This article is part of a series called “Getting Off-Premises”, which examines how to build an off-premises business.

Follow Jim Rand, as he visits Haido Barnett, the owner of Andre’s Cafe in Boston. Haido talks about how catering helped her to make more money doing the same job.

TRANSCRIPT:

Jim Rand: How did you decide to do catering?

Haido Barnett: So, I had this moment where I’d maxed out most of my credit cards paying, you know, on my personal credit card the rent or the loan payments. And all of a sudden, I got an order and it happened to be through ezCater, and I saw it was about twelve hundred dollars. It’s the equivalent of, I don’t even know, maybe 200 customers that you have to get off the street, and it’s just one—boom—and it’s done.

Jim Rand: You’re right. I mean, I think the average catering order is literally ten times the size of a single in-restaurant transaction. So, a twelve-hundred-dollar order is probably a hundred times the size. Yeah, it’s great.

Haido Barnett: Yeah, it’s the aha moment.