The Office Lunch Catering Checklist Every Office Manager Needs

Choosing between the Fajita Bar and Brack's is the fun part of booking office lunch catering. Whether the day actually goes smoothly comes down to logistics most people don't think about until they're standing in a lobby with a driver who can't find the loading dock - and that logistics work almost always lands on the office manager. This is the checklist we walk clients through before their first order, organized in the order it actually needs to happen.

1. Collect Dietary Info Before You Request a Quote

Send your team a two-question form a few days ahead: any allergies, and any vegetarian, vegan, or gluten-free needs. Walking into a quote request with real numbers - "3 vegetarian, 1 gluten-free, 22 total" - lets us plan proteins and portions accurately from the start, instead of padding a generic order and hoping it covers everyone. It's also considerably faster than fielding individual dietary requests the morning of the event.

2. Confirm Building Access Before You Book, Not After

Loading dock or street parking? Elevator or stairs to your floor? Does the caterer need a visitor badge, an escort, or advance notice to building security? These questions feel like an afterthought right up until a delivery is standing in the wrong lobby five minutes before your meeting starts. Pass this information along when you book the order, not when the driver calls from downstairs.

3. Set an RSVP Cutoff That Actually Works Backward From Prep Time

Most catering orders need a firm headcount 24-48 hours out to source ingredients and prep correctly - that's not an arbitrary deadline, it's how far ahead real food actually needs to be planned. Build your internal RSVP cutoff around that window rather than expecting your caterer to absorb same-day headcount changes; asking for that flexibility usually means a compromise somewhere, whether that's food quality, protein availability, or delivery timing.

4. Get Specific About What "Delivery" Includes

Ask exactly what's covered: is the spread set up and labeled on-site, or dropped at the door in sealed boxes for your team to arrange? Is cleanup part of the service, or does someone internally need to handle it after the meeting wraps? Settling this before the order ships avoids an awkward scramble for serving spoons or trash bags mid-lunch.

5. Confirm the Delivery Window Against Your Actual Meeting Time

Give your caterer the meeting's real start time, not a loose "around noon." A good caterer builds setup time in before your requested window so the spread is ready when people walk in, not still being unpacked - but that only works if the start time you give is the one that actually matters.

6. Tell Attendees What's Being Served, Not Just When

A short heads-up email - what's on the menu, where it'll be set up, and roughly when it'll be ready - cuts down on the "wait, what are we eating?" messages during the meeting itself and gives anyone with a dietary need one more chance to flag it before the order is finalized. This matters more for larger or cross-team lunches where not everyone was part of the original planning thread.

7. Know Your Options if Something Changes Last-Minute

Meetings move, headcounts shift, and sometimes a delivery runs a few minutes behind a hard schedule. Before the day of, know who to call if something changes - not the general office line, but the specific contact from your original quote - and understand roughly what's still adjustable that close to delivery (usually very little on headcount, sometimes more on delivery timing if you flag it early enough).

8. Keep a Standing Order Template for Repeat Bookings

If your office caters lunch on any kind of regular cadence, save your usual headcount, dietary breakdown, building access notes, and delivery instructions somewhere reusable. It turns every future request into a two-line email with updated headcount and date, instead of rebuilding the same logistics conversation from scratch each time.

9. Debrief After the First Order

The first catering order with any new vendor is where you actually learn the details that matter for next time - whether the elevator instructions you gave were clear enough, whether the RSVP window gave people enough notice, whether the delivery arrived with the buffer you expected. A five-minute debrief with whoever handled setup, right after the first order, saves far more friction on the second and third than any amount of upfront planning can.

Small Group vs. Large Group Logistics

Most of this checklist matters more as headcount grows - an 8-person lunch can usually absorb a missed detail or two without anyone noticing, while a 50-person all-hands amplifies any logistics gap into a visible delay. If you're booking your first catering order and the group is small, it's reasonable to move faster through this list; if it's a large, multi-department event, it's worth going through every item deliberately rather than assuming it'll work itself out.

Book Your Next Office Lunch

When you're ready, browse our Catering menus or send your headcount and date through a quote request and we'll handle the rest - including asking the logistics questions above if you haven't already covered them.