Catering is the business of providing foodservice at a remote site.

Mobile catering

A mobile caterer serves food directly from a vehicle or cart that is designed for the purpose. Mobile catering is common at outdoor events (such as concerts), workplaces, and downtown business districts.

Event catering

Event ranges from box-lunch drop-off to full-service catering. Caterers and their staff are part of the food service industry.

When most people refer to a "caterer", they are referring to an event caterer who serves food with waiting staff at dining tables or sets up a self-serve buffet. The food may be prepared on site, i.e., made completely at the event, or the caterer may choose to bring prepared food and put the finishing touches on once it arrives.

The event caterer staff are not responsible for preparing the food but often help set up the dining area. This service is typically provided at banquets, conventions, and weddings. Any event where all who attend are provided with food and drinks or sometimes only hors d'oeuvres is often called a catered event.

Many events require working with an entire theme or color scheme. A catering company or specialist is expected to know how to prepare food and to make it attractive. As such, certain catering companies have moved toward a full-service business model commonly associated with event planners. They take charge of not only food preparation but also decorations, such as table settings and lighting.

The trend is towards satisfying all the clients senses with food as a focal point. With the correct atmosphere, professional event caterers with experience can make an event special and memorable.

Beautifully prepared food alone can appeal to the senses of taste, smell, and sight - perhaps even touch, but the decorations and ambiance can play a significant part in a successfully catered event.

Catering is often sold on a per-person basis, meaning that there is a flat price for each additional person. However, things like lighting and fire permits are not scaled with the guest count, so per-person pricing is not always appropriate. It is necessary to keep the cost of the food and supplies below a price margin in order to make a profit on the catering.

As many others in the food service industry, caterers and their staff work long hours. It is not uncommon for them to work on holidays or 7 days a week during holiday event seasons.

A comprehensive, formal full-service catering proposal is likely to include the following elements:
* Time-line matters: rental arrival time, staff arrival time, bar open time, meal serve time, bar close time, rental pickup, out-of-venue time. Each of these factors affects the catering price.

For example, a rental quote for an "anytime" weekday delivery is usually much more economical than an "exact-time" delivery.

• General menu considerations: Clients may have specific dietary or religious needs to consider. these include Halal, Kosher, Vegetarian, Vegan and food allergy requests. Increasingly, clients are interested in food sustainability and food safety.
• Hors d'oeuvres: it should be clear if these are passed or stationary. Most caterers agree that three or four passed items are appropriate for the one-hour period prior to a meal.
• Meal Rentals: May include tables, chairs, dance floor, plants, tabletop (china, flatware, glassware, linens, chargers), bar glassware, serving equipment, salt/peppers, etc. It should be clear whether table and chair setup and take-down is included. Most rental companies do not automatically include setup and take-down in the rental charges.
• Labor: Verbiage varies from caterer to caterer, but generally speaking, an event will have a Lead/Captain/Event Manager, a Chef, perhaps a Sous Chef or Kitchen Assistant, Wait staff and Bartenders. The labor on a plated dinner is generally much higher than the labor on a buffet, because a plated dinner involves double the china, and usually a minimum of three served courses, plus served coffee. Simply put, there's a lot more to do. To do it properly requires roughly 10 to 50% more staff. On a large event, this can be substantial, especially if overtime or doubletime applies.
• Service Charge: Sales TaxSome quotes will include lighting, fire permits, draping, florals, valet and coat check.Many venues discreetly get a "cut" of the catering bill. Caterers are contractually committed to not disclose this fee specifically in their contracts with the clients. Therefore, catering will sometimes cost substantially more at one venue versus another.Also, caterers must compete with illegal operators. A legitimate caterer will have a business license and a health permit both showing the address of the place from which they do business.

ALL ABOUT LUNCH

Luncheon, commonly abbreviated to lunch, is a midday meal.

