What Does a Caterer Do?

Video Transcript

"I'm Karen Lasher, chef owner of Around The Table in Camas, Washington. Often times whether you are looking to hire a caterer or whether you would like to become a caterer yourself people ask the question, "What do caterers do?" What actually do they provide? Really in its most basic form, caterers provide food and service to their clients. Now, there's a whole range of what caterers can provide starting from the very simple like just a delivery drop off. It might be box lunches that a caterer puts together and drops off. Or it could be even they they produce them and you pick them up. That's in its most simplest form, but that is a form of catering. Going from there, caterers provide service and set up of an event. They also provide. They could provide bar service. The bar tender and the bar set up. They can provide complete event service in terms of organizing your florist, organizing bakeries, organizing all the people, musicians... They can organize the rentals of... for your event, whether it's tables and chairs and linens and other necessary items, there's that whole range that a caterer can provide and does provide. So whether you're looking to become a caterer and need to decide where you want to fall in that, or whether or not you want to hire a caterer and need to know what's possible, this is really the range of what's available from a caterer."