The order leaves the restaurant. The experience keeps going.
Jenn Saunders-Haynes asks listeners to picture arriving at a meeting and finding a row of food pans. Nothing tells you what is inside or where it came from. Even if lunch is excellent, ordering it again requires finding the person who bought it. The restaurant has delivered the food and misplaced part of the opportunity.
Her ChatGTM conversation with Michael Beck and Chad Horn follows catering through the business that must support it: menu development, operations, marketing, supply chain, technology and the eventual handoff to the guest. A catering program touches each of those functions, whether or not the organization has planned for their involvement.
The central challenge is to give catering enough ownership to develop deliberately while keeping it connected to the restaurant. Leaving it with a lone enthusiast and an ordering link does not make the dependencies disappear. It simply makes them more likely to surface when an important order is already due.
Agree on the business before announcing the offer
Saunders-Haynes puts leadership alignment first. She describes the familiar situation in which one team is moving toward launch while another is not prepared. A strong individual strategy cannot compensate for departments working toward incompatible deadlines or expectations.
Her example of seasonal packaging makes that concrete. Marketing can create demand around a holiday, but the program still needs suitable packaging available through distribution. Operations needs to know how the food will be prepared and packed. Technology needs to represent the order correctly. Those are pieces of the same promise.
A useful planning conversation therefore follows the order from discovery to cleanup. Identify who owns each step, what they need from another team and what must be ready before promotion begins. This gives catering the discipline of a business while making its relationship to the broader brand explicit.
The buyer's occasion should shape the menu
Catering means different things to someone planning a wedding, an office lunch or a party at home. Saunders-Haynes cautions against designing solely around the restaurant's internal definition. The buying situation influences quantities, presentation, timing and the support the customer expects.
It also influences what belongs on the menu. She advises brands to understand their strengths and resist transferring every restaurant item into catering. A popular item in the dining room may introduce unnecessary complexity or arrive poorly after travel. An unfamiliar new offering may obscure what people already like about the brand.
The practical task is to choose an audience and build an understandable offer for that occasion. Test whether someone can identify what to order, how much they need and what will arrive without having a restaurant employee standing beside them. A concise, appropriate selection can be more helpful than a complete inventory of kitchen capabilities.
Packaging carries instructions as well as identity
Saunders-Haynes sees packaging as a way to help the people eating the food understand both the product and the restaurant behind it. Fully custom packaging is one option, but she also discusses bands, stamps and stickers for brands working with smaller budgets.
The requirement is clarity, not extravagance. Guests should be able to identify the restaurant and find a route back to it. Product information needs to be reliable and suitable for the food being served. The physical package must also support the delivery experience the brand is selling.
She recalls developing Subway catering packaging with paper and a ruler, then later seeing the work used in different markets and languages. That memory makes a seemingly minor design decision feel appropriately substantial. The package is one of the few parts of the restaurant that remains in the room when its employees are absent.
Know the customer and the handoff
Customer data matters because a catering buyer is not always shopping for themselves. Saunders-Haynes points out the mismatch in sending a consumer-oriented message to an executive assistant who orders for the office. Order history and buying context can help a team communicate something relevant rather than treating every address as the same marketing audience.
Delivery requires equally specific understanding. A late order could result from food not being ready, a driver problem or circumstances outside either party's control. She recommends clarifying responsibilities before something goes wrong and using tracking to understand what happened. The guest should not have to referee competing explanations while a meeting waits for lunch.
Together, those details define the work behind a repeat order. The restaurant understands the occasion, prepares an appropriate meal, makes the handoff dependable and follows up in a way that recognizes the buyer's needs. Catering earns its place at the leadership table because no single department can deliver that experience alone.