In English-speaking countries during the eighteenth century what was originally called "dinner"— a word still sometimes used to mean a noontime meal in the UK, and in parts of Canada and the United States — was moved by stages later in the day and came in the course of the nineteenth century to be eaten at night, replacing the light meal called supper, which was delayed by the upper class to midnight.

Lunch was originally intended as a vehicle in which working classes could escape their job and purchase alcoholic beverages.

The mid-day meal on Sunday and the festival meals on Christmas, Easter, and Thanksgiving (in the U.S. and Canada) are still often eaten at the old hours, usually either at noon or between two and four in the afternoon, and called dinner. Traditional farming communities also may still commonly have the largest meal of the day at mid-day and refer to this meal as "dinner."

Origin of the term

The abbreviation lunch, in use from 1823, is taken from the more formal "Lunchentach," which the OED reports from 1580, as a word for a meal that was inserted between more substantial meals.

In medieval Germany, there are references to nuncheontach, a non lunchentach according to OED, a noon draught— of ale, with bread— an extra meal between midday dinner and supper, especially during the long hours of hard labour during haying or early harvesting. In Munich, by the 1730s and 40s, the upper class were rising later and dining at three or four in the afternoon, and by 1770 their dinner hour in Pomberano was four or five. A formal evening meal, artificially lit by candles, sometimes with entertainment, was a "supper party" as late as Regency times.

In the 19th century, male artisans went home for a brief dinner, where their wives fed them, but as the workplace was removed farther from the home, working men took to providing themselves with something portable to eat at a break in the schedule during the middle of the day. In parts of India a light, portable lunch is known as tiffin.

Ladies whose husbands would eat at the club would be free to leave the house and have lunch with one another, though not in restaurants until the twentieth century. In the 1945 edition of Etiquette, Emily Post still referred to luncheon as "generally given by and for women, but it is not unusual, especially in summer places or in town on Saturday or Sunday, to include an equal number of men"— hence the mildly disparaging phrase, "the ladies who lunch." Lunch was a ladies' light meal; when the Prince of Wales stopped to eat a dainty luncheon with lady friends, he was laughed at for this effeminacy. Afternoon tea supplemented this luncheon at four o'clock, from the 1840s. Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management had much less to explain about luncheon than about dinners or ball suppers:

The remains of cold joints, nicely garnished, a few sweets, or a little hashed meat, poultry or game, are the usual articles placed on the table for luncheon, with bread and cheese, biscuits, butter, etc. If a substantial meal is desired, rump-steaks or mutton chops may be served, as also veal cutlets, kidneys, or any dish of that kind. In families where there is a nursery, the mistress of the house often partakes of the meal with the children, and makes it her luncheon. In the summer, a few dishes of fresh fruit should be added to the luncheon, or, instead of this, a compote of fruit or fruit tart, or pudding. —Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management

Practices

Lunch food varies. In some places, one eats similar things both at lunch and at supper - a hot meal, sometimes with more than one course. In other places, lunch is the main meal of the day, supper being a smaller cold meal.

Many people eat lunch while at work or school. Employers and schools usually provide a lunch break in the middle of the day, lasting as much as an hour. Some workplaces and schools provide cafeterias, often called canteens, where one can get a hot meal (in British schools female staff who serve lunch are often known as "dinner ladies"). In some work locations one can easily go out to eat at a nearby restaurant. Where these conveniences are not available it may be impractical to make lunch the main meal of the day. In these cases relatively simple foods might be packed in a container, such as a bag or a lunchbox, and taken to work or school. Many worksites are visited regularly by catering trucks, which provide lunch.

The quintessential bag lunch (also, brown bag from the brown paper sack used to carry it) in North America of the past has consisted of a sandwich and often a whole fruit and either cookies or a candy bar. But now, the near-universal spread of the microwave oven to the workplace since the 1980s has changed the nature of workers' lunches considerably. Leftovers from home-cooked meals, frozen foods, and a huge variety of prepared foods needing only reheating are now more common than the sandwich lunch.

