Posts Tagged ‘caterers’

If you’re planning an event in Portland, there is one name you need to know – Rick Meyers, founder and owner of Company Tonight Catering. The Portland scene would not be the same without Rick, and Company Tonight is one of the most unique in Portland, maybe even the country.

It takes a lot of things to make a great event or party. Atmosphere, people, food, music, you need all of them to create just the right atmosphere and experience. The difficult part is that most of us don’t know much about any of them. So we’re stuck with hiring a DJ here, a catering company there, perhaps a band and a this and a that. Rick is a huge help because he takes the pain out of maybe the two hardest parts to get exactly right – food and music.

Most catering companies are happy just providing good food and decent service, which Company Tonight does, but Rick goes one step further. Actually he goes quite a few steps. He doesn’t just do great food and excellent service – he brings the music too! Rick was a professional DJ who spent 20 years playing in dance clubs in countries all over the world including Indonesia, Holland, Morocco, Poland, Thailand, China, Australia and more.

That doesn’t mean that one of the servers will put in a CD mix of house music at your wedding, though. After hundreds of events, Company Tonight takes pride in providing the perfect match of food and sounds for any kind of event. And most people just don’t realize how big a difference the right music makes. Great cooking gets everyone feeling full and relaxed, but it’s the music that will keep them enjoying themselves for hours. Dancing, laughing. Music is one of those important elements that is often overlooked but never should be.

In 2004, after DJ-ing around the world, Rick decided to tap into his other lifelong passion: cooking. He attended the Culinary Institute of America and soon after graduating, he worked as a chef. Eventually Rick decided it was time to buy his own equipment and start his own business. With a background in music and cooking, it was only natural that he decided to provide both.

Most businesses really only excel at one thing. That’s usually because the business decides to expand its services in order to be able to offer more to the customer. In many of these cases, these “side” services usually suffer because they are not as important as the main service. Rick, however, excels at both providing high quality food and service as well as the perfect mix of music to provide an upbeat atmosphere your guest.

When it comes to Portland Oregon catering, Company Tonight is the only service you’ll find that provides food and music at a great price. And that puts smiles on customer’s faces. “I love seeing happy customers. It’s so rewarding to see them enjoy good food and music,” says Meyers.

For many catering jobs at parties, they’ll throw in the DJ and sound system at no extra cost. After a busy wedding season in 2010, Rick is looking forward to the holiday season. “I’m excited about throwing holiday parties, they’re always fun.” And that’s really what they do best. They throw darn good parties.

Company Tonight Catering serves up delicious Portland Oregon catering and music your guests will love. For awesome food and music at your next event give them a call at 503-206-7410 or visit them at http://www.companytonight.com/Home.html

As you may well have noticed, certain businesses tend to cope better than others during a recession. For example, manufacturing businesses such as those manufacturing toilet rolls, diapers, fizzy drinks and etc, are by all accounts quite recession-resistant. Likewise, catering companies have also managed to stand their ground during the current recession, because after all, people are still getting married, they’re having birthday parties, and they’re still hosting various functions, all of which usually require the services of a catering company. Catering companies in Detroit are booming so perhaps it’s a business with considering.

Catering Detroit is like any other business opportunity. You need to go into it with your eyes open and a business plan. Understand what your costs are, understand who your customers are and work out how much business you need to have to turn a profit.

One of the most attractive benefits of starting your own catering business is that it doesn’t usually require a huge amount of capital. To the contrary, catering Detroit can mean nothing more than starting out as a personal chef, providing a certain number of ready-prepared meals to families. You’d be surprised and just how many people hire a personal chef in order to prepare their meals, simply because they find it makes sense economically.

Your first step will be to examine your running expenses, such as how much you’ll need to spend on purchasing all the ingredients you’ll require. Depending on your current kitchen, you may also need to make a few changes to enable you to cater to a larger customer base. Secondly, you’ll need to work on finding clients, which means that you’ll need to decide how to go about marketing your business. Thirdly, you’ll need to focus on your transport arrangements, in that you’ll often be required to serve warm meals. This obviously means that you’ll need to make certain arrangements so that you’re able to deliver the food warm, or you’re able to heat them up on site.

Your first clients when catering Detroit will probably come from friends and family, or from checking out the newspapers for wedding announcements. Useful ways to market can include dropping off your business cards at bridal shops, or talking to your local high school or middle school about catering dances; you’ll have to low-ball some of these initial estimates, but the aim here is to display your cooking and efficiency to a group of people who might use you for family functions.

As a general rule of thumb, the price of your meals should be at least three times the amount you paid for the ingredients. Also, considering that you may often be able to cater for Muslim functions and Jewish functions, you should make a point of being able to prepare kosher foods for the Jews and halal foods for the Muslims. Obviously, if you’re in a position to do this you’ll have the added advantage that you can reach a larger number of potential customers.

If you’re ever fortunate enough to be hired for the purpose of catering for events which revolve around school kids or students, then you should also make it your responsibility to find out as much as you can with regards to common food allergies. For example, you may want to consider avoiding any ingredients which contain traces of peanut. No, peanut allergies are by no means common, but you can the rest assured that many people tend to be paranoid. The main thing to remember is that when you cater Detroit, you’re catering for the people, and that means that you need to respect their wishes.

One thing is for certain and that is that there are many catering opportunities available in Detroit. Remember, you don’t need to be a chef in order to have your own catering business. In fact, many caterers have been extremely successful simply by hiring others to help. Your main aim of course when you cater Detroit, is that you want your catering business to make a lasting impression on people so that they continue hiring you in the future.

James “Catering” Nicholson is a writer and reviewer of various business in the Detroit Area. You can discover the particular catering detroit location he is focusing his current writing on by clicking here: Catering Detroit.