Renting Meeting Rooms - How To Choose Caterers

When you're renting meeting rooms for a party or event, one of the biggest decisions you have to make is who will provide food. The wrong choice will result in cold, sloppy food, or lousy service that will put a damper on your event. Before you reserve your meeting rooms, spend some time finding the right caterer. Here are some tips on finding the right one.

Ask For Referrals

The best way to find quality caterers is to ask a friend or somebody else who has used one recently. What their referral means is that the food was good and the service was excellent. It was so good that they're happy to pass the service on to a good friend. Ask around with friends, family members, coworkers and other acquaintances to see if they've got somebody to recommend.

What if nobody does? If not, you can get a recommendation that's just as good from a professional. Call around to places that hire caterers often and see what they say. Another great way to find a quality service is to check with your local culinary school.

Get A Vague Idea

Of course, they're going to be planning the food to the last detail in the meeting rooms. But before you start your search, have at least some idea of what you want out of the event's refreshments. If there's a theme to the event, you should keep this in mind. Tell them if there's a certain type of food item that you think would be good. Just a basic idea will do.

How Much Service?

Another thing to decide before you call is whether you want full-service or not. Full-service means that they provide absolutely everything for your guests in the meeting rooms. This includes alcohol if you're serving it at the event. If you don't need everything, let them know how much of the food they're responsible for. Also, find out how many servers they'll provide you with.

Budget Well

Which leads us to another essential - budget before you call. Decide exactly how much you're able and willing to spend since this will be the determining factor in which caterer you choose. If they're too pricey, you can always negotiate with them by cutting a few services. Caterers have different plans with different prices. 

Call A Few

Once you've got all of these things decided, start calling around. Call lots of caterers and narrow it down to just a few. One mistake lots of people make is that they get the number of one caterer and stop shopping right there. Shop around and don't forget to use the internet to find caterers as well. Almost every caterer has their own website with the answers to lots of your questions.

Plenty Of Shopping Time

Don't wait until the last minute to hire caterers. Before you even think about renting meeting rooms, make sure that you've got a good caterer lined up. It will take some time to find the right one, so make sure you start early. The last thing you want to do is hire caterers in a rush.