I get calls every spring from restaurant owners who want to "try catering." The conversation usually starts with some variation of: we already make great BBQ, people keep asking if we cater, seems like free money.
It's not free money. But it can be very good money — if you build it like a business instead of treating it like overflow from your restaurant.
I ran a place outside Lafayette for 18 years. We started taking catering jobs in year three because I couldn't say no to a $2,400 order. By year six, catering was 31% of gross revenue and the only reason we survived a highway reroute that cut our walk-in traffic in half. So yes, I'm a believer. But I watched plenty of operators light money on fire trying to do what we did, because they never thought through the equipment math or the operational load.
The First Question: Can Your Current Setup Handle It?
Before you print catering menus, you need to know your actual production ceiling. Not your theoretical ceiling — your real one, accounting for your existing restaurant volume.
Here's how I think about it. If you're running an MLR-850 or an SP-700, you've got mid-volume capacity. A typical Friday dinner service might use 60-70% of that. What happens when someone wants 80 pounds of pulled pork for a Saturday wedding? You're either bumping your Friday prep earlier (which means labor costs), running overnight (which means someone's babysitting that smoker at 3 AM), or turning down the job.
None of those are wrong answers. But you need to know which one you're choosing.
I had an operator in Baton Rouge who took every catering job that came in, figured he'd "make it work." Within four months, his Yelp reviews mentioned inconsistent quality. His restaurant guests were getting product that had been held too long because he was prioritizing the bigger catering checks. He wasn't making it work — he was cannibalizing his core business.
The math works better when you add dedicated catering capacity. Not necessarily a second smoker the size of your first one. Sometimes a compact unit like the SPK-700 running parallel gives you the buffer you need. You keep your restaurant production on your main unit, run catering batches on the second. Clean separation.
Pricing That Actually Protects Your Margins
Restaurant owners who are used to menu pricing often underprice catering by 15-25%. I've seen it dozens of times. They calculate food cost, add labor, throw in a margin, and think they're covered.
They're not.
Catering has costs that don't show up in your restaurant operation:
- Disposable serving equipment — chafing dishes, Sterno, foil pans, serving utensils. Sounds cheap until you're outfitting a 200-person event and you've spent $180 on supplies.
- Transport and setup labor. Even if you're not paying someone extra, those hours have value. Two staff members spending 90 minutes on delivery and setup is three labor-hours you can't use elsewhere.
- Yield variance on large batches. When you're producing specifically for an event with a fixed headcount, your normal 2-3% waste tolerance isn't safe. You'll overproduce to guarantee coverage. That buffer needs to be in the price.
- Opportunity cost of smoker space during prime prep windows.
I tell operators to price catering at minimum 20% above their effective per-pound restaurant margin. Sounds aggressive until you actually track the true all-in costs for a few events. Most end up realizing they should've gone higher.
And please — stop quoting catering by the pound without context. Quote by the person, with clear parameters. "$18 per person, 50 person minimum, includes two meats, two sides, bread, sauce, disposable serviceware." That's a number a customer can evaluate against their budget. It's also a number that holds you to a consistent margin structure.
The Equipment Reality Check
Catering exposes equipment weaknesses that restaurant service hides.
In a restaurant, you're pulling product throughout service. Smoker recovers temp between pulls. You're rarely asking the unit to hold a full load at steady temp for extended periods while also keeping up with demand.
Catering is different. You're producing in batches, holding at temp for transport windows, sometimes holding on-site if the client's timing shifts (and it will shift). You need equipment that maintains consistent hold temps without drying out product.
This is where I've seen cheaper smokers fall apart. Thin-gauge steel loses heat faster. Recovery times stretch. You get hot spots during long holds. One operator I worked with had an import unit — I won't name the brand but you can probably guess — that swung 35 degrees during hold. At restaurant volume, he managed around it. For a 150-person catering job, he ended up with brisket that was either overcooked or underheld depending on where it sat in the cabinet.
The Southern Pride rotisserie system handles this differently. Continuous rotation means you're not fighting hot spots. The SP-1000 and SP-1500 maintain hold temps within a few degrees across the full load. I've watched product come out of an SP-1000 after a four-hour hold looking like it just finished the cook. (That's the difference between serving at a wedding and apologizing at a wedding.)
