Catering

What the data says about restaurant catering today

As corporate catering transforms into a critical growth engine for the restaurant industry, top brands will share their battle-tested, data-driven playbooks for scaling high-volume operations at the upcoming Restaurant Catering Workshop.

Image: Willie Lawless/ Connect Media

July 21, 2026 by Mandy Wolf Detwiler — Editor, Connect Media

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Catering is the restaurant industry's fastest-growing segment, but there's a catch: the gap between the brands striking gold and those left in the dust is widening at breakneck speed.

Once treated as an operational afterthought, catering has officially transformed into a primary growth engine for the modern restaurant industry. Faced with tight margins and unpredictable dine-in foot traffic, operators are aggressively pivoting toward the workplace, where corporate spending on food remains highly resilient.

Today's business catering boom isn't just about lukewarm buffets or uninspired sandwich platters; it is anchored in tech-driven digital execution, high-end "quiet luxury" boxed lunches and inclusive, performance-driven menus that cater to strict dietary needs. With companies increasingly leveraging premium food experiences to entice employees back to the office and drive collaboration, a robust catering channel has shifted from a lucrative sideline into a critical strategic shield for restaurant profitability.

To help you land on the winning side of that divide, the upcoming Restaurant Catering Workshop is hosting the session "State of Catering Today: What the Data Says and the Art of the Possible." This session cuts through the noise, pairing exclusive insights from Monkey's highly anticipated State of Catering report with a powerhouse panel of enterprise operators who are actively cracking the code on high-volume, first-party programs. If you are looking for less theory and more battle-tested, data-driven playbooks to scale your business right now, this is where you need to be.

The Restaurant Catering Workshop is being held Oct. 6-7 at the Loew's Arlington Hotel in Arlington, Texas.

Speakers in the session include Crystal Leuty, marketing manager CSM and off premise for Jim N Nick's Community Bar-B-Q; Ashley Reed-Schellberg, director of digital and off-premise sales for Taco Cabana; Kori Sparks, director of catering and sales for Urbane Café; Ben Pidduck, CEO of Monkey Catering Platform and Courtney Smith, head of brand partnerships for Monkey Catering Platform.

The session is sponsored by Monkey Catering Platform.

The ins and outs of catering

Leuty said her company handles large catering orders during its peak dine-in rush with lots of planning. Jim N Nick's catering sales and operations teams work together to ensure large orders are planned and communicated with the restaurants in advance.

"Because peak catering delivery times often coincide with our dine-in rush, our teams have to operate diligently," Leuty said. "By the time the dining room fills up, our catering team is already out the door, making sure that the order reaches the guest on time."

Sparks said Urbane Café's catering is "built from the same fresh, handcrafted recipes our guests enjoy in our cafes! The food doesn't change, but how we serve it does."

"In our restaurants, guests expect hot, made to order sandwiches. In catering, we intentionally serve our sandwiches cold because we found that doing so creates a more consistent guest experience. Our recipes are designed to be just as delicious served cold as they are hot, preserving the texture, freshness and presentation throughout transit."

While it is a luxury to have a dedicated catering prep station and ream, many restaurants flow catering orders through the main line.

"It's a team effort," said Leuty. "We utilize a high-capacity backline specifically designed to handle off-premise channels like drive-thru, to-go and catering without disrupting the main dining room line. Our kitchen prepares the food, and then a dedicated catering team takes over to pack and deliver.

"For large orders, our catering operations managers work closely with our restaurant managers to eliminate bottlenecks before they ever happen. The goal is a seamless experience for every guest, whether they're sitting in our dining room or feeding a large group across town."

Sparks said catering often requires more than just entrees, and Urbane Café has expanded its offerings to include fruit and vegetable platters, bread trays, bite sized sandwiches and half gallon beverages that travel well and better support meetings, events, and social gatherings.

"By designing the experience around how guests actually enjoy catered food, we're able to deliver a menu that travels well and consistently exceeds expectations," she said.

At Jim N Nick's, Leuty said the biggest challenge with catering is consistency as the brand grows. It is adding eight or nine restaurants a year, and it would be easy to lose the brand's culture and grit.

"For many guests, a catered event is their very first introduction to our brand, so it has to deliver every time," Leuty added. "We're a scratch-made kitchen, so there are no shortcuts. Whether someone's dining in or catering an event of 200, they should get the same great experience. Maintaining that standard at scale is our biggest challenge, but it's also our greatest reward. That's what builds trust, and that's what keeps guests coming back."

To learn more about what the data says about catering and how these experts are handling catering in their restaurants, register for the Restaurant Catering Workshop HERE.

About Mandy Wolf Detwiler

Mandy Wolf Detwiler is the Pizzamarketplace.com and QSRweb.com editor for Connect Media. An award-winning journalist, Mandy brings more than 20 years’ experience covering food, people and places. Mandy has been featured on the Food Network and has won numerous awards for her coverage of the restaurant industry. She has an insatiable appetite for learning, and, yes, she can tell you where to find the best pizza slices in the country.

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