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Local catering companies are working hard to adjust to these COVID times.
In the holiday season, they would usually be preparing meals for over a hundred people. Now, they’re delivering meals to single families. Companies have had to completely adjust their business models to complete orders.
Indoor banquets, conferences and receptions for weddings and funerals in public venues are limited to a maximum of 30 people. Food and beverages can’t be served at these events either. There is also a maximum gathering size for private gatherings, as restrictions for those are capped at five people.
These measures make large-scale catering orders a thing of the past.
Destiny Slobodian, head chef for Wallnuts Catering, says this would typically be the busiest time of the year.
“This time of year, we wouldn’t be sleeping a night,” Slobodian said with a laugh. “When all the catering started dying out, we had to figure out how to pivot in order to keep our employees employed, keep people fed and keep our doors open.
“We went from doing parties for 200, to making food for a family of five.”
Home delivery, curbside pickup or drive-through pickup are just some of the ways these businesses have adjusted how they operate.
Mike Rybchuk, owner of Rybchuk’s Catering says the capacity restrictions have forced him to be innovative in how they get orders made.
“We created a drive-through brunch, smaller-scale deliveries and with Christmas coming up, we thought we would make Christmas meals and see if businesses maybe want to buy their clients or their employees Christmas dinners to take home instead of normally having a big banquet.
“There has been a huge increase on focusing on pick-up or delivery style orders.”
Rybchuk says the biggest hit was felt when capacity restrictions changed from 30 down to five.
“We actually had a lot of businesses that were booked up for 25 to 30 people that all of a sudden had to cancel out,” he said. “It’s been a really up and down few weeks.
“We don’t know what the future holds, we are just continuing to adjust to serve our customers.”
Despite the increased restrictions affecting these caterers around the city, the expenses that they normally would face remain the same.
“As long as there are more people working at home, or there are gathering restrictions, then we’re still operating with all of the same expenses that we have while dealing with a quarter of the customers,” Haley Blackmore, owner of Sprout Catering said. “We just all need to continue adapting and just make food for either a single person or a single-family.”
