Corporate Catering People Remember
Most corporate catering is forgettable by design. Sandwich platters, a coffee urn, foil trays on a folding table at the back of a meeting room. It feeds people, nobody complains, and nobody mentions it again.
Which is fine, until the point of the event is that people should feel valued. Then forgettable is the wrong target.
We bring a wood-fired pizza truck to corporate events across Tennessee, from Coalmont and Manchester out to Chattanooga, Murfreesboro and Nashville. What it does that a platter does not is make the food into an event rather than a break in one.
Where a truck earns its keep
Employee appreciation days. The whole message of the day is that somebody spent effort on you. Food cooked in front of people carries that message in a way a delivery does not.
Annual meetings and shareholder events. One of our clients told us they try to treat employees and shareholders like family, and that they could not think of a better way to do it than pizza. They booked again the following year.
Milestones. A contract landed, a company anniversary, a retirement. Occasions where the food should mark something.
Recruiting and open days. A truck in the parking lot changes the feel of a day that is otherwise conference rooms and lanyards.
The practical case
Sentiment aside, there are reasons a truck is easier on the person organizing it.
No kitchen required. A parking lot, a yard, a field beside a plant. If a delivery vehicle can get there, so can we. You do not have to be able to cook in your building.
Food arrives hot, as it is needed. With a platter, everything is at its best for the first twenty minutes and declining after that. With a truck, pizzas keep coming out of the oven. Staff who get pulled into something and eat forty minutes late are not eating leftovers.
Staggered breaks are workable. If your people come out in two or three waves rather than all at once, say so when you book. That is a scheduling question and we will build the cook times around it.
Dietary spread is easier than it looks. A portion of the menu is meat-free without any special arrangement, and a build-your-own base can be made to order. Nobody has to be talked into pizza, which is not true of every catering choice.
How service usually runs
Two options.
Buffet. Pizzas come out whole, get cut, and go onto a serving table. People take what they want and come back for a second slice of something else. Lunch does get announced, but people pace themselves, so the line keeps moving.
Family style. Whole pizzas to each table. Better for a seated event with an agenda, because nobody leaves their seat and you keep the schedule.
We also do salads, a meatball dish and pasta salad alongside. The menu is here.
The bit people worry about: is it still good by the time I eat it
When there are a lot of people, some pizzas have to be cooked in the 45 minutes before serving. That often costs quality, and it is where most catered pizza falls down.
Why? Steam. A humidified holding cabinet, built for ordinary catered food, keeps it hot and stops it drying out by adding humidity. Put pizza in one and the crust goes soft.
Our warmer uses dry heat, designed to keep everything hot and to keep the crust crisp. We have tested it to the extreme: over an hour and a half, far longer than we would ever actually need at an event, and the pizzas come out at about 95 percent of what they were straight from the oven.
So when we do need to hold pizzas, we are confident the quality holds with them, and that we can serve your people quickly.
What we need from you
- Somewhere reasonably level to park with room to open an awning
- A route in that a large vehicle can take
- A headcount, and whether people eat in one wave or several
- Any site rules on vehicles or access times
We do not need a kitchen, a hookup of any kind, or a prep room. We are fully self-contained. The oven burns wood and the wood travels with us, a quiet inverter generator covers everything else, and we carry our own fresh water and a gray water tank, so hand washing and dishes happen on the truck. Nothing gets hooked up and nothing gets emptied at your venue.
What it costs
We quote per event rather than publishing a package, because the same headcount can be very different jobs. Distance from Coalmont, how long we are on site, service style, sides, and how far food has to be carried all affect the number. Send the details and you get a real figure rather than a range.
Booking
Send us the type of event, the date, the location with city and state, the start time and how long you need us, and your estimated headcount. That is enough to answer properly. The same list is on our catering page.
Corporate dates in the fall book up alongside wedding season, so earlier is better than later.