Turn Holiday Catering into Your Most Profitable Season Yet
Holiday catering is one of the best opportunities for restaurants to increase revenue without adding seats. Done right, it turns your kitchen’s downtime into high-margin business that extends brand reach. The key is building a catering menu that looks festive, travels well, and delivers exceptional value — for both the guest and your bottom line.
Why It Matters
Catering taps into a different kind of customer: the office planner, the host who doesn’t cook, or the loyal guest looking to share your food at home. It builds exposure, generates volume, and keeps your staff busy during slower dine-in periods. And since catering dishes are pre-ordered, pre-paid, and predictable, it’s one of the few revenue streams that truly scale for independents.
Step 1: Build Around Efficiency and Profit
The most profitable catering menus start with dishes that hold heat, reheat beautifully, and share well. Braised meats, lasagnas, stews, gratins, and composed salads are workhorses. Use affordable base ingredients like grains, beans, and root vegetables to stretch premium proteins. Build trays to meet specific food-cost targets — ideally 30% or less for mains and 20–25% for sides.
Step 2: Tier Your Offerings
Simplify ordering with a three-tier system — Classic, Premium, and Signature. Classic might include roast chicken or pasta al forno. Premium could highlight slow-braised beef or cedar-plank salmon. Signature showcases your chef’s creativity — maple-glazed pork loin with roasted apples, or mushroom Wellington for plant-forward groups. Tiering allows flexibility without overwhelming production.
Step 3: Leverage Off-Peak Production
Catering thrives on prep discipline. Assign early-day hours or specific prep zones to catering orders so they don’t collide with dinner service. Colour-code labels by pickup time and tier to avoid confusion. Plan packaging stations that flow like an assembly line — efficiency saves both time and labour.
Step 4: Make Local a Selling Point
Wherever possible, weave in Canadian-sourced ingredients — Ontario turkey, PEI potatoes, BC cranberries, Quebec maple syrup. Guests view “locally made” as premium and trustworthy, and it reinforces your restaurant’s authenticity. You can mention these origins on menu cards or catering inserts for extra storytelling power.
Step 5: Market Early and Often
Begin promoting catering early. Create a downloadable PDF menu, post appetizing photos on social media, and send targeted emails to past customers and local businesses. Encourage pre-orders with a small incentive like a 10% discount for orders placed two weeks early.
Step 6: Presentation Sells
Invest in quality, recyclable containers with branded stickers or sleeves. Include heating instructions, a thank-you note, and plating tips. These touches elevate your brand while keeping packaging costs predictable.
The Takeaway
A well-engineered catering menu delivers repeatable profit and strengthens your brand identity. Make it simple to order, easy to execute, and unmistakably yours.
