Interview with catering expert Kelly Grogan, co-founder of Crumbs, shares her insights on creating and scaling successful catering programs for restaurants.
Key Takeaways
In this episode of Room for Seconds, catering expert Kelly Grogan, co-founder of Crumbs, shares her insights on creating and scaling successful catering programs for restaurants. From designing a crave-worthy menu to fostering relationships with high-value clients, Kelly dives into the strategies that drive incremental revenue and build brand recognition. She discusses common pitfalls, the importance of execution, and how technology and personal touches can differentiate your catering business. Whether you're just starting out or looking to enhance your catering offerings, Kelly’s expertise provides actionable tips to take your program to the next level.
Keys to Catering Success
Success in catering goes beyond simply offering the same menu items available in-house. As Kelly points out, a well-crafted catering program requires a thoughtful approach that prioritizes operational efficiency, profitability, and guest satisfaction.
“Catering is such an important transaction but, more importantly, such an important relationship that you have with guests in your local community,” she explains. A poorly executed catering order can harm a restaurant's reputation, underscoring the importance of careful planning.
Kelly highlights starting with the menu as the foundation, ensuring it is not only crave-worthy but also easy to execute and profitable. From packaging to delivery logistics and food quality, every detail matters in creating a seamless experience for guests and establishing a scalable catering program.
Relationship-Building Drives Catering Sales
In catering, forming meaningful relationships with decision-makers is a game-changer. Kelly stresses the importance of personalized outreach, stating, “If you're the person in charge of ordering for the office, you are the one that gets to make that decision at the end of the day, and so I need you to be my best friend.” Rather than relying on cold calls or generic emails,
Kelly recommends hospitality-driven efforts, such as offering complimentary tastings or inviting clients for lunch. These experiences build trust and showcase the quality of the food, often leading to an impressive conversion rate.
By focusing on community engagement and one-on-one connections, restaurants can position themselves as go-to catering partners for high-value clients, fostering long-term business relationships.
Stay True to Your Brand
Catering is an extension of a restaurant's brand, and maintaining that identity is vital to building trust and loyalty. Kelly emphasizes the importance of staying true to the restaurant’s strengths, stating, “Catering is about taking your brand and feeding the masses with it and having that maximum brand recognition.”
A catering menu should mirror the same quality and reliability as the dine-in experience, featuring items that are scalable, efficient, and profitable. Straying from this path, such as offering one-off dishes that aren't part of the core menu, risks confusing customers and diluting the brand. Like third-party delivery menus, a successful catering program prioritizes items that travel well and are easy to execute, ensuring both customer satisfaction and operational efficiency.
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About Kelly Grogan
Kelly is the founder of CRUMBS, a firm specializing in delivering high volume incremental revenue within the hospitality space. Her core areas of impact include Catering, Group Dining, Fundraising, Sales Training, Customer Service, Loyalty & Marketing. The solutions provided by CRUMBS are meant to deliver revenue to restaurants fast, provide a long lasting impact on consistently increasing sales & set brands apart in the space with unique strategies.
Kelly has spent the last 10+ years in the hospitality space focused on driving top line revenue for restaurants, entertainment centers, hotels & various franchise groups. Her passion for people & drive for success has led to her expert ability to positively impact any business.
About Craveworthy Media
Gregg Majewski has a vast amount of experience as a corporate executive in the restaurant industry. As the former CEO of Jimmy John’s, he played a major role in expanding the franchise from 33 to 300+ stores in just 5 years by surrounding the company’s marketing strategy around the innovative approach of delivering sandwiches and being “freaky fast”. Majewski has worked to develop restaurant concepts over the last two plus decades, before starting Craveworthy Brands in 2023, which currently includes a growing portfolio of restaurant brands. Craveworthy Media is Majewski’s gift back to the industry that has given him so much. The goal of Craveworthy is to inspire the up and coming industry leaders by providing important information, stories, and insights from titans past and present.
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