Backyard Entrepreneur^TM

Home Cooking Caterer

If people take the trouble to cook, you should take the trouble to eat. -- Robert Morley

Make money as an entrepreneur working at home or nearby as a caterer.  Find a niche and create meals that can be made only by you. 

Get a License

Most locales require that you have a separate kitchen from the one your family uses.  Even if they do not require this, you should do it. You can convert an extra bed room into a kitchen.  It should be a closed area away from other cooking facilities.  Tile the floor and walls so that it will be easy to clean.  Have two separate sinks.  One for cleaning pots and pans and a separate one for washing hands.

Make certain that a health inspector comes out regularly to check up on you and that you post his/her approvals.  Have all the necessary licenses posted.  You want to make certain that your customers trust you for cleanliness and health.  Be open to all who wish to inspect.

 Find Your Niche with these Ideas

This can be a lucritive business and you can do as much or as little as you wish. You may want to go all out for the formal affairs or simply meet the daily needs of your customers.  Here are some ideas for your niche.  Specialize in just one, combine several, or find a void in your community and fill it.  For example, your town may need soul food or maybe barbeque.

1. Package homemade cookies and snacks for kids away at college or in the military. Add appropriate details to the gift such as books or desk items. Find out something about the kids when you take the order.

2. Deliver homemade school lunches at lunchtime for kids who do not like the school lunch or have special needs and want a really neat home cooked meal. Their friends will be so envious. Add a decorative napkin you make with a cute saying or holiday theme.

3. Romantic dinners under the stars. See our Amateur Astronomer page.

4. Beach and picnic lunches. Add a bottle of sunscreen or mosquito repellant.

5. Adult kids will hire you to provide special lunches for their elderly parents.

6. Professionals need homemade food gifts delivered to bosses and secretaries.

7. Students need special and unique gifts for teachers.

8. Working parents need home-cooked meals.

9. Couples want breakfast in bed. Bring the supplies and cook in their kitchen. Add a newspaper.  Advertize your services as a mobile personal chef.

10. Teachers have in-service and staff meetings.  You provide the meal and the lecture.  Let's say kids are not doing well on state science tests required for graduation.  If they do not graduate, they will not get the good paying jobs., If they do not have lots of money, they will not get to eat lots of cake (or bread).  If they do not eat cake (or bread), they do not learn all about baking soda and baking powder. There is a science to cooking and it take lots of money to eat.  Learn science so you can graduate and eat.  You need both science and food.

11. Businesses have all kinds of meetings. Meet their needs with something other than cold sandwiches delivered from a deli.

12. Create special meals for each month.  Meal of the Month Club.

13. Create diet meals – nine servings of fruits and vegetables each day washed down with pomegranate juice.

14. Put together tea parties for kids.  See our page Backyard Babysitter for more ideas.

15. Create the food for garden parties.  See our page about gardeners for more ideas.

16. Put together food for camping trips.  See our backyard bed and breakfast page for more ideas.

17. Put together parties to celebrate birds.  See our page for ornithologists, and our page for party planner, and Birdacious.com for more ideas and supplies.

18. Create a resturant in your backyard that caters to pets.  See our page for pet caretakers for more ideas.

19.  Your town has a history.  Who were the original settlers?  What foods did they eat?  Is there a local food tradition?  Create a business around that. For example, Gail Borden lived in Galveston, Texas, among other places.  An entire menu can be created around Borden food products.

20.  Every school in the nation needs a coffee and tea bar.  The teachers are stuck in the building all day long and cannot escape.  They are at the mercy of the coffee makers in the building.  Teachers join the coffee club and either contribute some money or bring in a can of coffee.  Whoever finds the coffee pot empty makes the next pot of coffee.  It is better than nothing.  But your business would be even better. What a super service you could provide.  Name your business for the school mascot:  Tiger Teas, Bear Cave Coffees, Mustang Coffee Corral, High Mountain Ram Coffee Lodge, or Panther Tea and Coffee Den.

21.  Chuckwagon -- Decorate your van and make daily rounds.  Set up shop in parking lots for craft fairs.

22.  Package your healthy homemade bread, butter, and jam together to sell.

Sell Your Packaged Mixes and Kits

Create wonderful dry mixes such as spiced tea, cookies, s'mores, trail mixes, soups, and whatever else you can think of that will work well as a dry mix.  Create kits of all kinds.  The kit above is a Pi Kit to teach pi to kids.  There is a pie plate, a cheese cake mix with cookie crumb topping or cherry topping, a tape measue to measure the circumference and diameter, and a place mat with a pi theme. 

Design Plates

Use plates that you design for each occasion with kits from Small Fry Originals.

Design your Line of Placemats

Your customers will have various themes.  You can create paper-throw-away placemats or more durable ones.  Use them to advertise your business, sell them, or use with your business for an added touch.   For example, use the above template, then add your own designs to it for each specific need. 

Design and Sell Aprons

You need to wear one, others need them, and this is a good way to advertise your business.  Find a theme and promote it.  Make a variety for all aspects and themes that you can come up with.

© Backyard Entrepreneur^TM 2007

Link to us.  Contact us if you wish your site listed on this page as a resource for catering.

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