A similar tradition exists in Britain, where schoolchildren and workers bring in a prepared lunch in a lunchbox. This will usually contain, at the least, a sandwich, a bag of crisps and a drink, possibly with a chocolate bar and some fruit. However, this is now changing in the workplace due to the ubiquity of small cafés in cities as well as the microwave. It remains common in schools and among builders where such facilities do not exist on-site.

In Australian primary and high schools, most children bring a lunch box that contains a morning snack for recess (usually fruit or a muesli bar) and a sandwich for lunch.

Lunches also serve as a popular reward in settling wagers. This is typical in an office setting where buying a coworker lunch to settle a wager is the normal method of payment. Generally there will be a cap on the amount the buyer should spend on the lunch.

On weekends in the United States it is popular to combine a late breakfast with lunch, called a "brunch". Brunches often feature more elaborate fare than ordinary breakfasts, and may include desserts and alcoholic beverages, such as mimosas, which are not ordinarily served with breakfast.

Purpose

In addition to its primary purpose, lunch can function as a form of entertainment, especially on weekends; a particularly fancy or formal lunch can be called a luncheon. Such lunches can be served at a restaurant, as a buffet or potluck, or as a sit-down feast. These events are very similar to festive suppers. Lunch, both simple and fancy, often includes dessert.

Many nutritionists suggest that it is more appropriate to eat a large meal at lunch than it is to do so at supper, just before going to sleep, when the energy from the meal will not be properly used. An example of this style of meal can be found in the German, Brazilian and Scandinavian diet, whose lunch mostly is large and cooked (as opposed to, say, a sandwich).

In a full cricket match that lasts more than one day, there is a luncheon interval in each day's play, usually taken between 12:30pm and 1:30pm. In one-day matches the break is taken between innings.

In other languages

A traditional Bengali luncheon is a seven course meal. First course being 'shukto', which is a mix of vegetables cooked with less amount of spices and topped with coconut icing. Second course consists of rice, dal and a vegetable curry. The third course consists of rice and fish curry. The fourth course is that of rice and meat curry (generally chevon, mutton, chicken or lamb). The fifth course contains sweet preparations like rasgulla, pantua, rajbhog, sandesh etc. The sixth course consists of payesh or mishti doi. The seventh course is that of paan, which acts as a mouth freshener.

In French the midday meal is called déjeuner, taken between noon and 2 p.m. It is the main meal in the South of France. The evening meal is the main meal of the day in Northern France but lighter in Southern France, taken around 6 - 7 p.m. (North) or 8 (South), is called dîner or souper (though the last one is used too to call a night-time meal, usually after 11 p.m.).

In Canadian French lunch is known as dîner. The Anglicism lunch means an invitational light meal usually eaten while standing and not necessarily around noon. It is offered for example in vernissages.

In Arabic it is ghathaa', a modified derivative of the word ghithaa', a general descriptive word of 'food'. Normally it is eaten between 2 and 4 p.m.

In Lithuanian it is pietu-s and is the main meal of the day. The word lunch is translated as priešpiec(iai (meaning pre-dinner) and would be brunch.

In Welsh it is tocyn but this also means snack. "Cinio" can also be used to describe lunch, however "cinio" can also be used to describe the evening meal alongside with supper.

In Esperanto it is "tagmang^o".

In Portuguese it is almoço. The word lanche refers to afternoon tea. It usually consists of a full hot meal, similar to dinner, normally with soup, a meat or fish course, and desert.

ALL ABOUT PARTIES

A party is a gathering of persons who have been invited by a host for the purposes of socializing, conversation, and recreation. A party will typically feature eating and drinking, and often music and dancing as well. Some parties are held in honor of a specific person, day, or event (e.g., a birthday party, a Super Bowl party, or a St. Patrick’s Day party). Parties of this kind are often called celebrations. A party is not necessarily a private occasion. Public parties are sometimes held in pubs and bars, and people attending such parties may be charged an admission fee by the host.

