What’s it Like Catering For Birthday Parties?
Revealing what it's really like catering at birthday parties.
I often get asked what it’s like catering for birthday parties. The short answer is that I got very lucky and get to do something that I love. Though the short answer is true, the long answer is a bit more complicated than that!
1. It’s a lot of pressure
2. Planning
3. It’s an honour
4. It’s great fun
1. It’s a lot of pressure
There could be up to 500 hungry people depending on you to provide them with a meal. It’s up to you to make sure that hungry doesn’t morph into hangry. This responsibility is a big one. No-one wants to be at an event where you run out of food or don’t manage to provide the food on schedule. Therefore, it comes down to a lot of logistical and operational planning to make sure this doesn’t happen.
2. Planning
Prior planning prevents… the controllables going wrong. There are some things you can’t control, but there are others that you can control so that when the uncontrollable events occur you’re in the best position to deal with them. Got an additional last minute guest? No sweat, we brought extra just in case. It’s started to rain and we’re serving festival style from in front of our oven? No problem, we’ll bring the food inside. It’s seeing these uncontrollable events as solution opportunities rather than problems that makes dealing with them more enjoyable and less stressful, which also leads to better solutions!
3. It’s an honour
(I’ll excuse you if you were just a little bit sick in your mouth)
There’s no getting around it though. Being a part of people’s special days and celebrations is an honour. For me life is all about the memories we create with our friends and families, and having the opportunity to see the love and happiness of people as we help celebrate those marker days is an honour.
4. It’s great fun
You get to be a part of people’s celebrations. It’s not often that you’ll find a sad person at a birthday party and the energy of people having fun is a contagious one! We also have the opportunity to hear some great bands. Some of my fondest memories of catering at birthday parties is standing at the oven preparing and serving food with the team whilst we dance along to the music!
