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Off Premise Catering Management 3rd Edition Chris
Thomas Digital Instant Download
Author(s): Chris Thomas
ISBN(s): 9780470889718, 0470889713
Edition: 3
File Details: PDF, 5.45 MB
Year: 2012
Language: english
flast.indd x 30/10/12 9:58 AM
 Off-Premise Catering Management

ffirs.indd i 30/10/12 9:57 AM

 Radius Images/Radius Images/Getty Images

ffirs.indd ii 30/10/12 9:57 AM

 Off-Premise Catering
Management
THIRD EDITION

Chris Thomas
Bill Hansen

ffirs.indd iii 30/10/12 9:57 AM

 Copyright © 2013, 2005, 1995 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

Published simultaneously in Canada.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Thomas, Chris, 1956-

Off-premise catering management / Chris Thomas with Bill Hansen. — 3rd ed.
p. cm.
Rev. ed. of: Off-premise catering management / Bill Hansen, Chris Thomas. 2005.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-470-88971-8 (cloth)
1. Caterers and catering—Management—Handbooks, manuals, etc. I. Hansen, Bill. II. Hansen, Bill. Off-premise
catering management. III. Title.
TX921.H36 2013
642'.4—dc23
2011045250
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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 Contents

P R E FA C E v ii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix

1 Introduction to Off-Premise Catering Management 1

2 Getting Started: Laws, Locations, and Contracts 33

3 Menu Planning 67

4 Beverage Service 101

5 Catering Equipment 137

6 Logistics for Off-Premise Catering 183

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 vi Contents

7 Human Resources 235

8 The Show 285

9 Marketing 317

10 Pricing Off-Premise Catered Events 367

11 Purchasing, Receiving, and Storing Foods 389

12 Sanitation and Safety 417

13 Accessory Services and Special Themes 455

14 Budgeting, Accounting, and Financial Management 491

INDEX 537

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 Preface

Since Bill Hansen published the first edition of Off-Premise Catering Management
a lot has changed, in the industry and the world.
To prepare this new edition, I turned to a friend and colleague in the off-premise cater-
ing business for assistance. Maxine Turner, founder and president of Cuisine Unlimited
Catering and Special Events in Salt Lake City, Utah, opened her company’s doors to me.
Over more than a year, I spent many days at event sites, in her company’s commissary
and warehouse, and assisting in every department. The Turners have grown their family-
run business from a one-person (Maxine) operation in a rented school cafeteria kitchen
to a world-class international off-premise catering operation with 10,000 square feet of
commissary and warehouse space. Cuisine Unlimited has catered for multiple Olympic
Games, the Sundance Film Festival, and other major events too numerous to list here.
And Maxine isn’t just a caterer—she’s a force of nature, full of energy and ideas. I was
fortunate that she agreed to consult on this edition of the book.
Within these pages, you will find updates on:
• Food trends galore, from the importance of local and artisan producers, to new
ideas for food stations and “stand-up” dining
• “Green” facets of catering, from recyclable utensils to green wedding planning

vii

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 viii Preface

• Beverage service, with information about off-premise bar setup and interesting
cocktail ingredients, plus how to select beers and wines for events
• New technology in commercial kitchen equipment
• Federal employment laws, including immigration status and background checks
• Different service styles
• Website development and social media
• The use of catering software for budgeting and accounting
Specific websites with further information can be found on this book’s companion
site. Visit www.wiley.com/college/thomas for more information. I’ve also added
end-of-chapter summaries and study questions to make the book more useful in the
classroom.
An online Instructor’s Manual with Test Bank accompanies this book and is available
to instructors to help them effectively manage their time and enhance student-learning
opportunities.
The Test Bank has been specifically formatted for Respondus, an easy-to-use software
program for creating and managing exams that can be printed to paper or published
directly to Blackboard, WebCT, Desire2Learn, eCollege, ANGEL, and other eLearn-
ing systems. Instructors who adopt this book can download the Test Bank for free.
A password-protected Wiley Instructor Book Companion website devoted entirely
to this book (www.wiley.com/college/thomas) provides access to the online Instructor’s
Manual and the text-specific teaching resources. The Respondus Test Bank as well as the
PowerPoint lecture slides are also available on the website for download.
With more than 20 years of off-premise catering expertise reflected in a single vol-
ume, this newest edition will provide you with all the guidance you need to succeed,
whether you are just starting out, growing your business, or working to maintain stan-
dards of excellence for your off-premise catering business.

Ms. Chris Thomas

fpref.indd viii 30/10/12 9:58 AM

 Acknowledgments

Any book about running a business involves extensive research on a wide variety of
topics and a great deal of assistance to pull it all together. Of the many people I have
worked with who added their professional flair to this draft, a few deserve special recogni-
tion. They include Cynthia Thomas and Robin Heid, who helped with the research for the
chapters on human resources and marketing, respectively; bookkeeper Heather Cherry,
who patiently confirmed and/or updated all the calculations for the financial chapters of
the book; social media guru Dave Green; and attorneys Andre Michniak and Christopher
Tinari, who reviewed portions of the human resources chapter. I also very much appreci-
ate the work of my “ace” editor at John Wiley & Sons, Christine McKnight.
Most of all, however, I am grateful to Marvin and Maxine Turner and their sons,
Aaron and Jeff. Together they own and manage Cuisine Unlimited Catering and
Special Events. As mentioned in the preface, the Turners allowed me to spend time in
every department of their company—asking questions, shadowing people, taking notes,
and observing at numerous events. (Thanks also to their terrific executive chef, Steve
Ulibarri.) As a longtime food writer, I have specialized in the restaurant and beverage
businesses, for the most part. The time spent at Cuisine enabled me to mesh that knowl-
edge with the unique aspects of off-premise catering.
And finally, to Thomas Verdos, who cooked while I wrote.

ix

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flast.indd x 30/10/12 9:58 AM
 Introduction to Off-Premise
Catering Management
1
Radius Images/Radius
Images/Getty Images

There are more than 53,000 off-premise caterers in the United States. In fact, eight
out of ten caterers working in the United States today are off-premise caterers, which
means they serve food at locations away from their central food production facility. They
might have a freestanding commissary, a kitchen facility used exclusively for preparing
foods to be served at other locations; or they might use the kitchen of a hotel, restaurant,
church, or club. In most cases, there is not a full-service, commercial kitchen facility at
the location where the food is served.
Off-premise catering is both an art and a science. The art is creating foods and moods,
as the caterer and client work together to turn the client’s vision into reality. The science is
the business of measuring money, manpower, and material. Successful off-premise caterers
recognize the importance of both aspects, and are able to master the creative facets of the
industry, as well as the financial challenges.
As you might imagine, catering off-premise has similarities to a football team’s
playing all of its games away from home, often in unfamiliar surroundings. With no
home field advantage, plenty of pitfalls can emerge without thorough planning, keen
organizational skills, and the ability to “punt” when necessary.
In this chapter, you will learn about:
• Differences between off-premise and on-premise catering
• Challenges faced by off-premise caterers
1

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 2 Off-Premise Catering Management

• Traits and skills required for success as an off-premise caterer

• Food-related trends that could affect catering businesses
• Ways that off-premise caterers can gauge their success
Off-premise caterers can be divided into subcategories based on their specialties,
although many catering companies do all of these as needed by their clients:
• Drop-off caterers supply only the food for an event. It might be attractive trays for
a party, upscale box lunches for a business meeting, or prepared desserts on contract
for a restaurant. The food is prepared and packaged at the catering kitchen; any
last-minute details (reheating, plating, garnishing), as well as service and cleanup,
are left to others. Drop-off service can also be an extremely profitable facet of a
full-service catering company.
• Hot buffet caterers provide hot foods, delivered from their commissaries in insu-
lated containers, ready to set out and serve. They sometimes provide serving staff
at an additional charge.
• Full-service caterers not only provide food, but frequently cook it to order on-site.
They also provide service personnel at the event, plus all the necessary food-related
equipment—china, glassware, flatware, tables and chairs, tents, and so forth. They
can arrange for other services, like décor and music, as well. In short, a full-service
caterer can plan an entire event, not just the food to be served there.
Off-premise catering can mean preparing thousands of box lunches for a group of
conventioneers; barbecuing chicken and ribs for fans before a big college game; serving
an elegant dinner for two aboard a luxury yacht; or providing food, staff, and equipment
for an upscale fund-raiser with hundreds of guests.

A Realistic Look at Off-Premise Catering

On a degree of difficulty scale from one to ten, with one meaning “easy” and ten mean-
ing “most challenging,” on-premise catering is a three, and off-premise is a ten.
Off-premise caterers meet the needs of all market segments, from the low-budget
customer who looks for the greatest quantity and quality for the least amount of money,
to the upscale client with a more flexible budget who wants the highest level of service,
the ultimate in food quality, and the finest in appointments—crystal stemware, silver-
plated flatware, and luxurious linens. Between these two extremes is the midscale market

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 Introduction to Off-Premise Catering Management 3

segment, which requires more polish and product selection than the low-budget sector,
but less than the upscale.
In off-premise catering, there is only one chance to get it right. Many events, such as
wedding receptions, occur only once in a lifetime. Other events are scheduled annually,
quarterly, or on a regular basis, putting the caterer in a position of always trying to top
the previous event—or at least, put a new and interesting spin on it. A caterer who fails
to execute all details of such an event to the satisfaction of the client will seldom have
another chance.
Unfortunately for some, catering off-premise events can be like living on the brink
of disaster unless the caterer is cool-headed, flexible, and experienced. Amateurs may
not recognize a volatile situation until it becomes a problem, later realizing they should
have seen it coming. As caterers plod their way toward the completion of an event, there
are thousands of potential “land mines” that can ruin an otherwise successful affair.
Some examples follow:
• Already running late for a catering delivery, the catering van driver discovers
that all vehicle traffic around the party site is in gridlock. The traffic has been
at a standstill for more than an hour, the police say it will be hours before the
congestion can be eliminated, and the clients and their guests are anxiously await-
ing dinner.
• The only freight elevator in a high-rise office building has been commandeered
for the evening by moving and cleaning people, thus preventing access to the floor
where a caterer is to stage an event scheduled to start in two hours.
• The wrong hot food truck is dispatched to a wedding reception. The error is not
discovered until the truck has reached the reception and the bride and groom are
ready for their guests to be served. It will take more than an hour to send the cor-
rect truck with the food that was ordered.
• A cook wheels a container filled with cooked prime ribs down a pier toward a
yacht where the meat will be served to a group of 80 conventioneers in half an
hour. Suddenly, the cook is distracted, and the prime rib container tumbles over
the edge of the pier and into 40 feet of water.
• The table numbers have vanished, and the guests are ready to be seated for dinner.
• The fire marshal arrives at a party site 20 minutes before a catered event and
refuses to allow guests access to the party site because the space has not been
authorized for party use.

