Nine Questions To Ask Your Venue Before You Book The Catering

Ask before you book, not after

Nearly every catering problem we see started as a venue question nobody asked. The food is straightforward. The room is where the surprises live, and the time to find them is before you have paid a deposit on either.

Here they are in the order that matters.

1. Do you allow outside catering at all?

The one that decides everything else. Plenty of hotels and function rooms do not, or allow it only for the evening and not the main meal. A good number of wedding venues that insist on doing the daytime meal will let somebody else do the evening buffet, which is usually where the saving on a wedding day actually is. It is one phone call.

2. Is there a charge if we do?

Some venues permit outside catering and then apply a fee for it. That is their right, but it belongs in your budget from the start rather than on the final invoice.

3. What time can we get in?

Not what time your event starts, what time the doors actually open to you and to a delivery. If the venue opens at six and your guests arrive at seven, that is a tight window for setting a room out.

4. Where does a van unload, and how far is it to the room?

Front door, side gate, loading bay, or a gravel car park with a bollard. And the distance from there to where the food goes. A first-floor room with no lift is completely workable, but it takes longer and we would rather know in advance.

5. Is there a kitchen, a hatch, or nothing?

Worth knowing even for a cold buffet, because it decides where the food gets laid out and whether there is anywhere to put things down. Nothing we deliver needs heating or a kitchen, but a hatch with a shelf is a much easier serving point than a corner of the room.

6. Are tables and chairs included, and who sets them up?

Three separate questions that often get one vague answer. Buffets need a table, ideally against a wall with room for people to move along it.

7. Is there a fridge, and can we use it?

Usually the answer is no, and usually it does not matter, cold food arrives in cool boxes and is fine for the length of an event. But if you are planning to keep anything back for later, ask.

8. What time do we have to be out, and does that include clearing?

The hire period nearly always ends earlier than people assume, and the tidying is inside it rather than after it. Our platters and cool boxes get collected the next working day, so those are not part of your clear-down.

9. Is there a bar, and is there corkage?

If there is no bar you will want drinks with the food: cans of pop at £1.35 or fruit juice at £2.75 a litre. If there is a bar, some venues charge corkage on anything brought in, and occasionally that extends further than you would expect.

What we need from you

Short list, and it is mostly the answers above:

• The date, the venue and roughly how many
• What time you want the food out
• Whether the venue permits outside catering
• Anything awkward about access, stairs, gates, a long carry
• Dietary requirements and how many of each

Buffets start at £5.50 a head, delivery is free, there is a £20 minimum on the order and we need it by 4pm the day before. Anything cooked on site, hog roast or barbecue, is quoted as an event, needs more notice, and wants about 3m by 5m of flat ground with no steps to the serving area.

Get the nine answers first. The catering is the easy half.