By Matt Plapp
In my last article, we talked about four essential restaurant marketing funnels designed to drive sales and customer retention. Originally, this week was going to continue with the final four funnels, but something happened at America’s Best Restaurants HQ that made me shift gears: catering sales…or lack of them.
This past week, the catering funnel was front and center in our business, and I realized just how critical it is. If you’re not actively pursuing and optimizing your catering funnel, you’re leaving an insane amount of money on the table.
To highlight this, let me share a frustrating yet telling story. A local restaurant owner recently posted on Facebook, complaining about how slow business was and that customers weren’t supporting them. I commented on the post, tagging my team member Desiree, who places our weekly catering orders, and I let them know that we cater at our office every Friday and would order from them the following week. And we did.
Guess what happened? Absolutely nothing. No follow-up. No thank-you. No effort to secure a repeat order.
Think about that for a minute. A local business comments on a post where you are “begging” for business, saying they cater lunch every week at their office. Then they order from you the following week…and you do nothing to cement a long-term relationship.
This is the core problem—restaurants ignore potential recurring revenue streams and then blame customers for their struggles.
The Silent Opportunity You’re Ignoring
Would you rather sell 30 people one meal each or one person 30 meals monthly? If you run a restaurant, the answer should be obvious, but for most, it’s not.
We buy lunch for 30 to 40 people at our office every week. That’s 52 catering orders in a year. And yet, over the past year of doing this, not one single restaurant has ever followed up with us. No calls. No thank-yous. No “Hey, how often do you order catering?” Nothing.
This isn’t just about my experience. It’s happening everywhere. At a recent event in Las Vegas, I spoke with a restaurant owner who did $450,000 in catering last year. When I asked how many of those customers they had followed up with, he answered, “Probably none.”
That’s a half-million-dollar opportunity left on the table. Literally.
The 3-Step Catering Funnel That Will Transform Your Business
Here’s what needs to happen every time a catering order comes in to your restaurant:
Step 1: Pick Up the Damn Phone!
When someone places a catering order, someone from your restaurant needs to pick up the phone and say thank you. Then ask a few simple questions:
- “How did you hear about us?”
- “What’s the occasion?”
- “Do you order catering regularly?”
That last one is crucial. If they say yes, you have a chance to start a conversation about becoming their go-to caterer.
Step 2: Drop Off a Bonus With the Food
Every catering order is an opportunity to turn one-time buyers into repeat customers. So send more than just the food. Include:
- A stack of bounce-back gift cards
- A personalized thank-you note
- A special offer for their next catering order
If you’re feeding 100 people at an office lunch, why not give all 100 of them an incentive to visit your restaurant? This is how you convert catering customers into dine-in guests.
Step 3: Follow Up and Lock in Repeat Business
One week after the order, follow up with the person who placed it. Ask:
- “Hey, just checking in—how was your catering order?”
- “Would you be interested in setting up a recurring monthly or quarterly order?”
If you make it easy for them, most businesses will jump at the chance to put their office lunches on autopilot. You’re not just selling a meal—you’re selling convenience.
The Missing Piece: Your Catering CRM and Automated Follow-Ups
If you don’t have a dedicated system to manage your catering leads, you’re making things way harder than they need to be. You need a part of your tech stack to specifically work for catering, and it should automate key steps, including:
- A thank-you message when they opt-in with an initial offer
- Biweekly nurture campaigns highlighting excuses to cater this month or week
- A team member monitoring and managing relationships via email, text and phone calls
This isn’t just a nice-to-have—it’s essential if you want to maximize your catering revenue without chasing every order manually.
The Rapid Fired Pizza Story: A Massive Mistake
A few years ago, I asked Rapid Fired Pizza (RFP), a client near our office, if I could work a few weekly shifts to gain a different perspective on restaurant marketing. I wanted to be on the front lines to test my ideas and see if I was correct about some of my theories related to in-store marketing.
On Friday, I arrived to find an excited staff. A 25-pizza catering order had come in the night before through their website. I asked the owner a simple question: Who placed it? Coming from a sales background, this was the first thing that popped into my head. Nobody knew who placed it, so I checked the email on the receipt, went to their website and found out they were a local engineering firm. When the guy picked up the order, I asked him why they picked RFP for this order.
Turns out, his company caters lunch for their team every Friday—and it rotates between their employees’ favorite spots. My next question to him seemed natural to me but not something anyone there was doing consistently. I said, “So if we are your favorite spot, with the right bribe, we could probably make it into the rotation more frequently, right?” He laughed and said, “You know it.”
After that, nothing happened—and a client who could have easily turned into a recurring catering order simply became a thing of the past. Why? RFP did not have a program in place to manage that relationship, which is also known as a catering funnel.
Stop Leaving Money on the Table!
Every restaurant should have a catering funnel to turn big orders into long-term, repeat business. It’s not complicated—it’s just about being proactive.
So here’s your action plan:
- Create a system for identifying and tracking catering customers.
- Pick up the phone and thank every catering customer.
- Include bounce-back offers with every catering order.
- Follow up within a week and lock in a recurring order.
If you do this, you can stop begging for customers and build a predictable, high-value revenue stream.
I know last week I promised a free training and download on how to gain customer opt-ins through Facebook Messenger. That will be part of next week’s article, where I cover the last three funnels and how to gather data on autopilot with Facebook’s Comment Growth Tool. Stay tuned!
My name is Matt Plapp. I’m the CEO of America’s Best Restaurants. I’ve worked with thousands of restaurants since 2008 when I started this company, and over the next 12 months, we will help 2,500-plus restaurants with their marketing. This is the latest article in a new weekly column for PMQ to help restaurant owners understand the gold mine we have to market in 2025—and beyond.
