With many wedding and corporate catering Calgary companies to look over, it will get difficult to choose the best ones to suit your requirements. You online research will yield a shortlist of options but how will you finalize the restaurant?
Arranging a wedding or a huge occasion can be troublesome when there are such a significant number of areas to work upon. Beginning with the venue, the set-up, and the food you have a million things to organise if you want your event to be successful. We have covered some of the topics in other articles. In this one we thought a roadmap for the best way to select caterer would be helpful.
Spending Limit
Do yourself a favour and ensure that you have your budget organized beforehand. You might have to go a little over your spending limit, but a benchmark figure will help control the costs. Do you need five-course dinner or just appetizers to hold your guests over? Is an open bar required? Your answers to these questions will help you decide on the type of event you want to plan and the service provider you want to use.
Once you’ve decided on your options you can select any of the calgary catering companies. They will discuss your requirements and suggest the best options. Based on your budget you can either have a basic buffet platter or incorporate some creative options.
Type of Occasion
The initial phase in arranging a gathering is choosing what kind of gathering to have! How many guests will attend? Is it a birthday, wedding, or corporate social affair? Casual or formal? Indoors or Outdoors? Answer these questions to decide on the theme of the event and type of food you want to serve. While restaurants and caterers offer a variety of options they usually specialize in a specific cuisine or theme. Once you have your type of occasion and the food that goes with the occasion, you can shortlist the caterers that specialize in the cuisine.
Adaptability
Murphy’s Law dictates that “anything that can go wrong will go wrong”. This remain especially true when arranging for a catered event. We once catered for an event where the venue had double booked. You think the weather is on your side and suddenly rain pours down on your dressed-up guests. You can’t control everything though – pray to the Gods of Event Organization that most of it goes well. However, don’t let this keep you from planning for contingencies. Make sure your caterers are flexible with some last-minute changes. They need to be amenable to adjust to sudden changes in requirements.
Location
Your venue set-up and your catering go hand in hand. There are several catering service providers in Calgary that will provide you a package complete with venue, table set-up and servers. The ones that do not have all the services, can recommend you to the right venues and agencies with temp staff. Another way to approach this is by selecting the venue first and getting recommendations for their partner caterers.
Experience
When you’ve narrowed down your shortlist of caterers, the final point of selection is the experience in the industry. If the caterer is new in the city, you might want to check their online reviews. But don’t stop at that – call a couple of their recent clients and ask for their feedback. You will learn a great deal more. For more established caterers, there will be a wealth of information on their website and social pages. If your event is high-stakes and formal you would want to stick with more experienced service providers. Take chances with smaller caterers for casual events and where budget is a serious concern.
There are dozens of established restaurants and caterers in every available cuisine n Calgary. That’s the beauty of living in a multi-cultural society. It is great to select the safest options but don’t shy away from employing young and trendy new restaurants either.
We hope the above points will help you organise your catering as seamless as enjoying a great buffet. Make sure your research is thorough and you follow our suggestions. You won’t go wrong!