Local restaurants are the heartbeat of any thriving city. By supporting these small businesses, it helps the local economy flourish, creates new jobs, and keeps the area vibrant. You can also guarantee that the money spent goes right back into the community.
But local restaurants have recently faced many hardships, from inflation to recouping losses from the pandemic. Happily, catering is one way local restaurants can stay successful, especially during challenging times, and ezCater makes it easy to find and support these businesses in your own community.
As part of our own ongoing effort to support locally owned restaurants, we reached out to three Boston restaurants who use ezCater. We asked them how they got started and how ezCater has helped them transform their small business.
Noon Mediterranean
For seven years, the owners of Noon Mediterranean have been providing a taste of the flavorful recipes they remember from their childhood in Europe to hungry eaters across greater Boston. Dedicated to providing only the highest quality food available, everything on their menu is made from scratch using only the freshest ingredients avaliable.
Like so many other local restaurants, the pandemic hit their business hard. However, owner Mark Rivera said they managed to beat the odds by using ezCater. “Catering is currently 55% of my business and I would not be open today if it were not for ezCater,” he said.
In addition to providing a vital source of income, catering through ezCater also helps Noon’s staff by taking additional tasks off their plate, like answering phones to take orders and manage order issues. This also minimizes errors by having guests place orders themselves.
Mark added that using the ezCater mobile app helps streamline the entire process, from receiving the orders, to making any changes, to hearing concerns and relaying positive feedback to his staff.
“I also use ezDispatch [ezCater’s network of reliable drivers] as well, which is great because this saves me time from having to find drivers for my orders,” he added.
Skewers Catering
Named by the Boston Globe as one of the city’s best kebab restaurants, Skewers Catering earned its reputation by consistently putting out delicious Greek-style dishes with their signature smoky flavor. Independently owned and operated, Skewers was established in 2001 and has since become an immensely popular takeout and catering business.
As Skewers developed their catering menu, it was ezCater that helped boost the restaurant’s popularity by assisting them with their marketing efforts, helping them to reach more businesses in the community by promoting them on the ezCater marketplace, according to owner Ann Karakatsanis. Karakatsanis, who originally hails from Derry in Northern Ireland, runs the business with her husband, Pantelis, an immigrant from Kalymnos, Greece.
“The platform enables our customers to order from us on their own time and schedule,” she added.
As the pandemic hit and businesses shut down, Skewers catering services were reduced to a trickle. Karakatsanis credits ezCater for helping them through it, both by offering the restaurant guidance on safety procedures, such as how to prepare individually packaged meals properly, while at the same time communicating those safety measures to their customers through website and email messages.
“ezCater was a great help as they marketed on our behalf to those businesses that were still open and in need of food delivery,” she said.
Although the pandemic changed many things about American work culture, one trend she’s noticed is the return of the buffet style of catering. Another post-COVID change she’s seen is that certain days for catering are busier than others, likely impacted by the increased WFH trend, with Friday now being the least busy day for catering.
She also commented that Relish, which provides recurring, individually-packaged employee meals, is a very unique offering by ezCater.
Revival Cafe + Kitchen
Combining a passion for top-notch coffee beverages and food that fuses tradition with a modern twist, Revival Cafe + Kitchen has quickly become a beloved staple in the Boston area. The brainchild of Liza Shirazi of Crema Cafe and Steve “Nookie” Postal of Commonwealth Market & Restaurant, the duo has created a place that is dedicated not only to their craft, but to hospitality as well.
This also extends to their catering services, which runs the gamut from drop-off style to white-glove service. According to Chelsea Jennings, Revival’s Marketing and Sales Manager, “Catering has become an integral part of our business.”
Since opening in 2018, Revival’s catering program has grown significantly, and without it, Jennings says there would definitely be a negative impact on their abilities to continue operations. With catering accounting for around 12% of their business, it has also helped create job opportunities.
“Our catering team is made up of three people who focus full time on our catering operations, but much of our back-of-house staff help with catering production on a daily basis,” Chelsea said. “Expanding our catering to include on-site staffed events has also given our team additional work opportunities as well.”
Chelsea added that she has also seen a shift regarding which days are the most popular for catering since the pandemic ended.
“Something we’ve noticed since people have returned to work post-COVID is that Mondays and Fridays are pretty non-existent in terms of catering. The bulk of our catering is done between Tuesday and Thursday,” she said. “Thursday has definitely become the new Friday in terms of catering and office culture.”
So the next time you need to feed your team or cater a business meeting, make your money go further by staying local. You can start by finding locally owned restaurants on ezCater today.