Types of parties

Birthday party A birthday party is a celebration of the anniversary of the birth of the person who is being honored. Birthday parties are a feature of many cultures.In Western cultures, particularly in the United States and Australia, birthday parties are often accompanied by colorful decorations, such as balloons and streamers. A birthday cake is often served with candles that are to be blown out after a “birthday wish” has been made. While the birthday cake is being brought to the table, the song Happy Birthday to You is sung by the guests. Wealthy people and celebrities may hire an event management agency or a party service to organize a birthday party.A child’s birthday party may be held at his/her home or in a public place. Soft drinks and both sweet and savory foods are typically served to the guests. In many cultures, a birthday cake is served. Birthday parties for children often feature entertainment, costumes, and a theme. Adults’ birthday parties in Western countries are often held in bars or nightclubs.

Surprise party
A surprise party is a party that is not made known beforehand to the person in whose honor it is being held.Birthday surprise parties are the most common kind of surprise party. At most such parties, the guests will arrive an hour or so before the honored person arrives. They conceal themselves from view, and when the honored person enters the room, they leap from hiding and all shout “Surprise!!”For some surprise birthday parties, it is considered to be a good tactic to shock the honored person. Streamers, silly string, and balloons may be used for this purpose. Evidence of a party, such as decorations and balloons, are not made visible from the exterior of the home, so that the honored person will suspect nothing.

Parties for teenagers and young adults
Parties that are held by teenagers and young adults include house parties, dance parties, and outdoor parties. The term “house party” refers to a party where a large group of people get together at a private home to socialize. House parties that involve the drinking of beer pumped from a keg are called keg parties or “keggers.” These parties are popular in the United States and Australia but are illegal for persons under the legal drinking age. Sometimes, even older partygoers run afoul of the law for having provided alcoholic beverages to minors. Arrests may also be made for violating a noise ordinance, for disorderly conduct, and even for operating a “blind pig.”Dance parties and gatherings in bars or community centers where the guests dance to house music, techno music, or disco. The music for dance parties is usually selected and played by a disc jockey.Outdoor parties include bush parties and beach parties. Bush parties (also called “field parties”) are held in a secluded area of a forest (“bush”), where friends gather to drink and talk. These parties are often held around a bonfire. Beach parties are held on a sandy shoreline of a lake, river, or sea, and also often feature a bonfire.School-related parties for teenagers and young adults include proms and graduation parties, which are held in honor of someone who has recently graduated from a school or university.A crush party is a party in a sorority or fraternity where the sisters or brothers are given a certain number of invitations (according to their “crushes”). These are passed on to friends outside of the sorority/fraternity and given to the “crushes” (while keeping secret the name of the inviter). There may be some sort of disclosure at the party, so that the guests can find out who has a crush on her/him.A spin-off of dance parties, the rave involves dancing to loud house music or techno music. Rave parties may be attended by a few hundred people in a club or by thousands in a large warehouse.

Singles dance party and mixer A singles dance party and mixer is a party which is organized for people who are not married and who want to find a partner for friendship, dating.Usually a “mixer game” is played, to make it easy for people to meet each other. For example, each guest may be given a card with an inspiring quotation on it. The game is to find someone of the opposite sex who has the same quotation. Couples who have matching cards may be given a small prize.These parties are sponsored by various organizations, both non-profit and for-profit.

Marriage-related parties

• Bachelor party (aka UK: Stag Night; Australia: Bucks Night)
• Bachelorette party (aka Hens Night)
• Divorce party
• Wedding reception

Dinner party A dinner party is a social gathering at which people eat dinner together, usually in the host’s home. At the most formal dinner parties, the dinner is served on a dining table with place settings. Dinner parties are often preceded by a cocktail hour in a living room or bar, where guests drink alcoholic beverages while mingling and conversing.At less formal dinner parties, a buffet is provided. Guests choose food from the buffet and eat while standing up and conversing. Women guests may wear cocktail dresses; men may wear blazers.At some informal dinner parties, the host may ask guests to bring food or beverages (a main dish, a side dish, a dessert, or appetizers). A party of this type is called a potluck or potluck dinner. In the United States, potlucks are very often held in churches and community centers.