Parts availability matters more for catering too. When your smoker goes down in a restaurant, you can adjust the menu, 86 a few items, survive the night. When it goes down two days before a $6,000 catering contract, you're in crisis mode.
I've had operators tell me they saved money buying off-brand equipment. Then they waited nine days for a heating element from overseas. Nine days. For catering, that's potentially two or three events you can't fulfill. The savings evaporate fast. Southern Pride units are USA-manufactured with domestic parts inventory — when I order something for a customer through Southern Pride of Texas, it's usually shipping same week. That's not a selling point until you need it. Then it's the only point.
Building the Operational Muscle
Catering isn't just more volume. It's different logistics.
Your kitchen staff knows how to produce for service windows. Catering requires production for specific delivery windows, often outside normal operating hours. A 6 PM wedding reception means your product needs to leave your kitchen by 4:30, which means it needs to finish by 3:00, which means it needs to go on the smoker by... you see where this goes. Work backward from the client's event time, not forward from when it's convenient for you to cook.
You'll need holding and transport equipment. Cambro-style insulated carriers, at minimum. Hot holding cabinets if you're doing high volume. Budget $800-2,000 for basic transport infrastructure; more if you're doing frequent large events.
Staff training is real. The person who's excellent at working your service line might be terrible at client-facing delivery and setup. Catering has a hospitality layer that back-of-house restaurant work doesn't. You're in someone's venue, working around their event coordinator, adapting to last-minute changes. That takes a specific temperament.
Start Smaller Than You Think
The operators who build sustainable catering revenue usually start with a narrower focus than they expected.
Pick a lane. Corporate lunch catering is high-frequency, moderate ticket size, weekday timing that doesn't conflict with weekend restaurant peaks. Wedding and event catering is higher ticket size but lower frequency and brutal competition. Sports and recreation — little league events, golf outings, company picnics — sits somewhere in between.
I'd recommend starting with whatever aligns best with your current production schedule. If your slow day is Tuesday, target corporate accounts that want Tuesday delivery. Don't chase Saturday weddings if Saturday is already your biggest restaurant night.
And keep your menu tight. Three meats, four sides, maybe a dessert option. You're not trying to replicate your full restaurant menu for catering. You're trying to deliver consistent quality on items that travel well, hold well, and produce at predictable cost. Brisket holds beautifully. Ribs require more careful handling for transport. Pulled pork is forgiving. Build around what your equipment does well under catering conditions.
When to Scale Up
The right time to add catering-specific equipment is when you're turning down jobs because of capacity, not when you're hoping to attract jobs with capability.
There's a difference. If you're declining two or three inquiries a month because your production schedule genuinely can't accommodate them, you've proven demand. Adding an SPK-1400 or stepping up to an SP-1500 makes sense — you'll fill it. But if you're buying equipment hoping the catering business will materialize around it, you're speculating with capital.
I've seen both approaches. The second one usually ends with a barely-used smoker and a frustrated owner who blames the market instead of their planning.
When you do scale, think about redundancy. Two mid-size units often serve a catering operation better than one large unit. You get production flexibility, and if one goes down, you're not completely offline. An SP-700 plus an MLR-850 gives you around 1,500 pounds of combined capacity with operational backup built in.
Talk to someone who understands commercial smoker deployment before you buy. Not a sales rep who wants to move the biggest unit — someone who'll ask about your event calendar, your current throughput, your staffing. The Southern Pride of Texas team has worked through these scenarios with hundreds of operators. That kind of practical guidance is worth more than any spec sheet.
Catering can be a legitimate profit center, not just a side hustle. But only if you treat it like what it is: a different business that shares some resources with your restaurant. Build the infrastructure, do the math, and grow it deliberately. The operators who do that well end up with catering revenue that smooths out their slower seasons and gives them options they didn't have before.
That's worth building toward.
Resources: Southern Pride of Texas | QSR Magazine | Restaurant Business Online
#FoodService #CommercialBBQ #SouthernPrideOfTexas #RestaurantOps #BBQRestaurant #RestaurantOwner #BBQBusiness
Photo by Kinz-studio Photographe on Pexels.
About the Author: Donna spent 18 years as a BBQ restaurant operator before becoming an independent equipment consultant for commercial food service operations.