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 4 Off-Premise Catering Management

• The catering crew arrives at the party site with a van full of food, cooked to order—
exactly one week early.
• A new customer places an order and asks that the caterer deliver to a home where
family members and guests will have gathered prior to a funeral service. The caterer
sends the food and, upon arrival, is told that the person with the checkbook is at
the funeral home and is asked to please stop back in an hour for the money. The
delivery person leaves without obtaining a signature. Upon returning, the delivery
person finds there is no one home and no one from whom to collect payment.
• While using a garbage disposal in a client’s home, the caterer suddenly hears a
terrible noise and watches in horror as water and garbage spew from the disposal
all over the floor. The irate customer refuses to pay the caterer and threatens to sue
for the cost of replacing the garbage disposal that was ruined because of (in the
customer’s words) the caterer’s “negligence.”
• After catering a flawless party at a client’s home and loading the catering truck
to capacity, the caterer is shocked to learn from the client that all 15 bags of trash
must be removed from the client’s property because of the neighborhood’s zoning
ordinances.
• The caterer’s rental company representative calls the caterer the morning after an
event to say that the $600 rented chafing dish is missing. It was at the event site
the night before, when the caterer left the client’s home.
Get the picture? Oh, we could tell horror stories all day! Seasoned off-premise cater-
ers agree that these are only a few of the thousands of obstacles that stand in the way
of completing a catered event. Communication, both with clients and staff, and organi-
zational skills will help prevent such disasters. This book addresses the various ways to
professionally and successfully deal with difficult situations.
With all of these very real potential problems, why are thousands of people starting
their own catering companies, risking their savings on dreams of future success? The
reasons are numerous. They may love the adventure of working in new and exciting
places. They look forward to—or at least, they don’t fear—the peaks and valleys of the
business cycle. They enjoy the feeling of satisfaction that comes from successfully pull-
ing together all the elements for a spectacular party. They love the myriad challenges
of this fascinating profession. Many are their own bosses, with no one to answer to but
their clients. Many pick and choose only those parties and events they wish to cater.
Many make six-figure incomes each year; others cater occasionally, just for the fun of it.

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 Introduction to Off-Premise Catering Management 5

Comparing Off-Premise and

On-Premise Catering
What are the differences between off-premise catering and on-premise catering? Let’s
examine these differences, from both the client’s and the caterer’s viewpoints.

From the Client’s Viewpoint

Most clients assume it will be less expensive to hire a caterer to help them entertain in
their homes, or at unique off-premise sites, than to host an event in a hotel or restau-
rant. They forget to consider the cost of the rental equipment—such as tables, chairs,
linens, china, glassware, and flatware—when they engage an off-premise caterer. In
fact, an off-premise catered event can be more expensive, considering not only the cost
of the rental equipment, but also other costs: transportation of food and supplies to
the site, any specialty labor and/or décor, tenting, air-conditioning and/or heating, and
other expenses.
Clients may save some money by buying their own liquor, but this savings can be
insignificant when compared with these added costs. However, for many clients, the
additional expense is far outweighed by the benefits of entertaining in the privacy of
their own homes, or the uniqueness of hosting an event at a special off-premise location:
a museum, state-of-the-art aquarium, antique car dealership, or historical site.

From the Caterer’s Viewpoint

Off-premise caterers must plan menus that can be prepared successfully at, or trans-
ported to, the client’s location. They have to think, for instance, about whether there will
be a space with proper ventilation on site if foods are to be fried—a small kitchen in a
high-rise office building’s employee break room just won’t do. On-premise caterers are
not as limited in this regard, and they are generally supported by built-in, on-site equip-
ment that can accommodate a wider variety of menus.
On-premise party personnel are often more familiar with the party facilities than
those who work at a variety of unfamiliar locations. Off-premise catering generally has
greater seasonal and day-to-day swings in personnel needs, which can create a greater
challenge in terms of recruiting and training staff; turnover is usually high because such
work is on an as-needed basis.

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 6 Off-Premise Catering Management

There is definitely a greater potential for mishaps and oversights in off-premise cater-
ing. Backup supplies, food, and equipment can be miles away or even inaccessible when
catering, for instance, aboard a yacht miles from shore.
In spite of the uncertainties, however, off-premise catering offers the opportunity to
work in a greater variety of interesting locations. The work is more likely to be different
each day, resulting in less boredom and more excitement. For those looking for unlim-
ited challenges and rewards, off-premise catering may be the answer.

Advantages and Disadvantages

of Off-Premise Catering
Specializing in off-premise catering offers several advantages for the catering profes-
sional. First, most off-premise caterers require some form of advance deposit prior to an
event. This deposit provides the caterer with some security if the event is canceled and
also can be used to purchase some or all of the food and supplies for the party.
There is no need for large amounts of capital to get started since most off-premise catering
operations begin by using the existing kitchen facilities of a restaurant, club, hotel, church, or
other licensed foodservice business. (It is common knowledge that many start their catering
businesses in their home kitchens, but it is imperative to state that this is in direct violation
of most local zoning, health, and food safety ordinances.) In addition, all of the necessary
catering foodservice equipment, such as china, glassware, flatware, tables, chairs, and linens,
can usually be rented, thus avoiding having to invest in expensive equipment inventories.
Food and supply inventories, as well as operating costs, are much more easily con-
trolled, because clients must advise the caterer in advance as to the number of guests that
are expected. Off-premise caterers need buy only the amounts necessary to serve the event,
unlike a restaurant where there is a large variation from day to day regarding the number
of patrons and their menu selections.
Hotels, clubs, and restaurants are not typically known for providing off-premise
catering services, but for those that do, it can be a source of additional revenue. They can
generate even more profit by providing other services, such as rental equipment, flowers,
décor, music, entertainment, and other accessory services.
Off-premise caterers can arrange their own payment terms directly with clients, elimi-
nating a middleman, whether it’s a wedding planner or on-site food and beverage director
at a venue. This form of direct payment provides for better cash control and fewer folks
to share the profit.

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 Introduction to Off-Premise Catering Management 7

Off-premise events generate tremendous amounts of free word-of-mouth advertis-

ing, which can produce future business without the necessity of advertising. Many off-
premise caterers feel that satisfied guests at one party will either book another party or
indirectly generate another booking by speaking favorably to friends and coworkers
about the event and the caterer. In other words, one party can create future parties.
Off-premise caterers also have the advantage of being somewhat selective about their
clients. There are no laws that require you to accept every request to cater. If the job
doesn’t meet your standards, politely decline. In sticky situations where you’ve already
begun to work with a client but find that your communication styles just don’t mesh—
or, as sometimes happens with weddings, the client is not heeding your advice and you
can’t even decide who’s really in charge—you can walk away, as long as you do so within
the terms of your written agreement.
Off-premise catering has its disadvantages too. Catering managers, owners, and staff
undergo periods of high stress during very busy periods. Deadlines must be met, and
there are no excuses for missing them. Stress is compounded because the workload is
not evenly spread throughout the year. For most off-premise caterers, 80 percent of the
events are scheduled in 20 percent of the time. For most, weekends are generally busier
than weekdays. Certain seasons, including Christmas, are normally busier than others.
Of course, caterers must maintain general business hours too.
Many have left the catering field, burned out by the constant stress and high energy
demands. The seasonality of the business makes it difficult to find staff at certain times.
Revenues are inconsistent, making cash flow management challenging, particularly dur-
ing the slower periods when expenses continue yet revenues do not.
For those caterers who operate hotels, restaurants, clubs, and other businesses, the
time spent on the off-premise business—away from the main business—can be a detri-
ment to their on-site operations. No matter how well organized you are, it is impossible
to be in two places at the same time. Many hoteliers and restaurateurs find the rigors of
off-premise catering too great. Some quit after realizing the difficulty of catering away
from their operations. They feel that the financial benefits are insufficient compared
with the effort required to cater off-premise events.

Traits of the Successful Off-Premise Caterer

What does it take to become a successful off-premise caterer? What experience is nec-
essary, and what personality traits are desirable?

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 8 Off-Premise Catering Management

Work Experience. Prior experience in the catering profession or the foodservice indus-
try is important. Experience in food preparation and foodservice (both back-of-the-
house and front-of-the-house) helps caterers understand the procedures and problems
in both areas and how the two areas interface. Those with a strong kitchen background,
for example, would be wise to gain some front-of-the-house experience, and front-of-
the-house personnel should learn the kitchen routine.
Many successful off-premise caterers began by working as accommodators. Accom-
modators are private chefs who are hired to prepare food for parties. Many assist the
client with planning the menu, purchasing the food, and even arranging for kitchen and
service staff. The food is prepared and served in the client’s home or facility, eliminating
the need for a catering commissary. Accommodators receive a fee for their services. The
party staff is paid directly by the client.

Passion. Successful professionals are passionate about their work, and caterers are no
exception. They love what they do. Clients and staff members will quickly detect a lack
of passion, and it will cost you business and good workers. If you don’t love what you do,
move on and try something else.

An Entrepreneurial Nature. The drive to be an entrepreneur is a highly desirable trait

for off-premise caterers. A successful entrepreneur is willing to spend extraordinary
amounts of time and energy to make the business successful, possesses an inherent sense
of what is right for the business, has the ability to view all aspects of the business at once
rather than focusing on only one or two parts, and demonstrates a strong desire to be his
or her own boss and become financially independent.

Basic Business Knowledge. The list below is only the beginning. Remember, the caterer
is running a company, no matter how small, and must run it just as professionally “on
paper” and online as a caterer supervising a grand event at a client site. This knowledge
includes:
• A vision for the business. The ability to create a business plan, and one-year and five-
year goals, and to communicate these thoroughly and with enthusiasm to partners,
investors, bankers, and others is key.
• Accounting and bookkeeping skills. You don’t have to do your own bookkeeping, but
understanding the financial aspects of operating a catering business is necessary

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 Introduction to Off-Premise Catering Management 9

to work with those you hire to do it. This includes the ability to prepare and inter-
pret such documents as a Profit and Loss Statement, Balance Sheet, and Chart of
Accounts.
• Computer skills. You probably didn’t decide to become a caterer to spend days ago-
nizing over the design and content of your website, but it is a critical component of
any successful catering operation. You’ll be amazed at how much you can accom-
plish by using and managing e-mail, providing a website, and actively, creatively
using social media tools to keep customers’ attention. In addition, there are special-
ized programs to assist with everything from room layout for events, to costing out
recipes, ordering supplies, and planning menus.
• Legal knowledge. It is also important to understand the legal aspects of catering.
Laws that affect caterers include regulation of licensing, health, contracts, liabil-
ity, labor, and alcoholic beverage service. You might not have to quote these laws
on a daily basis, but you’ll need to be aware of the basics, be alert for changes,
and have access to attorneys and insurance specialists who can assist you if prob-
lems arise.
• Human resource skills. A caterer, like any other businessperson, has to be able to
recruit, train, motivate, and manage people. The seasonal swings and rather tran-
sient nature of part-time workers in the foodservice industry make this particu-
larly challenging.
• Sales skills. The ability to market the business creatively is key, from developing
and implementing a marketing plan, to convincing the bank that you’ll use the
loan money wisely, to “closing the sale” when bidding against competitors for a job.

