering service, but if you get the basics right, the rest will follow.

Not necessarily. The thing is that most caterers will be happy to work with you if you give them a reasonable budget. Now, of course you can’t expect them to work miracles – you have to be reasonable with what you want to pay. But the first thing you need to his check with a few caterers to get their prices on different types of meals.

One thing you might consider is opting for chicken instead of roast beef. Or perhaps, you could have cheese and crackers instead of fancy appetizers. Cutting back on little things will allow you to have a professional caterer that is within your budget.

Cheap catering doesn’t have to necessarily mean cheap eats either. You can find out what you can do to help reduce the cost of what the caterer will charge. This could be anything from making appetizers and desserts yourself to supplying some of the things that the caterer would normally supply. This way you can have top quality food but still remain within your budget.

One thing you want to do is make sure that you hone your guest list to perfection. Caterers usually charge by the guest so if you can cut off a few of those extra people that don’t really need to be invited then you’ll save some money. Maybe it isn’t necessary to invite your second cousin’s mother-in-law to your daughter’s wedding after all?

Another thing you can do is look for cheap catering company whose prices are low, not because they do an inferior job, but because they are just starting out and need to build up a clientele. Sometimes you can get a real bargain with the caterer who is absolutely superb but just hasn’t built up their business yet. It pays to do your legwork to ferret out these startups as having a good caterer can ensure that your event comes off without a hitch.

A wine and cheese party can be a great way to get together with friends or for a special bridal or wedding shower, birthday party or other celebration. It be easy to put together with a minimum of work even if you don’t know much about wine or cheese! You can throw together a simple but elegant party without a lot of fuss and have an interesting theme to boot.

You can setup your room in a couple different ways which really depends on how much room you have and the shape of your room or rooms. One way is to use a long buffet table against one wall with different sections. Another is to have several “stations” around the room by using little tables each with certain wines and their complimentary cheeses. You’ll want to add some other foods too as man cannot live on wine and cheese alone!

Decorations

A wine and cheese party should be somewhat elegant but not too gaudy. You could have simple white tablecloths with white candles. Perhaps decorating the table with grapes and grape leaves or something seasonal such as fall leaves if the party is in the fall or holly, pine boughs and ornaments if it’s at the holidays. A summer party might be cute with light floral bouquets. Fruit – especially grapes go great with wine and cheese so you could have a 3 tiered centerpiece or large antique bowl filled with grapes and other fruit on the tables too. If you choose one large table a big centerpiece would be a nice focal point, you could even use and old architectural urn filled with ice and wine bottles or a large tiered platter with various tidbits on it.

You’ll want to have labels for each cheese that states the name and general flavor – you can expand on that by adding the origin and maybe some history if you feel ambitious. Each section of cheese could have it’s own cutting board and cutter – A cute idea would be to use the cheese boards that are made out of flattened wine bottles to cut the cheese on.

Glasses and Plates

You’ll want to make sure to use the right type of wine glass with each wine. Red wine should be poured into a round ball shaped glass and white wine is more fluted but not as narrow as a champagne flute. Keep a bunch of each type of glass out so your guests can be sure to have the right glass at all times. For dishes you could get wine themed plates or go with an eclectic mix of little antique plates. Make sure you have plenty of little plates around to encourage quests to try small samples of cheese with each wine.

What To Serve

A wine and cheese party needs more than just wine and cheese! You’ll also want to provide lots of interesting breads and crackers. Maybe some caviar? And don’t forget dessert – a cheesecake would be in keeping with the theme but any dessert will do! And finally, some coffee might be in order after all that wine and please make sure that no one drives after having too much wine.

