Had a guy come through the shop last month wanting to talk smokers. Owns a 60-seat BBQ joint outside Beaumont, been open about four years. Solid lunch numbers, weekend dinner rush, the usual. But he kept circling back to catering — how much money he was leaving on the table turning down wedding inquiries and corporate lunch requests because he didn't have the capacity.
Told him what I tell everybody: capacity isn't the problem. Not really. The problem is that most restaurant owners think catering is just cooking more food.
It's not.
Why Most Restaurant-to-Catering Expansions Fail in Year One
I've watched this movie play out maybe thirty times since I started running catering units in the late '90s. Restaurant does well. Owner gets ambitious. Takes on a few catering gigs using existing equipment and staff. First couple jobs go okay — maybe a graduation party, a company picnic. Then somebody books them for a 200-person event, and everything falls apart.
The briskets aren't ready on time because the dinner service needed the smoker. The pulled pork dried out during transport because nobody thought through hold temps. The restaurant's Friday night suffered because half the line was at a venue forty minutes away.
And then the owner decides catering isn't worth the headache.
But the headache wasn't catering. It was trying to run catering like an afterthought instead of a separate operation that shares resources with your restaurant.
The Equipment Question Comes First
I'm biased here, and I'll own that. But I've also been running a 12-unit catering operation for over two decades, and equipment decisions made early will either give you room to grow or box you into a corner.
Your restaurant smoker isn't your catering smoker. Can't be. The math doesn't work. If you're pulling product off your main unit to load into a van, you're robbing from one operation to feed another. That's how you end up short on pulled pork at 5:30 on a Saturday when your dining room fills up.
For mobile work — and most catering involves some amount of transport — you need equipment purpose-built for the job. The MLR series we sell exists specifically for this. Trailer-mounted, rotisserie-style, holds temp during transport better than anything else I've used. I ran two MLR-150s for years before moving up to larger units, and those things went through three transmissions on the trucks pulling them before I ever had a service issue with the smokers themselves.
Some guys try to save money running Cookshack cabinet units on a trailer. And look, those aren't garbage — they'll cook decent product in a stationary application. But the insulation doesn't hold up to road vibration the same way, and when you need parts in two days instead of two weeks, you're going to have problems. We keep Southern Pride parts on the shelf in Orange. Try getting a replacement igniter for an import brand overnighted. Good luck.
Separate the Production, Share the Prep
Here's what actually works: your restaurant kitchen handles prep for both operations. Trimming, rubbing, marinating — that happens in one place with one team. But the cook schedule for catering product runs independent of your restaurant service.
For a Friday catering job, I'm loading briskets onto the MLR Wednesday night. That meat's coming off Thursday afternoon, resting, getting pulled or sliced, vacuum-packed, and held. Friday morning we're reheating in a controlled environment, not scrambling to pull something off a smoker three hours before service while also trying to prep for the restaurant's weekend rush.
This only works if your catering equipment can do the job without stealing capacity from your restaurant. If you're running a single SP-700 for a mid-volume operation and you want to add catering, you've got two choices: add dedicated catering equipment, or upgrade your restaurant unit and repurpose the old one.
That guy from Beaumont? We set him up with an MLR-85 for catering jobs. His existing SP-500 stays dedicated to the restaurant. Production schedules don't compete anymore.
Pricing Catering Is Not Like Pricing Your Menu
Menu prices everywhere are climbing — you've seen it, I've seen it, every operator's feeling it. The chains are doing wild stuff right now, chicken sandwich wars, nacho promotions, whatever gets bodies in the door. But catering pricing works differently.
Your restaurant menu price includes all your fixed overhead built into every plate. Rent, insurance, utilities — it's all baked in. Catering has different overhead. Transport costs. Labor hours that happen outside your normal operating schedule. Equipment wear that doesn't happen in a stationary install.
I've seen guys price catering per-head based on their restaurant cost-plus model and end up losing money on every job. You have to factor in:
- Actual cook time (and smoker capacity used)
- Transport — not just gas, but wear on vehicles and equipment
- Setup and breakdown labor, which is almost always more than you think
- Hold time at venue (someone has to monitor that product)
- The opportunity cost of having equipment and staff unavailable for other work
A 150-person brisket job that looks like easy money at $25 a head starts looking different when you've got eight labor hours in transport and setup, three hours of hold time on-site, and your truck needed an oil change a thousand miles early because of all the highway driving.
The Staffing Mistake Nobody Talks About
Don't use your restaurant pit master for catering. I know that sounds backwards. Your best cook should be on your best product, right?
Wrong. Your best cook should be where they're most needed, and that's your restaurant. Every. Single. Service.
Catering needs someone who understands temperature management, transport protocols, and how to handle on-site variables. It doesn't need your most creative cook. It needs your most reliable one. The person who won't panic when the venue's electricity situation isn't what they promised. The person who checks hold temps every twenty minutes without being told.
I've got a guy named Marcus who's run my lead catering unit for eleven years. He's never won a competition in his life. Couldn't develop a new rub if you paid him to. But I've never gotten a call from a client saying the food showed up wrong when Marcus is on the job.
That's who you want running catering. Not talent. Consistency.
Start Smaller Than You Want To
Everybody wants to land the 500-person corporate account right out the gate. And I get it — that's where the money looks best on paper.
But you learn your systems on the 40-person jobs. You figure out that your aluminum pans don't fit the warming units you bought. You discover that your sliced brisket dries out if it's in the hold cabinet more than 90 minutes. You realize your driver doesn't actually know how to back a trailer into a venue parking lot.
These lessons cost you one unhappy customer when they happen at a 40-top. They cost you your reputation when they happen at a 500-person event with the client's regional VP watching.
We took on our first catering job in '98 — a company picnic for maybe sixty people. I overcooked four racks of ribs because I didn't account for the hold time at the venue. Sixty people. Nobody made a fuss, we comped some extra sides, life went on. If that had been six hundred people? Different story.
What This Actually Looks Like When It Works
Our restaurant operation and catering operation share a commissary kitchen. Same walk-in, same prep tables, same rub recipes. But they have separate production schedules, separate equipment, and separate P&Ls. I know exactly what catering costs me and exactly what it returns.
The restaurant runs three SP-700 units — we upgraded from 500s about eight years back when weekend volume started pushing capacity. Catering runs four MLR units of various sizes depending on the job.
When catering's slow, that equipment sits. That's fine. When it's busy, we're booking two, three jobs a weekend during wedding season, and those trailers pay for themselves.
The restaurant never suffers because we're doing catering. That's the line. That's always the line.
If You're Serious About This
Talk to somebody who's done it before you buy equipment. I don't mean a sales rep — I mean an operator. Find someone running catering in your region who's not your direct competitor and buy them lunch. Ask what they wish they'd known.
And when you're ready to talk equipment, we're in Orange. We've got MLR units in stock, parts on the shelf, and the kind of technical support that comes from people who've actually run these things in the field. Not a call center. Not a manual PDF. Real answers from people who've been on the circuit.
Catering can be the best margin in your business. But only if you build it right from the start.
Resources: Southern Pride of Texas | QSR Magazine | Restaurant Business Online
#CateringBusiness #FoodService #RestaurantOps #RestaurantIndustry #BBQRestaurant #FoodServiceIndustry #SouthernPrideOfTexas
Photo by Kal 347 on Pexels.
About the Author: Earl has been competing in sanctioned BBQ events since the early 1990s and operates a commercial catering operation in Southeast Texas.