Ability to Plan, Organize, Execute, Control, and Measure Results. These are the five
basic functions of management. To plan, a caterer must visualize in advance all the
aspects of a catered event, and be able to document the plans so they are readily under-
stood by the client and easily executed by the staff. Organizing is simply breaking down
the party plans into groups of functions that can be executed in an efficient manner.
Execution is the implementation of the organized plans by the party staff. Controlling is
the supervisory aspect of the event. All well-organized and well-executed plans require
control and supervision. The adage is, “It is not what you expect, but what you inspect.”
The premier off-premise catering firms in the United States insist on top-notch super-
vision at each event.

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 10 Off-Premise Catering Management

In terms of measuring results, you will be able to do this effectively only if you take
the time to set goals for your company, decide on specific activities to meet those goals,
and determine how you will track your progress to know when each goal has been
met. For caterers, these are not just sales goals, but goals involving employee training,
lowering food costs, reducing breakage in the dishroom—a whole variety of topics. We
discuss this further in the “Developing a Strategic Plan” section on page 12.

Ability to Communicate with Clients and Staff. The key to good communication with
clients and prospective clients is listening, paying careful attention to determine what
the client needs and asking the necessary follow-up questions for clarification. A client
who calls and asks, “Are you able to cater a party next Friday?” should be dealt with dif-
ferently from one who calls and asks, “How much will it cost for a wedding reception?”
The first caller is ready to buy your services, whereas the second caller is only shopping
around. Astute caterers must be able to respond to client requests in such a manner that
the client immediately gains confidence in their ability and knowledge.
Communicating with staff is often a more complex issue. In simple terms, it can be
reduced to the ability to clearly tell staff what is expected so they understand and can
deliver it, and the ability to receive their feedback regarding problems, both actual and
potential. The result of effective communication is an off-premise catering staff that pro-
fessionally executes a well-planned party that meets or exceeds the client’s expectations.

Ability to Take a Risk. Off-premise catering is a risky business; it is not for the faint-
hearted who are afraid of the unknown. For example, it is more risky catering a cor-
porate fund-raiser at the local zoo under a tent than serving the same group in a hotel
ballroom. Off-premise caterers must know when the risk outweighs the gain. In this
particular example, catering the event at the zoo without adequate shelter in case of rain
would probably be too risky. The event could be ruined by inclement weather, but the
tent is a “calculation” that makes the risk acceptable.

Sound Body and Mind. Off-premise catering requires working long hours without rest
or sleep, lifting and moving heavy objects, withstanding intense pressure as deadlines
near, and even tolerating long periods of little or no business, which inevitably cause
concern. Successful caterers should be in good physical shape, have a high energy level,
and be able to mentally deal with seasonal business cycles that range from nonstop
activity to slow periods.

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 Introduction to Off-Premise Catering Management 11

In terms of a caterer’s brainpower, a “sound mind” includes common sense and the
ability to reason, as well as a genuine fondness for people and the ability to feel comfort-
able in crowds and under pressure. A cool head will keep both staff and clients calm as
potential problems are resolved professionally and efficiently.

Creativity. This is the benchmark of all outstanding caterers. Creative caterers are able
to turn a client’s vision into reality by producing the appropriate look, feel, menu, ser-
vice, and ambiance. They’re always looking around; examining current events, culinary
trends, and popular culture; and trying to figure out how to incorporate them into event
and party plans. Those who don’t consider themselves naturally creative certainly can
learn to be, or they can employ creative people for their design team.

Open-Mindedness. This goes hand in hand with creativity, as open-minded caterers

enjoy trying new recipes, seasonings, and menu pairings, and encourage staff members
to do the same. They are willing to prepare unfamiliar dishes when requested by clients,
after thoroughly testing and understanding the recipes. In addition, they are always
seeking better ways to run every facet of their businesses. If someone else has a great
idea, they embrace it rather than feeling resentful that they didn’t think of it first.

Dependability. Dependability is a major cornerstone of success in off-premise catering.

When a caterer fails to deliver what was promised, the negative word of mouth travels
fast among clients and potential clients. Even in those situations where circumstances
change, making it more difficult to perform as promised, the outstanding caterer will
find a way to deliver rather than use the changed circumstances as an excuse not to
deliver.

Ability to Meet Clients’ Needs. The needs of the client must always come first. Success
in this business comes from identifying these needs and satisfying them. Unsuccessful
off-premise caterers are those who get lost in trying to satisfy their own needs for
money, equipment, and greater self-esteem. They forget that the primary goal is to serve
the needs of the client. When a client’s needs are met, the caterer’s needs for revenues,
profits, and positive feedback will automatically be met.

Ability to Project a Favorable Image. Prospective clients hire caterers based on their
perceived image of the caterer and what the caterer will provide. In some sense, then,

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 12 Off-Premise Catering Management

caterers are selling themselves more than their food. Off-premise caterers must be
able to project a favorable image to the client, one that is in accord with the client’s
expectations. For example, a caterer whose image is sophisticated and upscale will be
hard-pressed to sell a Little League banquet with a low budget. Successful caterers
understand their projected images and target their marketing efforts at those clients
who desire that image.

Sense of Humor. In this pressure-packed, deadline-oriented, and often stressful busi-

ness, it is easy to get carried away with the magnitude of the undertakings and become
so tense and uptight that work ceases to be fun. Laughter at the right time can relieve
that tension and stress, putting a renewed sense of fun into the work at hand.

Managing an Off-Premise Catering

Operation
Even those who possess the qualities necessary for off-premise catering success must
know how to put these talents to use effectively. Off-premise caterers should be hands-
on managers who are constantly customer focused. They must be able to lead staff and
clients alike, while conducting business in a professional manner. They must be able to
make timely, ethical decisions, while understanding what makes for a successful event.
They must also avoid those situations that cause a business to fail.

Developing a Strategic Plan

A strategic plan is a roadmap to help you determine the direction you wish your busi-
ness to go, and the specific goals you must accomplish to get there. It begins with
a statement of core values, which may include factors like client satisfaction; ethical
business practices; staff satisfaction, training, and motivation; community service; and
operation of an environmentally conscious business.
From these core values, a caterer can develop a Mission Statement—a succinct sen-
tence that sums up the company’s mission. Here’s an example:
Our company will meet the catering needs of the corporate community by providing
high levels of service and food quality, which will result in repeat business and vital
growth.

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 Introduction to Off-Premise Catering Management 13

After the Mission Statement comes the Vision Statement—a concise summary of
where you want to be in the future. Again, an example:
Within five years, our company will be the top-ranked catering firm in our area, with
continuing sales and profit growth, while giving back to our community.

It isn’t enough to brainstorm about these statements. Writing them down is the first
step to making them a reality. Only after they are put in writing can you develop more
specific objectives to increase sales and profits, measure customer satisfaction, size up
your competitors, and plan the ways in which you will give back to the community.
Your Mission and Vision Statements lead naturally to the next step: to establish
goals for the operation. You may have heard time management experts use the term
“SMART” when describing goals. The acronym stands for:

Specific. The goals to be accomplished must be easily understood, concise, and

unambiguous.

Measurable. There should be no question about whether one attains, or falls short of, a
goal. It may be measured in terms of quality, cost, quantity, or time.

Attainable. The goals may be just out of reach, but they should not be out of sight. The
best goal challenges and motivates you and your team. If it’s practically impossible, it
may be too frustrating.

Relevant. The goals must fit well with your long-term mission and vision, your objec-
tives, and the results you expect.

Time-Bound. There must be a specific deadline for completion of each goal.

An example of a SMART goal might be to increase sales and profits by 20 percent

each year for the next five years.
While goals are important, remember not to set too many, too quickly. It will scatter
your energy and make progress more difficult. Typically, every goal requires certain
trade-offs. To increase sales, for instance, you may need to drop prices, hire more staff
to be able to cater more events, or spend money on advertising. The major goals can be
broken into smaller, intermediate steps, with a time line to keep the company, and indi-
vidual managers or department heads, on track.

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 14 Off-Premise Catering Management

Goals are not just for the owner of a company. The staff and other professionals
employed by the company—accountant, banker, attorney, and all vendors—should also
be well aware of the goals. You will need their help to achieve them, and you want them
on your side, committed to your goals. Too often, caterers believe they can do everything
themselves. They fail to ask for or accept advice from outside consultants and colleagues.
It is far more intelligent to ask for assistance when you need it. Someone familiar with
your plans and your passion for them is far more likely to be helpful.
Finally, as soon as a goal is set, take some action on it.
The last part of a strategic management process is to reevaluate your mission, vision,
and goals periodically. Times change, trends change, and you become aware of new
information. Let’s say a caterer’s sales year showed a 50 percent increase, when he or she
had set a 20 percent annual goal. In this case, the next year’s goal might be more realisti-
cally revised to a 30 percent increase.

Hands-On Management, Attention to Detail

Have you ever heard the old saying, “The devil is in the details”? Another way to put it is
that we’ve all been bitten by a mosquito or stung by a bee, but none of us has ever been
bitten by an elephant. It’s always the little things that get us.
In catering, the details are almost endless, a stream of tiny elements, any of which
might go wrong and result in a catastrophe. One thing forgotten, misheard, or mis-
placed can ruin an event. So it’s important to check and recheck and to be prepared for
last-minute emergencies.
It is simply not possible to run this kind of business from behind a desk, reading computer
printouts and delegating all tasks. Off-premise catering companies must be managed from
the center of the action, whether that is serving the guests or preparing food in the kitchen.
Success comes from checking and rechecking every detail to ensure that it meets the high-
est of standards. It comes from inspecting for the best and expecting the best. Some call this
management style “management by walking around.” In one sense that is true, but there
is more to it than walking around. Astute off-premise caterers must:
• Obtain feedback from clients and guests regarding the food and service.
• Oversee the catering staff to ensure they are performing as directed and as expected.
• Help out when a table needs to be cleared or when the bar suddenly becomes very
busy. Help in the kitchen during critical times, such as hot food dish-up, and even
help scrape, stack, and wash dirty dishes if that is what’s necessary.

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 Introduction to Off-Premise Catering Management 15

It’s a roll-up-your-sleeves kind of profession, and you should never be totally satisfied
with the way things are. Always look for new ways to present food and make it more
flavorful, and for better and more efficient ways to do things.

Customer-Focused Management
An off-premise caterer’s full-time mission must be to satisfy the needs of clients. Unlike
a restaurant, in which the owners often have the advantage of market research to deter-
mine who their target customers will be in a particular location, a caterer must be com-
fortable serving multiple demographic groups, at all sorts of locations and a variety of
price points. At its simplest, what this means is maintaining flexibility, while keeping
prices fair and controlling costs.

