Helping Foodservice Businesses Enhance Front-of-House Presence
while Improving their Operations, Brand, and Profits

After working the nightclub scene in Houston for decades, I moved to sunny San Diego to follow my dream of owning a business. I filled my days with running and growing my own catering company.     

By the time I sold it 9 years later, I had learned a lot about what to do, what not to do, and how to save as much time and money as I could because, well, that’s how you run and grow a successful business. Change is always a daily event - embrace it and make it part of your growth plan.

I can say beyond a shadow of a doubt that my catering business had healthy margins and happy clients. I pride myself on that. It’s how my business matured into one of the top catering companies in this great city.

Now that I’ve moved on to a new chapter in my life (one that’s a bit easier on the back and knees), I want to share my insight with you, fellow caterer.

I’m sharing because I want your events to be the talk of the town, your companies healthy, and your employees happy and dedicated.

Here’s some Catering 101 tailored from what I’ve learned:     

Savvy hotel operators are always on the lookout for the newest trends because it’s a smart way to differentiate themselves from the competition. When they're successful, whether their property appearance is modern and fashionable or traditional and faux-authentic, guests will:

• Be comforted by their investment decision
• Feel smart about their wise choice
• Tell their friends and support your marketing awareness
• Return again and again!

The smartest, trend-minded hotel operators (that’s you!) look for small changes that offer just the right touch of panache to upgrade their overall look. And if you have your eye on improving food and beverage (F&B) displays and serveware, you’re gazing in the right direction:

“As it turns out, when done properly, F&B offerings can significantly elevate a hotel’s profitability and long-term success.”
- Hotelier Magazine

We’re going to help you stay trend-forward in 2018 with a sneak peek at tomorrow’s styles within a frame of affordable, incremental upgrades you can easily apply to your F&B displays and serveware throughout your property.

As a professional caterer, you know that speed is the key to success. The faster you can serve, the more parties you can book, the healthier your company gets. That’s why nearly any professional catering service uses speed racks: you tray up your food on aluminum sheet pans, put it on the speed rack, and out the door you go.

However, once you get on-site, it’s fairly typical for operations to slow down because often caterers have to take their food off the sheet pans, re-plate it, and then serve. This step not only slows down your service but you also loose food temperature in the process.

If you opt for melamine serving trays instead of aluminum sheet pans, you set yourself up to bypass this slow part altogether, allowing you to go from speed rack to service in seconds. 

We’ll tell you why.

Heiss™ aluminum cookware is now available from G.E.T. Watch the introductory video featuring our resident metals expert, Mike Halles, as he tells you the many benefits this innovative cookware will bring to your foodservice operation.  

If you prefer to read, we've provided a transcription below the video. Enjoy! 

We recently noticed that our customers have been more interested in 1/2 and 1/3 size food pans for their chafing dishes than the typical hotel pans they usually request. This shift in demand got us curious about what's going on in the catering industry, so we asked around.

There are some smart caterers out there! They've figure out how a very simple technique can significantly reduce food waste and keep more money in their pockets. It was a really great tip for us, so we're here to share it with you.  

Consumers' demand for healthy dining options isn't likely to go anywhere anytime soon. When there's demand, supply is typically not far behind, hence the proliferation of salad concepts, including self-serve salad bars. 

While you may earn repeat customers with salad bars, operators often find them expensive with low returns. To help operators meet consumer demand and get the most out of their salad bars, we've leaned on our 30+ years' experience to create a list of 8 Ways to Increase Profits at Your Salad Bar to keep you guests coming back for more. Any operator can benefit from these tips whether you're installing your first salad bar or enhancing a legacy system. 

Off-site caterers encounter different environments and resources at nearly every event site, requiring more problem solving and adaptability skills than most traditional commercial kitchens demand. If your catering menu includes hot food options, one constant you'll need to navigate is finding the right tool for providing direct or indirect heat, or possibly both.

We're going to take a look at how chafing fuel, induction cooktops, and butane gas heat sources solve for different resources, rules, and restrictions that off-site caterers often face while serving at various venues.

On-site and off-site caterers need reliable heat sources to effectively serve their clients' guests. With indoor and outdoor event sites and varying restrictions on open flame, it's a good idea to build in some nimbleness to your catering operation. 

Chafing fuel is an old go-to for caterers. But induction heat has enjoyed popularity growth recently, in part because of new options on the market, making it less expensive than it used to be. They're both effective heat sources that perform similar job functions, but in different ways. Let's see how they stack up against each other. 

You’ve smartly decided to invest in resin-coated aluminum serve ware and cold bar systems for your foodservice operation. Now when your guests look at your cold bar, they're greeted with clean lines, sophistication, and bold vessels drawing them into their dining experience. Your old stainless setup could never attract the crowd you’re winning with resin-coated aluminum, especially if you're using G.E.T.'s Bugambilia® collections, Classic and Fit Perfect™.

To keep your pieces looking out-of-the-box new, you’ll want to follow some basic care and maintenance. Here at G.E.T., we’re huge fans of our customers getting the very best out of their investments, so we’ve assembled a resin-coated aluminum care and maintenance guide just for you.
 

Unless you're a foodservice operator who's mastered the art of levitating food, your food is going to come into contact with surfaces. A lot of them. Our food is constantly in contact with something at every point in its life cycle. 

As a foodservice operator, your #1 priority is the safety of your guests and staff. Period. It doesn’t matter how delicious a dish is if it comes into contact with an unapproved surface resulting in illness or injury. Your guests count on your food safety knowledge every time they visit your establishment. And we want you to count on us at G.E.T. to light the way toward excellent tabletop execution, especially when it comes to food-safe surfaces.