7 Important Tools & Gear You Need to Offer Catering Services at an Art Conference

Catering is the heart of most events. Good foods unite people, and caterers prepare ready-made food to be enjoyed by guests at an art conference. However, it’s not just enough to gratify an event; it has to be catered for, incomparably well. This means planning in detail before the big event. One of the best ways to prepare is by looking at a checklist for catering. Many items can be disregarded in haste to leave, such as knives, folks, salt, pepper shakers- and yes, even cocktail napkins.

Ensure to probe your tools thoroughly a night before the big day. This will help you rest easy knowing everything is okay and planned for. Based on your personal preferences or business quirks, you may want to add a few more items.

Here is a detailed list of the seven crucial must-have tools and gears to help you provide the best catering services at an art conference.

Table Settings

It’s essential to arm yourself with all the necessary table settings for a spectacular event as a caterer. You’ll need such items as soup bowls, salad plates, dinner plates, and bread plates. If wine is served, you’ll need wine cups, not forgetting water glasses, utensils, and coffee cups with saucers. It’s always good to have additional utensils on hand.

Since you’re not going to place all these tools on a bare table, make sure to carry centerpieces, napkins, and tablecloths. Include the little additional extras like sugar, butter, pepper, and salt in attractive holders or settings.

Serving Equipment

Unless the event is buffet-style, you’ll want the necessary equipment to get your prepared food to the seated guests. With the right gear, it’s easy to distribute food to the guests. They include:

Serving trays- Trays areessential for serving all types of food.

Bus bins- These plastic tubs hold food and dirty dishes after guests have finished eating.

Water pitchers- look for presentable and enough pitchers to keep almost half of the servers stocked in a conference.

Buffet Equipment

With a buffet-style setting, you’ll need a different checklist. It will comprise of all the items to operate, set up, and remove buffet faster. For instance, you’ll require fuel cells to keep the dishes going. You’ll also need large spoons and tongs for serving and a knife. That roasted beef, ham, or turkey will require a cutting board to hold them for slicing. However, don’t forget to decorate the buffet tables, too.

Cooking Equipment

The most effective tools used in cooking include pressure cookers, frying pans, and saucepans. If you’re looking to prepare a barbecue, charcoal grills would be the most preferred gear. Charcoal grills use either natural lump charcoal or charcoal briquettes as their source of fuel. When burned, the charcoal transforms into embers producing heat to cook food. Since they can be used for outdoor cooking, they are one of the vital tools you can bring even during your camping trip.

The first time cooker should learn how to crawl before going off to throw your first meat into a smoker; thus, it is necessary to familiarize yourself with some smoking tips.

Beverage/Coffee Station

A coffee station will require its equipment, including decaf backups for caffeine haters, air-pots, and a water source as well as ice tubs for cold drinks coupled with coffee mugs and an assortment of glasses with a variety of sugar, cocoa, teas, and dairy packets.

Business cards

This piece of cardstock is a vital tool for your catering business to help you generate new clients. Since you never know where or when you’ll meet people who need your services, it’s necessary to walk with your business card at all times.

You can either customize existing templates or design your business cards. Ensure to feature your brand logo and triple check your contact information and spelling.

Off-site Catering Equipment

When completing off-sites projects, it’s crucial to have the right catering equipment. Failure to do so could ruin an art conference. You’ll need an Aluminum foil to cover foods during transportation, garbage bags, hand sanitizers to clean your hands, insulated containers to keep food cold or hot during transit, and water jugs if there are no water on-site, disposable food containers to keep all the food for the event.