Managerial Decision Making

Off-premise catering managers must make decisions that keep their operations running
smoothly. They realize that some decisions will be better than others, that there is no
perfect solution to every problem, and that the goal in almost any situation is to find the
best possible solution with the least number of drawbacks.
Although hundreds of books have been written about effective decision making, the
following tips from management consultant and author Connie Sitterly should be help-
ful. They’re paraphrased from an article she wrote back in 1990 in The Meeting Manager,
but they are still up-to-the-minute when it comes to making tough decisions successfully.
• Remember that there’s seldom only one acceptable solution to the problem.
Choose the best alternative.
• Make decisions that help achieve the company objectives.
• Consider feelings whenever people are involved. Even if you must make an
unpopular decision, you can minimize repercussions if workers know you have
taken their feelings into account.
• Allow quality time for planning and decision making. Pick a time when you are
energetic and your mind is fresh.
• Realize that you will never please everyone. Few decisions meet with unanimous
approval. The appointed authority, not the majority, rules.
• Make time for making decisions. In business, delaying a decision can cost thou-
sands of dollars.

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• Put decision making in perspective. Every executive feels overwhelmed at times

by either the enormity or the number of the decisions that must be made during
a business day. For peace of mind, accept that you are doing the best job you can
with the time, talent, and resources you have.
• Don’t wait for a popular vote. Rallying your colleagues around your decision before
you take action or waiting for their vote of confidence before deciding anything
may cost too much in terms of time. There are times when you just have to do
something.

Leadership
There are major differences between those who lead and those who manage. Catering
companies need both types of executives, and some who can do both. If a catering com-
pany is earning seven- and eight-figure annual revenues, you can be certain its owners
and managers are people with leadership skills.
Leaders are able to get people to do things they don’t necessarily like to do—and
even enjoy them. You might say:

A manager . . . A leader . . .
Maintains Develops
Administers Innovates
Relies on systems Relies on people
Counts on controls Counts on trust
Does things right Does the right things
Works within the system Works on the system
Manages things Leads people

A leader is more like a thermostat than a thermometer. A thermostat sets the stan-
dard temperature for the space in which it is located. A thermometer simply records
the temperature; it can’t change anything. And one more important trait: Leaders take
a little more than their share of the blame, and a little less than their share of the credit.

Professionalism and Common Business Courtesy

Off-premise caterers who are not professional in their business practices will never reach
the pinnacle of success in the field. Before we address the technical aspects of catering
in the succeeding chapters, it is of utmost importance that we define professionalism.

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 Introduction to Off-Premise Catering Management 17

The following guidelines are adapted from an article by Carol McKibben in Special
Events magazine:
• Become known for doing what you say you will do.
• Give price quotes and commitments only when you know everything about the event.
• Treat clients and staff members with respect.
• Build relationships with clients. Do not look at them as accounts or projects.
• Be on time, or a bit early, for appointments. Be prepared for an appointment.
• Be honest; don’t play games.
• Stand behind your work. If it is wrong, make it right.
• In the face of abuse from others, don’t respond by becoming abusive. Try to detach
yourself from it emotionally and handle it logically. Of course, do not use your
position of power to abuse others.
• Dress professionally.
• Enjoy your work as an off-premise caterer. When work ceases to be enjoyable, it is
time to quit and find a new career.
It might surprise you to learn that these tips were written more than 20 years ago.
They are proof that professionalism truly never goes out of style.

Ethics in Management
In today’s business world, lack of ethics is among the most widely discussed topics. We
read and hear of illegal payoffs, scandals, and other forms of questionable behavior bring-
ing down some of the nation’s largest corporations and politicians. Off-premise caterers
are in no way exempt from ethical concerns. Even the smallest caterers deal with issues
of fairness, legal requirements, and honesty on a daily basis. Examples include truth in
menu disclosures, product substitutions, advertising claims, dealing with unexpected or
unjustified last-minute add-ons to an event price, and even underbidding a competitor
when the client has inadvertently disclosed the competitor’s price.
The ethical caterer will assume responsibility for the host to ensure that the host
plans an event that is in the best interests of the guests, in every respect. For instance, a
host who wishes to serve alcohol to underage guests is out of line and must be advised
that this is not acceptable. An ethical caterer will refuse to cater an event that is clearly
not being planned in the best interest of the host or guests.

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There are times when a caterer is given a free hand in planning a menu. Perhaps a
grieving client calls for food after the funeral of a loved one, saying, “Please send over
food for 50 guests tomorrow night. You know what we like.” The ethical caterer will
not take advantage of this situation by either providing too much food or overcharging
the client.
Another temptation arises when the caterer is pressed to schedule more events on
a certain day or evening than the company can reasonably accommodate. The extra
money certainly is tempting. Unethical caterers will rationalize that they can juggle all
the events, even if an inexperienced supervisor or staff must oversee these events, or the
kitchen staff will not be able to prepare their usual high-quality food because of lack of
time and personnel. Caterers who take on more work than they can reasonably accom-
modate are greedy and are considered by many observers to be unethical.
In the foregoing situation, the caterer should decline the work and perhaps recom-
mend another catering company. Some caterers refuse to do this; they worry that if the
client is not pleased with the other firm, the caterer who initially turned down the busi-
ness will be blamed for the recommendation. Other caterers freely recommend one or
more companies when unable to cater events.
There are times when it is very hard not to bad-mouth a competitor, but this is con-
sidered unethical, as well as rude. Those who are ethical would rather point out their
own strengths than downgrade the competition.
It can be very tempting for self-employed caterers to underreport income or overstate
expenses. They rationalize that no one will know if they accept cash for a party, and then
fail to report it as income and pay the associated tax, or that no one will know if they
happen to charge personal expenses now and then to the business. Some caterers who
are licensed to sell liquor by the drink or by the bottle are tempted to bill clients for bev-
erages that were not consumed. These practices are not only unethical—they are illegal.
Other ethical violations occur when caterers receive under-the-table cash kickbacks
from suppliers, misrepresent their services to potential clients, or bid on party plans or
ideas stolen from other caterers.
Caterers also soon learn that some clients are unethical. A few are masterful at find-
ing fault with a wedding or other important event, and then demanding a “discount”
based on whatever flaw they feel they have uncovered. Some will refuse to pay for lin-
ens that were damaged by candles they lit on them. You’ll find people who, midparty,
will ask you to stay “a couple hours of overtime, just to wrap things up”—and then not
show up to pay you for the extra time the next day, as agreed. Others will haggle over

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 Introduction to Off-Premise Catering Management 19

the tiniest details on an invoice or try to engage more than one caterer in a bidding
war to lower prices. Caterers who deal with “middleman” organizations, like destina-
tion management firms or production companies, may find that a client of one of these
companies will come back later to try to deal directly with them, thus cutting out the
middleman who recommended them.
As a catering professional, you need to expect a certain amount of this behavior and
must protect yourself if you suspect an ethical question may arise. Insisting on secu-
rity deposits, having a valid and authorized credit card number on file for unforeseen
charges, refusing to look at other caterers’ written bids, and standing firm on your own
invoice prices are just a few ways ethical problems can be avoided. And rather than cut
out a legitimate middleman-type vendor, you can either refuse to deal directly with a
client who tries such a maneuver or suggest a commission be paid to the middleman.
You will also be put in some uncomfortable situations, as—during tough times and even
good times—certain clients will make unrealistic requests. They’ve often been good, regu-
lar clients too. But they’ll promise you future business if you’ll cater their party “at cost” or
defer payment for them, or they’ll ask for some other special favor “just this once.”
These requests are unfair, and you are right to be squeamish about them. Off-premise
caterers should be extremely wary when approached in this fashion. As a general rule,
clients who do not pay their bills in a professional manner, or who are not willing to pay
a fair price for catering services, are not worth the headaches they cause.
The Jefferson Center of Character Education has set forth a list of ten “universal
values”: honesty, integrity, promise keeping, fidelity, fairness, caring for others, respect
for others, responsible citizenship, pursuit of excellence, and accountability. These values
should provide some solid guidance for any businessperson who considers himself or
herself a true professional.

Separating Yourself from the Competition

Great caterers do more than imitate—they innovate. They may build and improve on
someone else’s concept, but they strive to take the idea to the next level. Rather than
mimicking another’s success, they imprint their own signature on their menus. As with
any career, staying ahead of competitors requires catering professionals to reexamine
their business strategies from time to time.
Look at the caterers in your own community and you will note the distinct advan-
tages of those who offer unique menus and services, perhaps even in unique locations.
Then again, some simply do what they do best—they have a niche, a particular client

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 20 Off-Premise Catering Management

base or type of event for which they are well known, and never vary their formulas. Their
clients love them and get exactly what they expect.
Other caterers seem to copy everyone else. They ricochet from one concept or recipe
to the other, and you sense that they probably never bother to gauge clients’ reactions or
see if their services really meet their clients’ needs. If they read about a trendy dish in a
magazine, they feel they have to serve it, whether they do a good job of it or not.
Most caterers fall somewhere between these two extremes, blending successful ideas
from the past with new twists and interesting concepts.
Great caterers also separate themselves from competitors by using the resources
around them to build their businesses. In South Florida, for example, one caterer spe-
cializes in event planning for doctors, through his hospital foodservice management
job. Another has an exclusive off-premise contract for a sports facility; a third is the
on-premise caterer for a city club, with the added benefit of extra catering business from
the club members. Capitalize on the audience you have—they’re (almost) already yours!

Personal Management
Off-premise caterers work an average of 59 hours a week, according to the industry
group CaterSource. Time management, stress management, and personal organization
skills must be mastered to manage your own work life, as well as your business, at peak
efficiency. Time is our most precious commodity, and to waste it because of being over-
stressed or disorganized will inevitably result in less-than-desirable results.

Stress Management
Stress generally comes from interaction with others and from having to meet deadlines,
although it is often self-imposed. A certain amount of stress and tension is necessary to
achieve the best results—and you might enjoy the adrenaline rush you feel when you’re
in the middle of a busy event and know there’s a lot at stake. However, consistently high
stress levels over prolonged time periods can cause chronic fatigue, irritability, cynicism,
hostility, inflexibility, and difficulty in thinking clearly. Catering managers who are over-
stressed are unable to perform at maximum capability.
Stress cannot always be eliminated, but it can often be controlled through:
• Daily exercise. This might mean a brisk walk or run, some dedicated time on a
spinning bike, or other aerobic pursuits that increase the heart rate. Some folks

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 Introduction to Off-Premise Catering Management 21

purposefully take their minds off work when they exercise; for others, the daily walk
or run is a time to reflect on the week’s priorities or get organized for the coming day.
• Relaxation techniques, including meditation and yoga.
• Writing down the issues that cause stress. Identify those facets of your life that can
be controlled, and decide to make the best of those that cannot. Brainstorm ways
to deal with the controllable stress factors.
• Reading articles and books on stress reduction.
Furthermore, reducing stress is a natural offshoot of hiring excellent people, training
them well, and trusting them enough so that you can delegate some of the event details
and responsibilities to them.

