S & L Caters

“Okay everyone has a story some good, some bad, but everyone has one, this is ours...”

My name is Rich, my wife Shondra and I have been together twenty years. We have three beautiful daughters, the oldest is Loryn (who works with us), Jessica and Hannah (who are still to young to be involved with the company). We have been involved in the food industry for more years than I care to talk about.  We have worked for private owners and the large chains (I’ve been a chef, a kitchen manager, a bar manager, and a restaurant General Manager). So how did we find ourselves in the catering business you may ask... This is our story...

My oldest friend’s son and now daughter in-law were planning the wedding of there dreams. They had made all the arrangements, the hall was booked, the church reserved, the dress fitted, the tuxedo's rented, photographer, all 350 guests invited and RSVP... well I could go on, but I’m sure you get the idea. 
Then it happened, they received a call from the hall.  The hall had fired their house caterer, because they were tired of them showing up to formal events in jeans and t-shirts, and now they had caught them shorting an event on food because they had other bookings the next day (yes this happens).

As you could imagine they were in a panic, what were they going to do, how could they find someone with this short of notice.  Then my phone rang, my friend called to see if I could help. He knew our family background and thought if I didn’t have the time, at least I might lead him to someone (like he didn't know I would do whatever it took to make this happen, we’ve been friends since kindergarten).  We put everything on hold and called in some favors to put together a staff (most of which is still with us).  Five weeks later we had a uniformed staff to cook, serve, and clean up, and reception was a success.

The hall wanted us to become their new house caters and other guest requested our service.  But we were not caters, we did not even know if we wanted to be caters.  We knew that it meant if we were going to do this, that we could never put anyone through the kind of stress and headache that my friend's family went through. That is why we say that we are "A Family company that cares about quality and integrity".  These are not just words to us, they are what we base each event on.

My wife and I took about a week to talk it over.  At the time we both had full-time jobs, and three children to care for. Would we be able to fit a business in with all that we had already?  We decide that we would try one event (she was waiting for me to promise that she was the boss) and we had such a good time working together as a family that we didn’t want to stop. We now have weekly clients and have several different venues that we work with. My love for this business is only foreshadowed by my love, for my wife (aka the boss) and our family.

Thanks for your time,

 Chef  Rich