Catering Update...

Yesterday was a day to catch up and take some personal time as we get ready to begin and 'open' the catering business. I have been putting close to 5 hours a day at my desk and on the phone trying to get the budgets sorted out and equipment ordered. I have priced out every product and boiled down milk, espresso, syrups, and sauces to price per ounce, gram, etc. Here is the questions we have to answer. How do we want to price our service? There are a few ways to answer this questions. We can charge an hourly rate plus a set up fee or we could charge per person similar to the pricing model of a food catering business. Both are possible but which would be the easiest for us to manage? The best for the customer? The best for us? I have quite a bit of work to do as I figure this out and I plan to have the answer by the end of this week. I also hope to have the rest of the materials purchased in the next week and a half. I talked with the manufactures of the cart we purchased and found that it is being built right now. They hope to get it out the door to us on Monday. The espresso machines and grinder are packed and ready for the cart to arrive so I will let them know tomorrow when they can arrive to install these machines. We are going to purchase disposable, for now, at CostCo as they have nice prices for small quantities. This will allow us to buy items as we need them and not tie large amounts of money in inventory. We are very excited for this to kick off and think it is going to be a great way to serve this community and also get our word out and prepare the way for Cafe Evoke. Here is the updated list that I have been posting: 1. Meet with kitchen planner to figure out what our equipment needs are. 2. Get budget put together and approved 3. Find and purchase 110v commercial espresso machine 4.Find and purchase a 6x10 trailer 5. Find and purchase a cart 6. Get paper work completed for catering license 7. Find and purchase misc equipment 8. Finalize pricing strategy 9. Create list of packages that we will offer in the future 10. Talk with area catering about using us (The first steps have been completed but this will continue throughout the life of this business) 11. Get quotes for printed coffee sleeves 12. Set up accounts at our roaster and tea distributors 13. Get Health Department paperwork filled out with the help of our kitchen designer. 14. Finalize catering logo -- a variation of the coffeehouse logo (in final stages. ..be bold Tagged: Cafe Evoke Catering, coffee, bozeman, montana