Time Management
There are only 168 hours in each week, and the greatest rewards come to those who
accomplish the most meaningful things during this fixed amount of time. Off-premise
caterers realize that if they can accomplish more meaningful production in less time,
they will have more time for pursuits other than work. They also realize that working
smarter, not harder, through the effective use of time will produce greater results.
The key to effective time management is to set goals for certain time periods: a life-
time, five years, and/or for each year, month, week, and day. Without written goals,
off-premise caterers will find it impossible to effectively manage their time. Time man-
agement involves choosing how to spend your time, so there’s no way to make proper
choices without knowing the desired outcome or goal. The captain of a ship without a
destination cannot choose the proper course. He or she will cruise aimlessly at sea, never
reaching his or her port of call.
It is equally important to schedule downtime for yourself—for family, friends, hob-
bies, and interests other than work. You are guarding against burnout when you insist
on some personal time.
Off-premise caterers can choose from an array of time-saving techniques and techni-
cal advances to help them in their quest to efficiently manage time:
• Make daily, detailed lists of goals and objectives.
• Do as much online and on the computer as possible. It saves paper, produces files
that are easily shared with others, and creates an electronic trail that can be useful
when you have to prove when something was e-mailed or received.

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 22 Off-Premise Catering Management

• Use an up-to-the-minute mobile device to stay in touch while away from the
office. Even cell phones are lifesavers at off-premise catering locations when emer-
gency and other calls are necessary. If you have unexpected downtime, they enable
you to use it efficiently by checking e-mail or returning phone calls.
• Handle incoming papers only once. Here’s the rule: Do it, delegate it, discard it, or
file it. (Better yet, hire someone else to file it.)
• Do your most important work at times when you happen to be most alert. Most of
us know whether we are “morning people” or “night owls.” Take advantage of your
peak energy periods to handle your most challenging tasks.
• Sign up for a time management seminar or course to learn more techniques.
One of the biggest time wasters for a caterer is also a source of business that cannot
be ignored: the prospective client who calls or e-mails with questions. This is, however,
an interruption that can be controlled. Whoever answers the phone at your business
should always qualify inquiries by asking:
• The date of the event
• Whether a location has been selected
• The number of guests
• The budget for the event
In addition, as you set up your website “Contact Us” section, you might want to
include prompts to obtain this information. Why? First of all, time can be wasted by
talking about an event before you ask the date and discover you are unable to do it in the
first place because of a scheduling conflict. Perhaps the number of guests is too small or
too large for your particular company, the budget is insufficient, or the proposed location
is already booked for another event.
Always focus on results by asking yourself, “Will this activity help me achieve any
of my goals?” Prioritize tasks in order of their importance and know when to delegate
them to others. Most people waste countless hours, days, weeks, and years chitchatting
on the phone, shuffling papers, running errands, and doing other things that are easy
enough but offer little or no payoff. Learn to delegate these types of tasks whenever
possible. Pay other people to do them, and don’t tell yourself you can’t afford it—you
can always make more money, but you have only so much time. The true achievers, in
catering and in other fields, minimize the time they spend on low-priority, low-payoff
tasks and turn their attention to those things that will bring the greatest rewards.

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 Introduction to Off-Premise Catering Management 23

These essential tasks are often difficult to accomplish, take a great deal of time, and
involve at least some risk. For example, a caterer could spend the entire day showing
prospective clients numerous suitable locations for a major event. The caterer would
then spend the next three days preparing a written proposal for an event at each of the
locations, with no guarantee that the event will even take place. However, if the caterer
is hired, there’s a five-figure profit to be made. Worth the risk? Certainly!
Another high-payoff task might be writing a new catering menu. Both this and the
aforementioned task require large chunks of time and involve some risk, but more than
likely will produce major rewards in increased revenues and profits.
In summary, off-premise caterers who best manage their time will be the most suc-
cessful in the long run. They become the leading caterers in their communities, in their
states, and in the country.

Getting and Staying Organized

When projects, tasks, catering kitchens, and offices are well organized, things run much
more smoothly and efficiently. The time spent looking for things and jumping from job
to job is wasted time that could be put to much better use. Many off-premise caterers
have found various methods that work for them:
• Create a system that ensures that every step of every client transaction—from the
first contact, to follow-up communication, contract, changes to the plan, and a
post-event debrief—can be traced, and that there’s someone to take responsibility
for each step along the way. Once again, strive to create a trail that can be double-
checked at any time.
• Take a tip from event planners, who start a separate notebook for each event they
are working on. Into this three-ring binder go all notes, contracts, sketches, and
color and fabric samples—anything for that particular job. No matter how much
planning can be done on a computer, a binder system can be very useful for com-
plex jobs.
• Consider hiring a professional organizer to come to your office and set up a filing
and record-keeping system that works for your business.
• Keep frequently used items close by.
• Focus on one project at a time, rather than jumping from one thing to another.
This can be more easily accomplished by blocking out some uninterrupted time
during the day to work on major projects.

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 24 Off-Premise Catering Management

• Whenever possible, try to schedule time to return phone calls and/or e-mail mes-
sages. That way, you can handle them all at once, instead of scattering them (and
your thoughts) in five-minute intervals throughout the day.
• At the end of each day, prepare a list of things to do for the following day. Some
people manage to do this as the very first thing in the morning.
To summarize, off-premise caterers who can effectively deal with stress, manage their
time, delegate tasks, and keep things organized will lead their peers into the future. They
will set the standards for others to follow. They will accomplish more and will be in a
position to receive the greatest rewards as a result.

The Seven Habits of Highly

Successful Caterers
Let’s examine some additional techniques, philosophies, and real-life ways to be suc-
cessful in the challenging field of off-premise catering.
Habits are things we do automatically, like brushing our teeth, combing our hair, or
straightening a tablecloth that’s uneven as we help set up a banquet room. We hardly
think about them; we just do them. Stephen R. Covey wrote The Seven Habits of Highly
Effective People, which has been a bestseller for years—you should read it if you haven’t
already. But what are some habits that mark successful caterers? What separates star per-
formers from the rest of the crowd? With a nod to Mr. Covey, here are seven key habits.

Being Willing to Take Calculated Risks

A popular saying is, “A turtle goes nowhere until it sticks its neck out.” To succeed, we
must be continually growing and improving, and the only way to do this is to leave our
comfort zones—and stick our necks out.
If you’re right-handed, you feel quite comfortable writing with your right hand. Try
writing with your left hand; you’re definitely out of your comfort zone. But after a while,
you might find you can actually write with either hand. In the same spirit, successful cater-
ers make things happen by taking calculated risks, whether the risk is trying new menu
items, implementing new buffet display concepts, or accepting a job in a new and chal-
lenging off-premise location. Caterers who refuse to take risks fail to grow and learn—
and eventually are left behind in this competitive industry.

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 Introduction to Off-Premise Catering Management 25

Expressing Sincere Concern for Others

Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care. Empathy and
genuine concern for your clients and staff are paramount to long-term success. What are the
needs, wishes, and desires of the people you work with and for? What are their concerns and
their “hot buttons”? By putting ourselves in their positions, we can begin to show concern
for others and understand them. When we do this, we develop meaningful relationships
and, not coincidentally, loyalty. We give them what they want, and we get what we want.

Keeping Up with Current Trends

It isn’t just a matter of food and presentation and theme trends, although these are criti-
cal. Caterers who are not tech-savvy, including the use of social media, are missing out
on huge opportunities to create “buzz” about what they are doing.
At the very least, you and your support staff must get into the habit of regularly
updating websites, responding to promptly to e-mail correspondence, and providing
proposals, contracts, and other documents electronically. If you are not in the habit of
working online, you’re now hopelessly behind the times.

Managing Your Time and Setting Priorities

You get 20 percent of your sales and profits from 80 percent of your clients, and 80 percent
of your sales and profits from 20 percent of your clients.
None of us ever goes home at night thinking all the work is done—it never is. It’s
simply a question of what’s most important, as well as what’s most urgent. Urgent things
are never really an issue. There’s no question that if you have a catered event today, the
work will get done. But what is most urgent is not necessarily what’s most important.
You must understand the difference.
For example, you could spend a day catering three small parties for 25 guests each but
fall behind on preparing a proposal for another job, in three months, for 500 guests—
and lose it to a competitor whose proposal was submitted on time.
Successful caterers spend their time in the areas that generate the biggest paybacks
in terms of money, quality, and other rewards. They make a habit of planning their days,
leaving time for the most important, as well as the most urgent. At the start of each day,
they prepare an agenda that details both short-term objectives and long-term goals. If
you’re a student, you should already be using this technique to accomplish as much as
you can in school.

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 26 Off-Premise Catering Management

Putting Quality Before Quantity

The previous example aside, bigger is not necessarily better. Still, many of us get caught
up in that way of thinking. If our sales are $1 million, let’s go for $2 million. If they’re
$2 million, what’s wrong with $4 million? And if $4 million is good . . .
There’s nothing wrong with building sales if quality does not suffer. However, when
the quality of your products and services suffers, so does the quality of your daily life.
More business means more hours at work, and doctors will tell you they’ve never met
a man or woman who, on a deathbed, expressed a wish that he or she had spent more
time working.
As long as the business we have is both enjoyable and profitable, we need to make
a habit of continually asking ourselves whether we might be better off with a little less
business, to leave more time for ourselves and our families. We need to continually
examine the overall quality of our work to ensure that it isn’t slipping because we’ve
allowed ourselves to take on too much.

Being Detail-Oriented
A baseball player who bats .250 gets three hits for every 12 times at bat. One who bats
.333 gets four hits for every 12 times at bat. The difference—one more hit for every
12 times at bat—means the difference between an average major league ball player and
a Hall of Fame inductee.
Do you make it a habit to continually look for the little things? A good caterer isn’t
nitpicky but is forever finding something that needs to be tweaked, adjusted, redone,
or improved—little things that most customers won’t notice but that greatly affect
the overall professionalism of an event. An awareness of the details of flavor, appear-
ance, aroma, and tidiness separates the average caterers from the superstars. And, by all
means, check the spelling, grammar, and punctuation in all your written materials, from
brochures to contracts—or hire someone to do it. Again, the goal is to present a profes-
sional image. Remember, the devil is in the details.

Setting High Standards

If you refuse to accept anything but the very best, you very often get the best. Successful
caterers set their standards high and expect excellence from themselves and their staff
members. They are rarely happy with the status quo, always striving to make each party,
wedding, or event better than the last. They debrief after an event, asking staff for input

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 Introduction to Off-Premise Catering Management 27

and improvements. They know that if they fail to improve, they’re leaving the door open
for their competitors to capture a good customer or a larger share of the market.
Successful caterers also make a habit of lifelong learning. They’re forever reading,
attending trade shows, and exploring areas that will help them improve their own busi-
nesses with new ideas. They challenge and reward their staff members for having the
same attitude.
Vince Lombardi, the late NFL coach, who during his career coached the first team to
ever win the Super Bowl, put it this way: “The quality of a person’s life is in direct pro-
portion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor.”

