Catering can be some of the best revenue a restaurant takes: ordered in advance, paid up front, and prepped on your schedule instead of the lunch rush. It can also be a mess: an inquiry lost in someone's inbox, a quote that didn't cover the packaging, a deposit nobody took, and 80 sandwiches discovered on the morning they're due.
This guide walks through a catering order from first inquiry to the kitchen: what to ask, how to price and quote, how to handle deposits, and how to plan prep across several jobs.
Every order moves through the same stages
Treat every catering job as moving through a few clear stages:
- Inquiry: someone has asked.
- Quoted: you've sent a price.
- Confirmed: they've agreed and paid a deposit.
- Prepped: the food is made and packed.
- Completed: delivered or picked up, and the balance is paid.
Knowing each job's stage tells you which inquiries need a quote, which quotes are unanswered, and what the kitchen makes on which day.
Take the inquiry properly
Most problems with a catering job start with a missing detail at the inquiry. Ask the same questions every time:
- Name, phone and email of the person ordering, and who to contact on the day if different.
- Date and time the food needs to be ready.
- Pickup or delivery. If delivery, the full address and any access details.
- Number of guests.
- What they want, or a budget per person if they'd like you to suggest a menu.
- Allergies and dietary needs, and how many guests each applies to.
- Setup: plates, cutlery, napkins, serving utensils, chafing dishes.
Write it down in one place the moment it arrives.
Price it so it pays
Catering prices should cover more than the food. For each order, add up:
- Food cost: the cost of the ingredients for every item, from your recipe costs.
- Packaging: trays, lids, boxes, cups, labels.
- Labor: the extra hours to prep and pack, if it needs more than the usual crew.
- Delivery: driver time and travel, if you deliver.
- Extras: plates, cutlery and serving equipment, if you provide them.
Then set a price that leaves a margin you're happy with after all of that. Many restaurants use a set catering menu with per-person or per-tray prices, which makes quoting faster and keeps margins consistent.
A worked example
Example: an office lunch for 40 people, with made-up round numbers.
| Line | Amount |
|---|---|
| 40 sandwiches at $12 | $480 |
| 4 salad trays at $40 | $160 |
| 40 cookies at $2 | $80 |
| Delivery fee | $30 |
| Quote total | $750 |
| Deposit taken at confirmation (50%) | $375 |
| Balance due on delivery | $375 |
Example: on the cost side, food comes to $220 and packaging to $40. The extra prep and delivery time costs $110 in wages. That's $370 of cost against a $750 order, leaving $380 before overheads. If the quote had left out packaging and delivery, the margin would have looked better than it was.
Send a clear quote
A quote should leave nothing to argue about later. Include:
- Every item and quantity, with the price of each.
- Delivery or pickup, with the date, time and address.
- What's included: plates, cutlery, setup.
- The total, and any tax or service charge shown separately.
- The deposit needed to confirm, and when the balance is due.
- Your cancellation terms, and the last date the guest count can change.
- How long the quote is valid.
Follow up on quotes that haven't been answered after a few days.
Take a deposit
A deposit turns an inquiry into a commitment. It covers you for ingredients you've ordered if the client cancels, and it tells you the job is real.
- Set a standard deposit for every job, such as a fixed amount or a share of the total, and put it on the quote.
- Don't start ordering or prepping until the deposit is in.
- Record what's been paid and what's still owed on every job, so the balance isn't forgotten on the day.
- Decide when the balance is due: before the event, on delivery, or on invoice for regular corporate clients.
Turn confirmed orders into prep
Once a job is confirmed, it becomes kitchen work. The mistake is planning each job on its own. When you have three jobs in the same week, the kitchen needs to see them together.
- List every confirmed job for the week with its date and time.
- Break each order into what has to be made: sandwiches, dressings, baked goods.
- Work back from the delivery time. Cookies can be baked the day before. Sandwiches are made the morning of.
- Combine across jobs. If two jobs on Thursday need the same dressing, make it once.
- Add catering prep to the daily prep list, so the morning crew sees it alongside regular prep.
- Order ingredients with the regular order, adding what catering needs on top of par.
Example: Thursday has two jobs, 40 sandwiches at noon and 20 at 1 p.m. Wednesday's prep includes all the cookies and both dressings. Thursday morning, the sandwich station starts early enough to finish all 60 before the first pickup.
After the job
Collect the balance, then send a thank-you and ask how it went.
How Ospelia does it
Ospelia's Catering keeps each job in one record: items, quantities, guest count, delivery or pickup, date and location. Items can come from your recipes with food cost and margin. A proposal link lets the client accept and pay a deposit to your own Stripe account, and the balance still owed shows with totals across every upcoming job at the top. Every job moves from inquiry to quoted to confirmed to prepped to completed, so you can see the pipeline at a glance. The prep view shows what has to be made on which morning across every confirmed job.
Prep lists build the daily prep list from your sales forecast and recipes. Events keep what's on, planned and promoted alongside your catering.
