Transcript
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[00:00:00] Most passionate cooks who are becoming personal chefs love the idea of catering until the stress kicks in. Oh, you know what I mean? Running behind on prep, forgetting something important, juggling too many things at once, trying to look calm while you are losing your mind inside. I have been there, but after years, I’ve been in business for 20 years now.
I’ve built systems that take the stress out of things so I can actually enjoy the work and look professional and get repeat clients. In this video, I’m going to share systems with you so that you can do this too, step by step.
Hey there, Chef Shelley here. I’ve had a personal chef business for 20 years, and I help passionate cooks start their own personal chef business so you can get paid to cook on your own terms. No restaurant, commercial kitchen, huge overhead babysitting staff.
Today I am walking you through an exact system for stress-free catering events, and by the end, you’ll know how to organize yourself, your prep, avoid overwhelm, and keep your clients raving about the experience instead of you [00:01:00] losing your mind in the kitchen and looking unprofessional.
Stick around to the end because I’m going to share an event day checklist that you can have and it’ll keep you from forgetting a single thing.
Step 1: Pricing and Sample Menus
Step one, stress usually starts before the event even begins, right? If you’re guessing on your pricing or saying yes, when you don’t have a plan, you’re already setting yourself up for catering, chaos.
Your system starts with pricing sample menus before anyone even asks you to cater. That way when a potential client says, how much do you charge for like a dinner for eight, you don’t have to scramble. You know what to charge, you know what’s included. It just makes it really easy to have a conversation with the client.
Step 2: Simplify Your Menus
keep your menus simple. I can’t stress this enough. Simple menus makes for more stress-free events. Early on, I see people creating elaborate menus with too many moving parts, and that can really break you in the beginning. Now I know exactly what I do, what my specialty is, and I can be super flexible with doing.
Special or weird things for clients, but [00:02:00] it wasn’t that way in the beginning. I offered set menus that were able to be tweaked for the client how they wanted, but I wasn’t reinventing the wheel. Anytime anyone needed a quote. For example, a classic holiday seated dinner party, a cocktail party with hor d’oeuvres, a buffet for 20 and a brunch spread.
That’s it. Those were the types of catering, and then I made a few sample menus for each one with pricing, when the menu is clear, and you can use that as a foundation for, again, customizing it to the specific client. Everything is. So much easier, and you get into that routine, which will make it smoother every single time you do it.
Step 3: Building Your Prep Timeline
Step number three, build out your prep and cook timeline. This is the secret weapon. A prep timeline tells you exactly what gets done when. What do you need to have ordered before a week ahead? What do you need to be packing the day before? What do you need to be starting prep first at the clients?
What’s the timing of the event? Okay. For example, order anything non-perishable that you need, especially [00:03:00] things like equipment and rentals. As soon as you have that client deposit at least a week ahead, make sure you have that deposit. Finalize the menu with the client and the event time. Reconfirm that, do your shopping list.
Your prep list, your cook list, your serving schedule. Make sure your chef’s coat and aprons are cleaned and pressed all that a week ahead of time, a day before. Pack up your equipment, load your vehicle. Double check your grocery lists and all your paperwork. And that means on the day of you do your final grocery shopping.
At the event, go in the order of your prep list and cook list. You get the things done first that need to be first. Do you need to turn the oven on right away? Do you need to get the apps or dessert prepped first? You’re doing it in the order that will keep things flowing and not get you behind. When you follow that prep timeline, you never feel like you’re flying blind.
You just check things off as you go. Step number four.
Step 4: Event Day Packing Checklist
You know that sinking feeling when you realize you forgot a pan that you need, or your favorite chef’s knife or a thermometer to temp the [00:04:00] meat. Yeah, I’ve done all that. That’s why I created an event day packing checklist. Every time I pack, I just go down the list, knives, cutting board sheet pans, serving spoons, towels, even silly things like foil or gloves.
It sounds basic, but having this has saved me more stress than anything else. And the best part, once you have a checklist, you just reuse it forever. I’m even going to give you mine, a perfect place to start. You can tweak it and make it your own links down in the description.
Step 5: Know Your Limits
Step number five, another stress bomb saying yes to too many events when you try to do like three events back to back in one weekend.
You are not going to be at your best. The food might still taste good, but your energy and attitude probably won’t be great, and clients can feel that, especially if you’re working a full-time job on top of it, doing two events every weekend through the holidays. That sounds horrible. So part of my system that I really recommend is deciding the max amount of events you can do.
Want to do this [00:05:00] holiday season, it’ll keep you fresh, organized, and delivering consistently amazing experiences to your clients. And the bonus there is when you tell clients you can only take on so many events, or you only have so many left to book, it makes you more demand and makes them more likely to book earlier.
Step 6: Set Boundaries
stress also comes from unclear expectations. If you don’t set boundaries, suddenly you’re being asked to bartend and provide serving platters and bring extra tables. All things that you didn’t plan on ahead of time. That’s why I always use a contract for catering events. It lays out everything from the guest count, the menu, what’s included, what’s not included, what time the event starts, what time I will be there, everything clear boundaries means no last minute surprises and less stress on the event day.
I’m not going to say no stress ’cause that’s not how we’re wired. Here’s your bonus tip again. Have a special event day [00:06:00] checklist, everything that you need from salt and pepper to sheet pans to business cards to hand out and leave with the client. At the end, before I leave, I literally check off every item as it goes in the car.
So I never walk into a client’s kitchen and forgot a whisk. And believe me, once you’ve done it, you never want to do it again. So that’s my system for stress free catering events, price and plan ahead. Keep your menu simple. Build your prep timeline. Pack with a checklist. Limit your holiday bookings and set clear client boundaries.
Follow that system and catering events. Go from chaotic to smooth and you’ll actually enjoy doing them. If you found this helpful, hit subscribe because every week I share strategies to help you start and grow your personal chef business because the clients are out there and they’re hungry for what you’re cooking.
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