How Does an Off-Premise Caterer

Gauge Success?
There are a number of signs to look for when evaluating an existing off-premise cater-
ing business. Healthy companies rate highly in all these areas. Those that are unhealthy,
perhaps even on the brink of failure, will not rate nearly as well.
• Management thoroughly plans, organizes, executes, and controls each catered event.
• Proper controls are in place for costs, accounts receivable and payable, and liquid
assets, such as cash and inventories. Theft prevention is also a priority.
• Food and service quality is well controlled and meets or exceeds clients’ approval.
• Pricing for food and services is fair and competitive with that of other firms in the
marketplace. There is a spirit of healthy competition.
• The catering firm enjoys good working relationships with both clients and suppliers.
• Time and attention are given to food safety in storage, preparation, and display.
Employees know the local health codes and follow them.
• There is sufficient working capital to operate the business. The firm can make loan
payments as they become due. Excessive credit is not extended to clients.
• Budgets are prepared and followed. Business records, insurance coverage, and
licenses are kept up to date. The information derived from these records is used to
provide data to help manage the business.
• Sales growth is controlled. There are sufficient financial and personnel resources to
operate as business steadily grows.

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 28 Off-Premise Catering Management

• Market trends are anticipated and regularly discussed.

• Management and staff have a good working knowledge of the off-premise cater-
ing field.
• There are solid, trusting relationships between management and staff. Staff mem-
bers are well trained and feel truly appreciated—because they are.
• Management works closely with a qualified accountant to plan for payment
of taxes.
• And, finally, management is willing to seek qualified professional assistance if
problems arise.

Looking Ahead—Catering in the Future

What does the future hold for caterers—and who will survive in the roller-coaster
economy? When the Institute of Food Technologists listed its Top Ten Food Trends
in Food Technology magazine (April 2011), the economic downturn known as the Great
Recession was named as the reason for some of them. Americans told pollsters that
the majority (71 percent) now bring their own snacks from home to ballgames and
movie theaters to save a few dollars. In 2010, more than half (58 percent) of full-time
workers told the Food Marketing Institute they packed their lunches instead of eating
out on their lunch breaks, up from 27 percent just three years earlier.
Other factors, however, look more promising as trends for off-premise caterers to
watch closely. Consumers that say they prefer fresh, locally grown and produced foods,
rather than processed products from faraway factories. They are interested in trying
more whole-grain, high-fiber, low-sodium, and no-trans-fat foods. This gives the savvy
caterer an excellent reason to seek out and nurture relationships with the best local
purveyors, as well as to update recipes with the goal of better nutrition. (If anybody can
make something delicious and beautiful out of so-called healthy ingredients, it would
be a good caterer!)
The U.S. Department of Agriculture replaced its food pyramid with a new symbol, a
dinner plate, in 2011. The change (explained at www.choosemyplate.gov) is supposed to
be an easier visual cue to help consumers understand how to balance their meals based
on the five food groups. You can bet that savvy caterers are studying it too.
As health-conscious as Americans have become, the market research also shows they
still love their treats. The popularity of baking is surging, although most home cooks

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 Introduction to Off-Premise Catering Management 29

admitted in a 2009 survey that they’re not very skilled at it. This could mean a niche
for elegant desserts, artisan breads, and/or homestyle pastries. The American Culinary
Federation says mini and bite-sized desserts are among its member chefs’ most popular
menu additions—another perfect trend for the catering business.
On supermarket shelves, some of the fastest-growing product categories are spe-
cialty chocolates, cookies, and wines, and 63 percent of adults said that they purchased
“gourmet foods” in 2010, an increase of 17 percentage points over the previous year.
Perhaps one way to interpret the trends is that most people know they should eat
healthier, but they also want (and believe that they deserve) to stray from those restric-
tions once in a while. Catering is all about making special occasions special, so there will
continue to be a market for it.
Staffing woes will continue to be monumental, as hiring, training, and retraining get
tougher. Foodservice has always been a somewhat transient industry. Astute caterers will
use preemployment aptitude and personality testing, master online staff scheduling sys-
tems, and develop their own training programs. They will also realize, if they haven’t already,
that they must treat their employees at least as well as they treat their clients. Along the
same lines, in a top-tier catering operation, caterers will understand that their employees
must treat each other with the same courtesy and respect that they show their clients.
Caterers of the future will come to realize that bigger is not necessarily better. Having
a large volume of business is admirable—but only when the quality of your work rises
to the same level. A company can grow to the point where quality slips, gross profit
margins lag, more equipment is needed, overhead costs expand, and the bottom line
shrinks proportionately. Intelligent caterer will downsize and watch margins and prof-
its grow—and overall stress levels diminish—as they become more selective about the
clientele they service.
Caterers are realizing that “high tech” will never replace personalized service, or
“high touch,” but that without high tech, they’ll limit their potential for high touch.
In an industry where, amazingly, some caterers still don’t accept credit cards, savvy
businesspeople are learning to embrace new technology, launching interactive websites
and e-mail marketing campaigns. Caterers can now generate proposals, rental orders,
packing lists, staffing schedules, and instant financial statements digitally. And they’re
realizing that computer-savvy business owners have more time to do what they love—
which is run their business.
Competition will continue to increase. Sales will grow, but not without some dips,
because economic woes and news headlines—from terrorist attacks to wild weather—and

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 30 Off-Premise Catering Management

the resulting fears cannot help but affect the catering profession. An increased use of
security staff and cameras at high-profile events (and in some cases, to thwart theft) are
the results of this heightened awareness.
Mega-event catering is acknowledged as an excellent way to grow business—at
golf and tennis tournaments, NASCAR races, political conventions, air shows or boat
shows, and more. In addition to being profitable, mega-events expose the caterer to a
wider range of potential clients. Then again, one caterer from Augusta, Georgia, gen-
erates enough revenue from serving sandwiches and beverages at the Masters Golf
Tournament that he need not cater at all the rest of the year. The pressure experienced
in servicing huge, multiday events is as big as the events themselves, but the rewards
can be significant.

The Off-Premise Catering Model

Exhibit 1.1 is a diagram of interrelated factors in off-premise catering. It is included to
prompt discussion about how management philosophies and current laws trigger mul-
tiple planning efforts in every aspect of the caterer’s business, from how the company

Management Knowledge
Management Philosophies
Local, State, and Federal Laws
Sanitation and Safety Procedures

Planning Preparation Party (The Show) Output

Marketing Purchasing Delivery Word of Mouth
Site Inspections Prepping Food Cooking Revenues
Menus Pull Sheets Serving Expenses
Alcoholic Beverages Equipment Cleanup Profits/Losses
Equipment Staffing Cash Flow
Staff Accounting Records
Accessory Services
Proposals
Pricing
Contracts

Exhibit 1.1 Off-Premise Catering Model

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 Introduction to Off-Premise Catering Management 31

will go about obtaining business, to the types of food and beverages to be served, to the
add-on services (florals, event design, and music, etc.) that will be offered and what the
prices will be.
Together, these details form the basis for what the caterer can offer a client—first,
in the form of a proposal (which is then agreed on or modified), leading to a contract
being prepared and signed.
As the party or event date approaches, certain operational elements are addressed, such as:
• Hiring and scheduling staff
• Informing key staff about event details
• Purchasing and pre-preparation of menu items
• Ordering equipment as needed from rental companies
• Booking contractors who will provide add-on services
• Obtaining necessary licenses and permits for use of the site, serving alcohol, and
so on
• Preparing a pull sheet, or packing sheet, that includes all items to be supplied by
the commissary to produce the party
• Coordinating all beverage and accessory services with the client and the vendors
All the preplanning elements culminate on the day or night of “the show.” This is the
point at which the staff, equipment, food, and other vendors arrive at the site, and the event
takes place. Of course, for large events, the setup process may take as long as a week.
After the event, there are also certain necessary outcomes; on the diagram they are
referred to as output. These include:
• Invoicing
• Getting feedback from clients and guests about the successes (and/or problems)
associated with the event
• Getting feedback from key staff members about the event, from praise for servers
to any concerns that may have arisen
• Determining revenues and expenses
• Updating accounting records and paying employees and contractors
By reading and studying this book, you will gain a thorough understanding of how all
these elements combine to produce a successful off-premise event for a professional caterer.

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 32 Off-Premise Catering Management

Summary
This chapter provides a wide-ranging look at what is necessary to start an off-premise
catering company or develop an off-premise catering division of an existing foodservice
operation.
Much of the focus of this chapter is on the individual who plans to start the company—
his or her personality traits, temperament, and sense of ethics. This is because catering
is both a very personal and intensely social, hands-on type of business. Organizational
skills, time management, financial acumen, and an eye for culinary and entertainment
trends are just a few of the important skills mentioned in the chapter. Some of these
skills can be learned or honed; others are more instinctive.
The chapter also summarizes some trends in consumer behavior that will affect cater-
ers, for better or worse. These include Americans’ continued health consciousness, grow-
ing preference for locally produced foods, and concerns about the economy after the
Great Recession. The latter has prompted many people to cut corners in their food deci-
sions but also has created a customer base that believes it’s okay to splurge once in a while
on high-quality items, whether the treat is a decadent dessert or a loaf of artisan bread.
Caterers can use their knowledge of such trends to market to prospective customers.

Study Questions
1. Choose any three catering “crises” from those listed on pages 3–4 and write a short
explanation of how you would handle the crisis if you were the caterer living the
nightmare, and why.
2. Why can it be more expensive for clients to host a catered event at their home than
at a hotel or restaurant?
3. What questions should a catering company’s receptionist learn to ask incoming call-
ers, and why?
4. This chapter includes “The Seven Habits of Highly Successful Caterers” (page 24).
Write a paragraph about what the eighth “habit” would be, in your view, based on
what you have read in this book so far.
5. Are there ever instances in which it is acceptable to turn down potential business as
a caterer? Explain your answer.

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 Getting Started: Laws,
Locations, and Contracts
2
Radius Images/Radius
Images/Getty Images

You might have decided to become a caterer because you’ve been told you are a ter-
rific cook or because you know you’re an excellent event planner. The goal of this chapter
is to introduce all the other elements of running a catering business that you might not
be familiar with, any one of which can trip you up in creating your new business if you
don’t get them right. It is an important first glimpse of the following topics:
• The licenses and laws caterers must typically have and follow
• Forming a corporation and finding a facility
• Writing a business plan
• Funding sources for your catering company
• Developing a catering contract that protects both the company and its customers
• Developing policies about deposits, cancellations, and refunds
The first two points on the list—understanding the legal ramifications of operating
a business and finding a suitable location—seem to be ignored regularly by would-be
caterers. Many operate illegally from their homes, with neither proper licenses nor insur-
ance. It is imperative that readers understand that this is a clear violation of local and
state statutes, and violators risk being prosecuted and fined. Professional off-premise

33

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Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
would enable us to explore the waters of the lake. A march of a mile
further along the shore brought us to the woods that were not so
heavy. Here the immense asparagus forests gave way to a growth of
smaller girth; and the Doctor’s hatchet soon felled enough poles for
us to make a raft from. We laced them together with thongs of bark
and found them sufficiently buoyant when launched to carry us and
our small supply of baggage with ease. Where the water was
shallow we used a long pole to punt with; and when we wished to
explore greater depths we employed sweeps, or oars, which we
fashioned roughly with the hatchet.
From the first moment we were afloat the Doctor kept me busy
taking notes for him. In the equipment he had brought with him there
was a fine-meshed landing net: and with it he searched along the
shores for signs of life in this moon lake, the first of its kind we had
met with.
“It is very important, Stubbins,” said he, “to find out what fish we
have here. In evolution the fish life is a very important matter.”
“What is evolution?” asked Chee-Chee.

