How to Start a Catering Business Step by Step

The reason most catering startups stall is that they do the steps in the wrong order. They design a beautiful menu, print business cards, and then discover they cannot legally cook out of their home kitchen and have no insurance to work an event. Catering has a forced launch sequence, because each step unlocks the next: certification and a licensed kitchen come before the health permit, the permit and entity come before insurance, and insurance comes before you can legally serve a paying guest. This is that sequence, week by week, the way operators who launched in the last year actually ran it.

Week 1: Get ServSafe certified and pick your lane

Before anything else, get your ServSafe Manager certification. It costs about $180, takes a day of study and a proctored exam, and nearly every health department requires a certified food-protection manager on a catering operation. Do it first because it is the prerequisite that gates your permit later, and the timing is entirely in your control.

In the same week, pick your lane, because it changes every decision after this. Drop-off catering (you deliver, they serve) is the cheapest and fastest to launch. Full-service off-premise (you staff, plate, and serve on site) earns more per event but needs staff and rentals. Corporate lunch and wedding catering are different businesses with different buyers. You do not have to pick forever, but pick the one you launch with.

Week 2: Lock a commissary kitchen before you do anything else

A commissary (a licensed commercial kitchen you rent by the hour or month) is the foundation everything else sits on. Your health permit application will ask where you cook. Your insurance will ask. You cannot answer either until you have a signed agreement. Rates run $15 to $35 an hour or $500 to $1,500 a month for a shared commercial kitchen; look at shared-use kitchens, church or VFW halls with commercial kitchens, restaurants renting off-hours, and dedicated commissary businesses.

Lock this before you design a menu, because the kitchen’s equipment sets your ceiling. No combi oven means no large-batch roasting; two burners means you cannot plate for 200. The equipment you have access to decides what you can sell, so tour the kitchen with your draft menu in hand.

Week 3: Form the LLC and file for your permits

Now the paperwork, and now it will actually go through because you can name a legal kitchen on it. Form an LLC to separate your personal assets from the business, since one guest with food poisoning who sues can otherwise reach your house; state filing runs $50 to $500. Get a free EIN from irs.gov in ten minutes. Then apply for your catering-specific licenses: a health department catering permit or license, a food-handler or manager certificate on file (your ServSafe from week one), a business license from your city, and a sales-tax permit if your state taxes catered food.

The full registration walkthrough, entity choice and all, is in how to set up and register a catering business. Do not skip the sales-tax permit; catering is taxed in most states and back taxes plus penalties are a brutal surprise in year one.

Week 4: Bind insurance and open supplier accounts

With an entity and a kitchen, insurance will finally quote you. You need general liability (typically $1M per occurrence / $2M aggregate), which runs about $500 to $1,500 a year for a small caterer and is required by nearly every venue before they let you in the door. If you serve alcohol, add liquor liability, because a GL policy does not cover it and one over-served guest in a car is a catastrophic claim. Add commercial auto if you deliver in a dedicated vehicle.

In the same week, open accounts with a restaurant depot or foodservice distributor like US Foods, Sysco, or Restaurant Depot so you buy at wholesale, not retail. The equipment and smallwares you need to start are covered in buying equipment and supplies for a catering business; rent the big-ticket items (chafers, linens, tables) for your first events instead of buying.

Week 5: Build a menu you can actually execute and price it

Only now do you design the menu, because only now do you know your kitchen, your suppliers, and your costs. Build a tight menu you can execute flawlessly, not a giant one you can barely manage. Then price on food cost: your ingredient cost per person should land around 28% to 35% of what you charge, with the rest covering labor, rentals, overhead, and profit. Price per head, quote a minimum guest count, and always require a deposit.

The full pricing method, food-cost math, deposits, and contract terms, is in setting the best prices and billing for a catering business. Get this right before the first event, because a mispriced menu loses money on every plate no matter how good the food is.

Week 6: Run one test event at cost before you sell

Before you take a real client’s money and reputation, cater one low-stakes event at cost: a friend’s 30-person party, a family gathering, a community lunch. Charge just enough to cover food. The point is not profit; it is to stress-test everything at once, the prep timeline, the transport, holding food at safe temperature, plating on site, and cleanup, while the cost of a mistake is a mildly annoyed friend, not a ruined wedding.

You will discover things no plan reveals: that your van has no room for the chafers, that hot food dropped 20 degrees in transit, that plating 30 covers took twice as long as you guessed. Fix all of it here, where it is cheap.

The rule: launch drop-off if you have little capital and want cash flow fast, then add full-service once your systems are proven and you have the staff and rentals to deliver a flawless served event.

Getting found is the part that decides everything

You can execute all eight weeks perfectly and still fail if nobody knows you exist. Two free moves in weeks 7 and 8: claim and fully complete your Google Business Profile with real photos from your test event, and ask every past client and your test-event guests for a Google review, because your first 15 to 20 reviews pull more inquiries than any ad. Getting your first clients and customers is its own discipline worth studying next.

The harder part is a website that turns a searching couple or office manager into a booked event. That gap, between a page that looks fine and one that actually converts inquiries, is invisible until you compare the booking numbers, and it is the work we do. To have the site handled instead of guessed at, get a free video walkthrough. For ads and SEO once you are running, see our services. And if you want the full business plan behind the numbers before you spend, start at expntl.com.