Of course, you’ll want to make sure you serve the right wine with the right cheese and in fact complimentary wine and cheese pairings can produce interesting and unusual tastes. Half the fun of a wine and cheese party is experimenting for yourself to see what new combinations you can come up with, but heres some tips to start you off:

Wine And Cheese Party Pairing Tips

- Wines usually go well with cheese that is from the same country or region

- An acidic cheese usually goes well with acidic wines

- Roquefort goes well with Port

- Camembert, Cheddar and Brie go well with Cabernet and Champagne

- Cream Cheese and White Zinfandel make a nice pair

- Mix muenster with Beaujolais

- Colby and Gouda go good with Reisling

- Pair provolone with Chardonnay

Here is some catering ideas for different types of parties:

Baby Shower

Catering baby shower can really be fun and you can find a huge amount of decorations, games and centerpieces in your local stores. Baby showers are great places for finger foods like tiny sandwiches, potato skins, pizza bagels, fruit kabobs, stuffed mushrooms, veggies and dip and, of course chips. One fun thing you can do at a baby shower is try to find some baby related games like a game to guess the sex or come up with names for the baby.

Wedding Shower

Weddings are another fun reason to have a shower and here you probably want to decorate in whites and pastels or colors that match the bridesmaids dresses. Traditionally, wedding showers consisted of all-female guests but these days more and more men are being invited. Like with any event, food is central to the wedding shower and in order to have a shower that people will be talking about for years to come you want to present some interesting and upscale foods. Try cutting vegetables and fruits into interesting shapes and presenting them in crystal trays. Watercress sandwhiches always add elegance and if you buy some gourmet desserts this will be sure to thrill all your guests.

Graduation

Graduations usually happen in the warm weather so one of our favorite catering ideas for graduations is to have it outside. Everyone loves a barbecue and if the weather’s nice to be room for everyone to spread out. If you do have an outside party, be sure you have some sort of a tent or covering or you can at least fit all the people inside in case it rains. A banquet table with hot entrées like beans or ribs will be much appreciated and add diversity to the food offerings.

Promotion – Retirement

When you want to congratulate someone on a job well done, you want to go all out and offer a great menu of food. Promotion and retirement parties are usually catered and offer dinners of roast beef, turkey or ham along with potatoes or rice and a few selections of vegetables and some desserts. A lot of times people like to have a drink or two to toast the honored guest so be sure to include a bar or beer and wine.

Whether you cater the event yourself or hire a catering service, these catering ideas will lend a little bit of uniqueness to your event. Remember, a fun party isn’t just about the food it’s about the decorations and the ambience that you create too!

Catering an event can be stressful, but you can make things easier on yourself with these 5 catering tips:

Organization

The first thing you want to do is get organized, this will help relieve a lot of stress. Set up a type of system that will allow you to easily access everything that has to do with your event. Keep your lists and notes well organized and your supplies in a separate area where you can easily access them.

Menus

Menus are key to any catered event and you want to use yours to figure out everything you need to order. Don’t forget about appetizers, desserts and even drinks.

Lists

Lists will help you keep organized and are critical if you are self catering any type of event. Keep lists of the guests, the food you need, the equipment you need to rent, the decorations, and all of your contacts be they people that you are hiring or friends that you have enlisted to help you in your catering endeavors.

Keep A Schedule

Having an organized schedule is one of the most important catering tips that you can implement. You’ll need to know what to buy and when to buy it. When to send out the invitations, when to expect replies etc.. You want to keep a schedule starting at least a month in advance with a “to do” list of things you need to accomplish. Each day you can check off the things that you’ve done. Then on the day of the event, of course, you’ll need a schedule for cooking and serving the food as well as any other activities during the event.

Guests

An accurate guest count is important, but you won’t be able to get one down to the exact person. There’s always someone who doesn’t show when they say they will and someone who brings an extra guest. For that reason you want to try to schedule the amount of food so that you have the bare minimum left over. Perhaps enough for two or three people. Too much is a waste of money, too little might mean that you have someone without a meal.

If you are self catering an event, these catering tips can help you organized and be less stressed out so that you can relax, participate in the fun and enjoy the event yourself!