“We used a long pole to punt with”

I started out to explain it to him but was soon called upon by the
Doctor to make more notes—for which I was not sorry, as the task
turned out to be a long and heavy one. Polynesia however took it up
where I left off and made short work of it.
“Evolution, Chee-Chee,” said she, “is the story of how Tommy got
rid of the tail you are carrying—because he didn’t need it any more—
and the story of how you grew it and kept it because you did need
it. . . . Evolution! Poof!—Professors’ talk. A long word for a simple
matter.”
It turned out that our examination of the lake was neither exciting
nor profitable. We brought up all sorts of water-flies, many larvæ of
perfectly tremendous size, but we found as yet no fishes. The plant
life—water plant I mean—was abundant.
“I think,” said the Doctor, after we had poled ourselves around the
lake for several hours, “that there can be no doubt now that the
Vegetable Kingdom here is much more important than the Animal
Kingdom. And what there is of the Animal Kingdom seems to be
mostly insect. However, we will camp on the shore of this pleasant
lake and perhaps we shall see more later.”
So we brought our raft to anchor at about the place from which
he had started out and pitched camp on a stretch of clean yellow
sand.
I shall never forget that night. It was uncanny. None of us slept
well. All through the hours of darkness we heard things moving
around us. Enormous things. Yet never did we see them or find out
what they were. The four of us were nevertheless certain we were
being watched. Even Polynesia was disturbed. There seemed no
doubt that there was plenty of animal life in the Moon, but it did not
as yet want to show itself to us. The newness of our surroundings
alone was disturbing enough, without this very uncomfortable feeling
that something had made the moon folks distrustful of us.
 THE SEVENTH CHAPTER
Tracks of a Giant

A
nother thing which added to our sleeplessness that night
was the continuance of the mysterious music. But then so
many strange things contributed to our general mystification
and vague feeling of anxiety that it is hard to remember and
distinguish them all.
The next morning after breakfasting on what remained of our
fruits we packed up and started off for further exploration. While the
last of the packing had been in progress Chee-Chee and Polynesia
had gone ahead to do a little advanced scouting for us. They formed
an admirable team for such work. Polynesia would fly above the
forest and get long-distance impressions from the air of what lay
ahead while Chee-Chee would examine the more lowly levels of the
route to be followed, from the trees and the ground.
The Doctor and I were just helping one another on with our packs
when Chee-Chee came rushing back to us in great excitement. His
teeth were chattering so he could hardly speak.
“What do you think, Doctor!” he stammered. “We’ve found tracks
back there. Tracks of a man! But so enormous! You’ve no idea.
Come quick and I’ll show you.”
The Doctor looked up sharply at the scared and excited monkey,
pausing a moment as though about to question him. Then he
seemed to change his mind and turned once more to the business of
taking up the baggage. With loads hoisted we gave a last glance
around the camping ground to see if anything had been forgotten or
left.
 “‘What do you think, Doctor?’ he stammered”

Our route did not lie directly across the lake, which mostly
sprawled away to the right of our line of march. But we had to make
our way partly around the lower end of it. Wondering what new
chapter lay ahead of us, we fell in behind Chee-Chee and in silence
started off along the shore.
After about half an hour’s march we came to the mouth of a river
which ran into the upper end of the lake. Along the margin of this we
followed Chee-Chee for what seemed like another mile or so. Soon
the shores of the stream widened out and the woods fell back quite a
distance from the water’s edge. The nature of the ground was still
clean firm sand. Presently we saw Polynesia’s tiny figure ahead,
waiting for us.
When we drew up with her we saw that she was standing by an
enormous foot-print. There was no doubt about its being a man’s,
clear in every detail. It was the most gigantic thing I have ever seen,
a barefoot track fully four yards in length. There wasn’t only one,
either. Down the shore the trail went on for a considerable distance;
and the span that the prints lay apart gave one some idea of the
enormous stride of the giant who had left this trail behind him.
Questioning and alarmed, Chee-Chee and Polynesia gazed
silently up at the Doctor for an explanation.
 “Humph!” he muttered after a while. “So Man is here, too. My
goodness, what a monster! Let us follow the trail.”
Chee-Chee was undoubtedly scared of such a plan. It was clearly
both his and Polynesia’s idea that the further we got away from the
maker of those tracks the better. I could see terror and fright in the
eyes of both of them. But neither made any objection; and in silence
we plodded along, following in the path of this strange human who
must, it would seem, be something out of a fairy tale.
But alas! It was not more than a mile further on that the foot-
prints turned into the woods where, on the mosses and leaves
beneath the trees, no traces had been left at all. Then we turned
about and followed the river quite a distance to see if the creature
had come back out on the sands again. But never a sign could we
see. Chee-Chee spent a good deal of time too at the Doctor’s
request trying to find his path through the forest by any signs, such
as broken limbs or marks in the earth which he might have left
behind. But not another trace could we find. Deciding that he had
merely come down to the stream to get a drink, we gave up the
pursuit and turned back to the line of our original march.

“An enormous foot-print”

 Again I was thankful that I had company on that expedition. It
was certainly a most curious and extraordinary experience. None of
us spoke very much but when we did it seemed that all of us had
been thinking the same things.
The woods grew more and more mysterious, and more and more
alive, as we went onward towards the other side of the Moon, the
side that earthly Man had never seen before. For one thing, the
strange music seemed to increase; and for another, there was more
movement in the limbs of the trees. Great branches that looked like
arms, bunches of small twigs that could have been hands, swung
and moved and clawed the air in the most uncanny fashion. And
always that steady wind went on blowing, even, regular and smooth.
All of the forest was not gloomy however. Much of it was
unbelievably beautiful. Acres of woods there were which presented
nothing but a gigantic sea of many-colored blossoms, colors that
seemed like something out of a dream, indescribable, yet clear in
one’s memory as a definite picture of something seen.
The Doctor as we went forward spoke very little; when he did it
was almost always on the same subject: “the absence of decay,” as
he put it.
“I am utterly puzzled, Stubbins,” said he, in one of his longer
outbursts when we were resting. “Why, there is hardly any leaf-
mould at all!”
“What difference would that make, Doctor?” I asked.
“Well, that’s what the trees live on, mostly, in our world,” said he.
“The forest growth, I mean—the soil that is formed by dying trees
and rotting leaves—that is the nourishment that brings forth the
seedlings which finally grow into new trees. But here! Well, of course
there is some soil—and some shedding of leaves. But I’ve hardly
seen a dead tree since I’ve been in these woods. One would almost
think that there were some—er—balance. Some arrangement of—er
—well—I can’t explain it. . . . It beats me entirely.”
I did not, at the time, completely understand what he meant. And
yet it did seem as though every one of these giant plants that rose
about us led a life of peaceful growth, undisturbed by rot, by blight or
by disease.

“There was more movement in the limbs of the trees”

Suddenly in our march we found ourselves at the end of the

wooded section. Hills and mountains again spread before us. They
were not the same as those we had first seen, however. These had
vegetation, of a kind, on them. Low shrubs and heath plants clothed
this rolling land with a dense growth—often very difficult to get
through.
But still no sign of decay—little or no leaf-mould. The Doctor now
decided that perhaps part of the reason for this was the seasons—or
rather the lack of seasons. He said that we would probably find that
here there was no regular winter or summer. It was an entirely new
problem, so far as the struggle for existence was concerned, such as
we knew in our world.
 THE EIGHTH CHAPTER
The Singing Trees

I
nto this new heath and hill country we traveled for miles. And
presently we arrived upon a rather curious thing. It was a sort of
basin high up and enclosed by hills or knolls. The strange part of
it was that here there were not only more tracks of the Giant Man,
just as we had seen lower down, but there were also unmistakable
signs of fire. In an enormous hollow ashes lay among the sands. The
Doctor was very interested in those ashes. He took some and added
chemicals to them and tested them in many ways. He confessed
himself at last entirely puzzled by their nature. But he said he
nevertheless felt quite sure we had stumbled on the scene of the
smoke signaling we had seen from Puddleby. Curiously long ago, it
seemed, that time when Too-Too, the owl, had insisted he saw
smoke burst from the side of the Moon. That was when the giant
moth lay helpless in our garden. And yet—how long was it? Only a
few days!
“It was from here, Stubbins,” said the Doctor, “that the signals we
saw from the Earth were given out, I feel certain. This place, as you
see, is miles and miles across. But what was used to make an
explosion as large as the one we saw from my house I have no
idea.”
“But it was smoke we saw,” said I, “not a flash.”
“That’s just it,” he said. “Some curious material must have been
used that we have as yet no knowledge of. I thought that by testing
the ashes I could discover what it was. But I can’t. However we may
yet find out.”
 “It was a sort of basin”

For two reasons the Doctor was anxious for the present not to get
too far from the forest section. (We did not know then, you see, that
there were other wooded areas beside this through which we had
just come.) One reason was that we had to keep in touch with our
food supply which consisted of the fruits and vegetables of the
jungle. The other was that John Dolittle was absorbed now in the
study of this Vegetable Kingdom which he felt sure had many
surprises in store for the student naturalist.
After a while we began to get over the feeling of uncanny
creepiness, which at the beginning had made us so uncomfortable.
We decided that our fears were mostly caused by the fact that these
woods and plants were so different from our own. There was no
unfriendliness in these forests after all, we assured ourselves—
except that we were being watched. That we knew—and that we
were beginning to get used to.
As soon as the Doctor had decided that we would set up our new
headquarters on the edge of the forest, and we had our camp
properly established, we began making excursions in all directions
through the jungle. And from then on I was again kept very busy
taking notes of the Doctor’s experiments and studies.
 One of the first discoveries we made in our study of the Moon’s
Vegetable Kingdom was that there was practically no warfare going
on between it and the Animal Kingdom. In the world we had left we
had been accustomed to see the horses and other creatures eating
up the grass in great quantities and many further examples of the
struggle that continually goes on between the two. Here, on the other
hand, the animals (or, more strictly speaking, the insects, for there
seemed as yet hardly any traces of other animal species) and the
vegetable life seemed for the most part to help one another rather
than to fight and destroy. Indeed we found the whole system of Life
on the Moon a singularly peaceful business. I will speak of this again
later on.
We spent three whole days in the investigation of the strange
music we had heard. You will remember that the Doctor, with his skill
on the flute, was naturally fond of music; and this curious thing we
had met with interested him a great deal. After several expeditions
we found patches of the jungle where we were able to see and hear
the tree music working at its best.
There was no doubt about it at all: The trees were making the
sounds and they were doing it deliberately. In the way that an Æolian
harp works when set in the wind at the right angle, the trees moved
their branches to meet the wind so that certain notes would be given
out. The evening that the Doctor made this discovery of what he
called the Singing Trees, he told me to mark down in the diary of the
expedition as a Red Letter Date. I shall never forget it. We had been
following the sound for hours, the Doctor carrying a tuning-fork in his
hand, ringing it every once in a while to make sure of the notes we
heard around us. Suddenly we came upon a little clearing about
which great giants of the forest stood in a circle. It was for all the
world like an orchestra. Spellbound, we stood and gazed up at them,
as first one and then another would turn a branch to the steady
blowing wind and a note would boom out upon the night, clear and
sweet. Then a group, three or four trees around the glade, would
swing a limb and a chord would strike the air, and go murmuring
through the jungle. Fantastic and crazy as it sounds, no one could
have any doubt who heard and watched that these trees were
actually making sounds, which they wanted to make, with the aid of
the wind.
Of course, as the Doctor remarked, unless the wind had always
blown steadily and evenly such a thing would have been impossible.
John Dolittle himself was most anxious to find out on what scale of
music they were working. To me, I must confess, it sounded just
mildly pleasant. There was a time: I could hear that. And some whole
phrases repeated once in a while, but not often. For the most part
the melody was wild, sad and strange. But even to my uneducated
ear it was beyond all question a quite clear effort at orchestration;
there were certainly treble voices and bass voices and the
combination was sweet and agreeable.

