Three Qualities to Watch for When Hiring a Caterer

Miami is a big city. It inhabits the south of Florida, and carries a reputation for the exotic, the extreme, and the beautiful from one end of the country to the other. If you live in Miami, then you know why others view the city as a true paradise: a place the collective “they” surely had in mind when they coined the term.

Paradise.

But unfortunately, paradise can often be filled with pitfalls. That is why if you are planning a big event, you would be wise to consider Miami catering services. Even so, don’t go with just any business. Be choosy, and select someone who demonstrates class and elegance in the production of your event. All together, here are three qualities you will want to watch out for from the Miami catering service of your choice:

1. Time in business: A catering service does not have to be in business for decades to be a trustworthy establishment. While that kind of track record in a city as competitive as Miami certainly speaks as a plus for the business, it need not be the make-or-break point. Some Miami catering businesses that have only enjoyed a few years of operation can afford you the perfect opportunity to wow your guests with elegant production and delicious cuisine. Ultimately, it is the quality of time spent in business, not the quantity. Ideally, it is good to have both, but always pick quality first.

2. Reputation of chef: This is not fast food. You often must pay premium prices for Miami catering (though, too, some of those are surprisingly affordable). You should not have to pay premium prices for third-rate ingredients and novice chef training. The reputation of the chef is so important when dealing with a caterer. Ideally, you want someone who has shown in the past they could make a living on their own creating delicious concoctions from original recipes. A well-traveled chef, who has not necessarily spent all his training in one place is also a huge advantage.

3. Word of mouth: Word of mouth remains one of the most powerful marketing tools from which a business can benefit. If a business provides a quality product, then make no mistake that that product will find its legs, especially when localizing in one area. People will always have cause for celebration or cause for the skills of a good caterer. The longer you live in Miami, the more you will know who the top players in Miami catering are, and the easier it will be to make a decision when the time comes. Don’t be afraid to ask for others’ opinions either - it can be the difference between a lackluster event and one that nobody will ever be able to forget.

These aren’t the only qualities to look out for, but they are a good start. Before you make a decision, make sure that you hear what other customers have had to say about their experiences, and visit the operation. How much time and care do they take with their location? Do they have pictures from previous events? It never hurts to ask!


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Catering Software Is a Hit with Caterers

Everyone in the food industry has noticed a change in the way business runs with the birth of the internet. Virtually every successful company today has some sort of company website for their web-based customers, and many caterers have picked up on this important aspect of business. Although company websites are great for attracting new clientele, a website alone won’t likely help you organize your services so that you’ll be more successful and stay on top of everything on your plate. Luckily, catering software can help you with both. This cutting-edge technology can help your company become more organized so you can spend more time planning and preparing a successful upcoming event.

Catering software can help you achieve your goals as a busy caterer in a variety of different ways. If you’ve got a website up and running for your catering company, you can actually used web-based catering technology, so you won’t likely need to add any special hardware to your computer. This type of program is great for your customers as well, because they can take advantage of the benefits of catering software right from their home. Just a few of these advantages can include ideas for event themes, dishes, services, and even ordering options. If your company has yet to build a website that can host this program, it’s all right there are still options for non-web-based software, so you can still take advantage of better organization.

Many caterers find that one of the most painstaking tasks for any event is preparing a menu proposal. It isn’t out of the ordinary when a client rejects certain recipes, theme ideas, or other aspects of the pitch. Menu proposals can take quite some time to complete, so these situations can obviously be incredibly frustrating and discouraging for caterers. Catering software may not be able to change your customers’ minds about what they want for their upcoming events, but it can help you handle those situations more easily. This program can help you complete a menu proposal in a fraction of the time it would normally take. With recipe inventories and theme ideas on file, you could potentially complete your menu proposal in minutes. When the job only takes you moments to complete, as opposed to hours, it won’t be nearly as disheartening if and when a customer rejects certain aspects of the proposal. And it won’t be difficult to help your client pick out exactly what they want using the recipe inventory. As mentioned before, you customer can also feel free to search through dish ideas and theme suggestions on software that is available through your website as well.

Another invaluable tool offered by catering software is post-event reviews that allow customers to assess the success of your event. These can also remind and encourage your client to return for more business. With web-based catering software, it will be easy for your clients to fill our surveys and questionnaires that will help you determine how successful your events are and the level of satisfaction you left with your customers. This will help you in the future by discerning which aspects of previous events were most successful and enjoyable for your clients.

Thomas Wilford
Learn more about Reserve Interactive’s Catering Software
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Looking Before You Leap into Home Brewing

Looking Before You Leap into Home Brewing

Whenever you start a major new hobby, its best to take a few minutes and think about what you are getting into.  A lot of new hobbies require a significant investment of time and money.  This is certainly true of golf, skydiving, scuba and home brewing.  So along with a plan on how to get started, its good to have a good plan for getting ready to plunge into home brewing full scale.  If you have a road map for “checking it out”, you can determine if home brewing will fit into your lifestyle and your budget.

“Looking before you leap” means that you find out what it means to be involved in the hobby or sport as a full time member of that hobby community.  When it comes to home brewing, that will only happen when you too can make your own beer at home.  And when that time finally gets here and you can play with the recipes and make the taste of your own beer very unique, that will be an exciting moment for you.  But a mature approach to this very adult hobby means checking it out and knowing the investment of time, money and space in the home before you spend your first dollar to get set up as a home brewer.

An easy and fun way to ease into the hobby of home brewing that doesn’t cost a cent is to begin to network with those who are already well into their passion for making beer.  You can find forums online to use to learn more about getting started.  And there are almost certainly a number of home brewing societies and clubs in town that you can find out about online or through your local retail brewing supply store.  These social connections will be people who are very much “evangelists” for home brewing because they know the fun of it.  So you will get plenty of chances to sit in with a new friend to step through the brewing process and not only learn what equipment you will need but how it is used as you get training from an “old pro” in home beer making.

Once you have gotten some basic training the free route through home brewing gurus, the time will come when you are ready to consider buying your own equipment and taking a stab at it yourself.  But you have already witnessed that home brewing is a big event in the house filling up the kitchen, the refrigerator, making a mess sometimes and requiring places to store, refrigerate and ferment the beer in the various stages from ingredients to finished product.

So it is important that the hobby of home brewing not just be your solitary passion but if at all possible you get the family into the act.  If they can attend meetings at the home brewing club or go to competitions or other events that are all about home brewing, they can catch the same enthusiasm you have.  That enthusiasm will be very important particularly in your significant other because each brewing session will be a major event in the house involving the kitchen with lots of pans and bottles and equipment.  So having your wife or husband fully onboard with the process and even working on it together makes the fun of home brewing even more fulfilling.

Another area of looking before you leap is to plan out not only how you will use all of the equipment you will buy but how you will handle issues of storage.  It’s a very pragmatic concern but if you bring in this arsenal of beer making equipment. Between batches it is going to have to be somewhere.  And while you will enjoy that equipment a great deal, you don’t want it to dominate the home.

By getting a feel for the equipment when you are preparing to start your home brewing hobby, you can prepare a storage space for the equipment when it is not in use.   Think ahead about storage for the fermentation phase of brewing as well as storing up to five gallons of beer per finished batch.  But by thinking ahead, when you become a very active home brewer, you will have your family and facilities all ready for the changes.  And that is looking before you leap into the exciting world of making and enjoying your own home made beer.

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