Tea party In Anglo-American culture, a tea party is a formal gathering for afternoon tea. These parties are tradtionally attended only by women, but men may also be invited.Tea parties are often characterized by the use of prestigious tableware, such as bone china and silver. The table, whatever its size or cost, is made to look its prettiest, with cloth napkins and matching cups and plates.In addition to tea, larger parties may serve punch or, in cold weather, hot chocolate. The tea is accompanied by a variety of easily managed foods. Thin sandwiches such as cucumber or tomato, cake slices, buns, and cookies are all common choices.

Housewarming party A housewarming party may be held when a family, couple, or person moves into a new house or apartment. It is an occasion for the hosts to show their new home to their friends. Housewarming parties are typically informal and do not include any planned activities other than a tour of the new house or apartment. Invited family members and friends may bring gifts for the new home.

Block party A block party is a public party that is attended by the residents of a specific city block or neighborhood. These parties are typically held in a city street that has been closed to traffic to accommodate the party.At some block parties, attendees are free to pass from house to house, socializing, and often drinking alcoholic beverages.

Farewell party
In many cultures, it is customary to throw a farewell party in honor of someone who is moving away or departing on a long trip.

Cast party
A cast party is a celebration following the final performance of a theatric event, such as a play, a musical, or an opera. A party of this kind may also be held following the end of shooting for a motion picture (called a “wrap party”) or after the season’s final episode of a television series. Cast parties are traditionally held for most theater performances, both professional and amateur.Invited guests are usually restricted to performers, crew members, and a few others who did not participate in the performance.

Pre-party
A pre-party is a party that is held immediately before some event, such as a school dance, a wedding, a birthday party, or a bar mitzvah. These parties are usually of short duration and sometimes involve getting ready for the event (e.g., the guests may put on makeup or costumes). Guests usually leave at the same time and arrive at the event together.

After-party
An after-party is a party that is held after a musical or theatric performance or after some other event, such as a wedding or a school dance. Guests are usually limited to friends of the host.

Fundraising party
A fundraising party, or fundraiser, is a party that is held for the purpose of collecting money that will be given to some person or to some institution, such as a school, charity, business, or political campaign. These parties are usually formal and consist of a dinner followed by speeches or by a presentation extolling whatever the money is being raised for.It is very common to charge an admission fee for parties of this kind. This fee may be as high as several thousand dollars, especially if money is being raised for a political campaign.

Parties on special days Australia

• Australia Day

Canada

• Canada Day

Christian

• Christmas
• Easter
• Mardi Gras
• Saint Patrick’s Day

India

• Chaand Raat (Eid)
• Diwali
• Holi

International

• All Saints’ Day
• Candle Night
• Cinco de Mayo
• Eid
• Festivus
• Halloween
• New Year’s Eve
• Saint Patrick’s Day

Iran

• Nowruz

Ireland

• Saint Patrick’s Day

Islamic

• Eid al-Adha
• Eid ul-Fitr

Jewish

• Hanukkah
• Passover
• Purim

Scotland

• Hogmanay

United Kingdom

• Guy Fawkes Night

United States

• Independence Day, aka the Fourth of July
• Super Bowl Sunday

Other parties

• A costume or fancy dress party

An offshoot of the classic masquerade ball. The costumes of guests provide the theme of the event.

• A game party

A social gathering during which the guests play party games.

• A LAN party

A party that involves multi-player computer games and uses a Local Area Network.

• A political houseparty

A party that is hosted in a private home for the purpose of supporting a particular candidate, political party, or ballot measure, or to share information and opinions about an upcoming election.

• A pool party

A party in which the guests swim in a private swimming pool.

• A sleepover or pajama party, also called a slumber party

A party for which the guests are invited to stay overnight at the home of the host. These parties are only for teenagers or young children.

• A toga party

A party in which the guests wear togas. Toga parties were made popular by the movie Animal House.