“Spellbound we gazed up at them”

I was excited enough myself, but the Doctor was worked up to a

pitch of interest such as I have seldom seen in him.
“Why, Stubbins,” said he, “do you realize what this means?—It’s
terrific. If these trees can sing, a choir understands one another and
all that, they must have a language.—They can talk! A language in
the Vegetable Kingdom! We must get after it. Who knows? I may yet
learn it myself. Stubbins, this is a great day!”
 “For quite a long while he sat watching certain shrubs”

And so, as usual on such occasions, the good man’s enthusiasm

just carried him away bodily. For days, often without food, often
without sleep, he pursued this new study. And at his heels I trotted
with my note book always ready—though, to be sure, he put in far
more work than I did because frequently when we got home he
would go on wrestling for hours over the notes or new apparatus he
was building, by which he hoped to learn the language of the trees.
You will remember that even before we left the Earth John Dolittle
had mentioned the possibility of the moon-bells having some means
of communicating with one another. That they could move, within the
limits of their fixed position, had been fully established. To that we
had grown so used and accustomed that we no longer thought
anything of it. The Doctor had in fact wondered if this might possibly
be a means of conversation in itself—the movement of limbs and
twigs and leaves, something like a flag signal code. And for quite a
long while he sat watching certain trees and shrubs to see if they
used this method for talking between themselves.
 THE NINTH CHAPTER
The Study of Plant Languages

A
bout this time there was one person whom both the Doctor
and I were continually reminded of, and continually wishing
for, and that was Long Arrow, the Indian naturalist whom we
had met in Spidermonkey Island. To be sure, he had never
admitted to the Doctor that he had had speech with plant life. But his
knowledge of botany and the natural history of the Vegetable
Kingdom was of such a curious kind we felt that here he would have
been of great help to us. Long Arrow, the son of Golden Arrow, never
booked a scientific note in his life. How would he—when he was
unable to write? Just the same he could tell you why a certain
colored bee visited a certain colored flower; why that moth chose
that shrub to lay its eggs in; why this particular grub attacked the
roots of this kind of water plant.
Often of an evening the Doctor and I would speak of him,
wondering where he was and what he was doing. When we sailed
away from Spidermonkey Island he was left behind. But that would
not mean he stayed there. A natural-born tramp who rejoiced in
defying the elements and the so-called laws of Nature, he could be
looked for anywhere in the two American continents.
And again, the Doctor would often refer to my parents. He
evidently had a very guilty feeling about them—despite the fact that it
was no fault of his that I had stowed away aboard the moth that
brought us here. A million and one things filled his mind these days,
of course; but whenever there was a let-down, a gap, in the stream
of his scientific enquiry, he would come back to the subject.
“Stubbins,” he’d say, “you shouldn’t have come. . . . Yes, yes, I
know, you did it for me. But Jacob, your father—and your mother too
—they must be fretting themselves sick about your disappearance.
And I am responsible. . . . Well, we can’t do anything about that now,
I suppose. Let’s get on with the work.”
 And then he’d plunge ahead into some new subject and the
matter would be dropped—till it bothered him again.
Throughout all our investigations of the Moon’s Vegetable
Kingdom we could not get away from the idea that the animal life
was still, for some unknown reason, steering clear of us. By night,
when we were settling down to sleep, we’d often get the impression
that huge moths, butterflies or beetles were flying or crawling near
us.
We made quite sure of this once or twice by jumping out of our
beds and seeing a giant shadow disappear into the gloom. Yet never
could we get near enough to distinguish what the creatures were
before they escaped beyond the range of sight. But that they had
come—whatever they were—to keep an eye on us seemed quite
certain. Also that all of them were winged. The Doctor had a theory
that the lighter gravity of the Moon had encouraged the development
of wings to a much greater extent than it had on the Earth.
And again those tracks of the strange Giant Man. They were
always turning up in the most unexpected places; I believe that if the
Doctor had allowed Polynesia and Chee-Chee complete liberty to
follow them that the enormous Human would have been run down in
a very short time. But John Dolittle seemed still anxious to keep his
family together. I imagine that with his curiously good instinctive
judgment he feared an attempt to separate us. And in any case of
course both Chee-Chee and Polynesia were quite invaluable in a
tight place. They were neither of them heavy-weight fighters, it is
true; but their usefulness as scouts and guides was enormous. I
have often heard John Dolittle say that he would sooner have that
monkey or the parrot Polynesia with him in savage countries than he
would the escort of a dozen regiments.
 “Seeing a giant shadow disappear into the gloom”

With some of our experimental work we wandered off long

distances into the heath lands to see what we could do with the
gorgeous flowering shrubs that thronged the rolling downs; and often
we followed the streams many miles to study the gigantic lilies that
swayed their stately heads over the sedgy banks.
And little by little our very arduous labors began to be repaid.
I was quite astonished when I came to realize how well the
Doctor had prepared for this expedition. Shortly after he decided that
he would set to work on the investigation of this supposed language
of the plants he told me we would have to go back and fetch the
remainder of our baggage which we had left at the point of our first
arrival.
So the following morning, bright and early, he, Chee-Chee and I
set out to retrace our steps. Polynesia was left behind. The Doctor
told none of us why he did this but we decided afterwards that, as
usual, he knew what he was doing.
It was a long and hard trip. It took us a day and a half going there
and two days coming back with the load of the baggage. At our
original landing place we again found many tracks of the Giant
Human, and other strange marks on the sands about our baggage-
dump which told us that here too curious eyes had been trying to find
out things without being seen.
A closer examination of the tracks made by the Giant Human in
these parts where they were especially clear told the Doctor that his
right leg stride was considerably longer than his left. The mysterious
Moon Man evidently walked with a limp. But with such a stride he
would clearly be a very formidable creature anyway.
When we got back and started unpacking the bundles and boxes
which had been left behind I saw, as I have already said, how well
the Doctor had prepared for his voyage. He seemed to have brought
everything that he could possibly need for the trip: hatchets, wire,
nails, files, a hand saw, all the things we couldn’t get on the Moon. It
was so different from his ordinary preparations for a voyage—which
hardly ever consisted of more than the little black bag and the
clothes he stood in.

“He seemed to have brought everything he could need”

As usual he rested only long enough to get a few mouthfuls of

food before he set to work. There seemed to be a dozen different
apparatuses he wanted to set up at once, some for the testing of
sound, others for vibrations, etc., etc. With the aid of a saw and an
ax and a few other tools, half a dozen small huts had sprung up in an
hour around our camp.
 THE TENTH CHAPTER
The Magellan of the Moon

L
aying aside for the present all worry on the score of why he
had been summoned to the Moon—of why the Animal
Kingdom continued to treat us with suspicion, of why the Giant
Human so carefully kept out of our way, the Doctor now
plunged into the study of plant languages heart and soul.
He was always happy so, working like a demon, snatching his
meals and his sleep here and there when he thought of such earthly
matters. It was a most exhausting time for the rest of us, keeping
pace with this firebrand of energy when he got on an interesting
scent. And yet it was well worthwhile too. In one and a half days he
had established the fact that the trees did converse with one another
by means of branch gestures. But that was only the first step.
Copying and practising, he rigged himself up like a tree and talked in
the glade—after a fashion—with these centuries-old denizens of the
jungle.
From that he learned still more—that language, of a kind, was
carried on by using other means—by scents given out, in a definite
way—short or long perfumes, like a regular Morse Code; by the
tones of wind-song when branches were set to the right angle to
produce certain notes; and many other odd strange means.
Every night, by bed-time, I was nearly dead from the strain and
effort of taking notes in those everlasting books, of which he seemed
to have brought an utterly inexhaustible supply.
 “The faithful monkey would come to us every three hours with his
strange vegetables”

Chee-Chee looked after the feeding of us—Thank goodness!—or

I fear we would easily have starved to death, if overwork itself hadn’t
killed us. Every three hours the faithful little monkey would come to
us wherever we were at the moment with his messes of strange
vegetables and fruits and a supply of good clean drinking water.
As official recorder of the Expedition (a job of which I was very
proud even if it was hard work) I had to book all the Doctor’s
calculations as well as his natural history notes. I have already told
you something of temperature, air pressure, time and what not. A
further list of them would have included the calculation of distance
traveled. This was quite difficult. The Doctor had brought with him a
pedometer (that is a little instrument which when carried in the
pocket tells you from the number of strides made the miles walked).
But in the Moon, with the changed gravity, a pace was quite different
from that usual on the Earth. And what is more, it never stayed the
same. When the ground sloped downward it was natural to spring a
step that quite possibly measured six or seven feet—this with no out-
of-the-way effort at all. And even on the up grade one quite
frequently used a stride that was far greater than in ordinary walking.
 It was about this time that the Doctor first spoke of making a tour
of the Moon. Magellan, you will remember, was the first to sail
around our world. And it was a very great feat. The Earth contains
more water than land. The Moon on the contrary, we soon saw, had
more dry land than water. There were no big oceans. Lakes and
chains of lakes were all the water area we saw. To complete a round
trip would therefore be harder, even though it was shorter, than the
voyage that Magellan made.
It was on this account that the Doctor was so particular about my
booking a strict record of the miles we traveled. As to direction, we
had not as yet been so careful about maintaining a perfectly straight
line. Because it was by no means easy for one thing; and for
another, the subjects we wished to study, such as tree-music, tracks,
water supply, rock formation, etc., often led us off towards every
quarter of the compass. When I say the compass I mean something
a little different from the use of that word in the earthly geography. As
I have told you, the magnetic compass which John Dolittle had
brought with him from Puddleby did not behave in a helpful manner
at all. Something else must be found to take its place.

“It was natural to spring a step that measured six or seven feet”
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