How to Order Catering in Brooklyn From First Call to Pickup

How do you order catering in Brooklyn?

You call, you say what the occasion is and roughly how many people you're feeding, and the kitchen sizes the trays with you. There's nothing more to it. Catering isn't a checkout button with a shipping estimate. It's a short conversation, and at 1172 Park Place in Crown Heights that conversation happens at 718-799-7160.

What makes the call easy is that the prices are already published. The catering menu here is 18 items across 4 sections, and every number on it is a full pan price. Trays run from $40 to $165. So you can build the spread in your head, or on the back of an envelope, before you ever pick up the phone. You're not calling to find out what things cost. You're calling to settle the things a list can't settle.

What should you decide before you pick up the phone?

Three things, and none of them take long.

Start with the occasion

A repast, a christening, a birthday in a backyard on Sterling Place, a Friday office lunch and a church hall meeting all want different food and a different amount of it. Say the occasion out loud at the start of the call. It carries more information than any other single sentence, because it tells the kitchen how long people will be eating, whether they will go back for seconds, and whether the room is standing or sitting. If yours is a birthday or an anniversary, planning party catering in Brooklyn covers what changes when the room is celebrating rather than eating and leaving.

Then the rough shape of the room

Nobody expects a final number. A range is fine. Say something like "somewhere around forty, could be fifty" and let the kitchen work with that. A guest list that's still moving is normal. Mention it on the call. Don't hide it.

Then the spread

Have a rough idea of what you want on the table. Most tray orders come together as one rice, one or two proteins and two sides. You don't need it finalised. You need enough of an opinion that the conversation has somewhere to start.

How do you build a spread from a full-pan catering menu?

Read the menu as four jobs, not eighteen items.

The rice or starch is the base of the plate and the cheapest way to add volume. White Rice is $40. Pan Jollof Rice is $85, cooked in the West African style, and it is the tray people photograph. FreeTown Pasta is $85, with chicken at $15 more, shrimp at $20 more or steak at $30 more.

The protein is the center of the order and where most of the budget goes. Pan Fried Chicken and Pan Baked Chicken are $100 each. Jerk Chicken and Fried Chicken Suya are $120. Pan Turkey Wings are $140. Pan Whiting is $115, Pan Shrimp $125, Pan Salmon $150. Pan Steak is $160, Pan Lamb and Lamb Suya $165.

The sides do the rounding out. Pan Collard Greens and Pan Caesar Salad are $60 each, Mashed Potato is $80, Mac and Cheese is $90.

Then there is the fourth job, which is the one people forget. Something on the table has to be the safe choice for the person who does not experiment. A $90 pan of Mac and Cheese usually is. The full price picture, and what pushes an order toward the top of that range, sits in what Brooklyn catering trays cost by the pan.

What happens on the call to 718-799-7160?

You give the occasion, the date and the rough headcount. The kitchen tells you what that usually looks like in trays. You adjust. Somebody reads the order back to you.

That last part matters more than it sounds. A tray order read back out loud is where you catch that you ordered two rices and no greens, or that you forgot the party is at your mother's apartment and there is one oven. Ask for the read-back if it does not come.

The call is also where you ask your own questions, and you should have a few ready. The questions worth asking any caterer covers the ones that decide whether an order works, and it is written to be used on any kitchen in the borough, not only this one.

Which details can only be settled by a person?

More than you would expect, and this is the honest part of the answer.

None of those are printed anywhere, here or at most kitchens, because none of them have a single answer. They are date-dependent and order-dependent. Ask them on the call and write the answers down. If a caterer will not give you a straight answer on the phone, that is information too.

How does collection work at 1172 Park Place in Crown Heights?

The address is 1172 Park Place, Brooklyn, NY 11213, between Kingston and Albany in Crown Heights. If you are collecting, the practical questions are how many hands you are bringing and what the trays are traveling in. Full pans are heavy, they are wide, and they do not like being stacked on a car seat at an angle.

Two people move a six-tray order comfortably. One person moving the same order makes four trips and gets cold food on the last one. Bring a flat surface in the trunk, or a couple of towels to wedge the pans so they sit level.

Whether the alternative is available for your order and your address is a phone question, not a website question. Weighing collection against delivery for a Brooklyn catering order lays out the tradeoffs so you know which one you are arguing for when you call.

What should you do the day before?

Confirm the order, confirm the time, and confirm who is collecting. Then stop thinking about food and look at your room.

Count your serving spoons. Count your plates. Decide where the table is going and which direction the line moves. Catering solves the cooking. It doesn't solve the serving, and the gap between those two things is where most host stress lives on the day.

If the event is at a rented space rather than a home, the venue's rules about what you can plug in and when you can be in the room shape the order more than the menu does. For the neighborhood picture, including what is within walking distance of the kitchen, see catering in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.

Then it is one call to 718-799-7160, one collection, and a table people go back to twice.