How to Get Corporate Catering Clients (Step-by-Step for Restaurants)

To win corporate catering clients, sell to the person who orders the food, not to the company. That's usually an office manager, an executive assistant or someone on the HR or people team. Make a list of those people inside your delivery area, contact them a few times over three weeks by email, phone and (with permission) text, offer a tasting, get the first order exactly right, then propose a standing order.

Office accounts are the steadiest part of restaurant catering revenue because offices reorder, and they are open to trying someone new. In ezCater's survey of more than 2,300 workplace food stakeholders, released in May 2026, 91% of workplaces planned to spend the same or more on food in 2026, up from 82% in 2024, and 96% tried a new restaurant in 2025. Your job is to get in front of the right person with an offer that's easy to say yes to.

Step 1: Know who places the order

Companies don't order lunch; people do. In most offices, catering falls to one of three roles, and each one cares about different things.

Two more people matter at bigger companies: whoever pays your invoice (accounts payable may ask for a W-9 or a vendor form before the first payment) and, sometimes, a workplace or facilities lead who runs a recurring meal program. Find out early who they are.

Whatever the title, the buyer's real worry is the same: being the one who gets blamed when lunch is late or someone's meal is wrong. Everything you send and deliver should make them look good.

Step 2: Build your list

Pick your territory. Start with the area you can reliably deliver to on time, with food at the right temperature, not the biggest circle on the map. Inside it, rank by distance and size: the closest, largest offices go first.

Find businesses that feed people regularly. Look for standing meetings, training sessions, client visits or long shifts: law, accounting and consulting firms, medical and dental practices, tech and sales offices, real estate brokerages, car dealerships, schools, co-working spaces and corporate campuses.

Find the name. For each business, find the person from step 1. Search LinkedIn for the company plus "office manager" or "executive assistant", check the company's team page, or call the main line and ask who handles food for meetings. Building lobby directories and chamber of commerce member lists help you find businesses; a polite call is often the fastest way to the name.

Record the basics. For each contact, keep the company, address, rough headcount, contact name, role, email, direct phone, where you found them and a notes field for what you learn (a Thursday team lunch, a lot of vegetarians, a marketplace they order from now). Mark each one A, B or C by fit, and contact the A list first.

Your own data is a list source too: delivery orders that go to office addresses, and past catering customers who've gone quiet. Our guide on how to get catering leads compares those and the other lead sources a restaurant has.

Step 3: Have an offer an office manager can say yes to

Before you contact anyone, have something easy to buy. A corporate buyer wants to pick a package, give a headcount and get back to work.

• Three or four packages with per-person prices: individually boxed meals for meetings, a buffet or family-style option for bigger groups, and a breakfast or snack option if you can do it well.
• Dietary information your kitchen has checked: a vegetarian option at least, with ingredients and allergens listed. Don't call a dish gluten-free or allergen-free unless your kitchen can back the claim, including cross-contact during prep.
• The rules on one page: minimum headcount, how much notice you need, the latest time they can change the headcount, the delivery window, setup and cleanup, and your cancellation policy.
• Easy payment: card on file, invoice, or one monthly statement for regular orders. Have a W-9 ready to send.
• A first-order offer that doesn't train them to wait for discounts: a free tasting for the buyer and a couple of colleagues, free delivery on the first order, or a dessert tray on the house.

Start from our corporate catering menu template and catering proposal template, and get a starting per-person price from your food cost with the catering pricing calculator.

Step 4: Contact each buyer a few times over three weeks

One email is easy to ignore. Five or six short, specific messages across email, phone and a visit give a busy buyer several easy chances to answer. Each one asks for one thing: a tasting date or a meeting to cater.

A sample schedule

Anyone who says "not now" moves to a slower list: a check-in each quarter and a note before seasonal moments such as year-end parties. Anyone who says no, or asks you to stop, goes on your do-not-contact list for every channel.

First email (day 1)

Subject: Lunch for [Company]'s next team meeting?

Hi [First name],

I'm [Your name], [owner or catering manager] at [Restaurant name] on [street], a few minutes from your office. We cater team lunches and meetings for offices around [neighborhood].

Our most popular office order is [package name]: individually boxed [dish type], each box labeled with its dish and ingredients, delivered and set up before your meeting starts. It's $[price] per person before tax, and we can put regular orders on one monthly invoice.

Could I drop off a free tasting for you and a couple of colleagues next week? [Day] or [day] around [time] works on our end.

Thanks, [Your name], [Title], [Restaurant name] · [Direct phone] · [Catering page URL]

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This is an advertisement from [Restaurant legal name], [street address, PO box or registered private mailbox], [city, state ZIP]. To stop receiving sales emails from us, reply "unsubscribe" or email [address]. We'll remove you within 10 business days.

Add one line that shows you did your homework, such as their new office, a growing team or the holiday-party season coming up.

Call opener (day 3)

"Hi [First name], this is [Your name] from [Restaurant name] over on [street]. I emailed you on [day] about team lunches. Are you the right person for food for meetings there? Could I bring you a tasting next week so you can see what we do?"

If they're interested, ask before you text: "Is it OK if I text you the menu at this number?" Note the answer, and the date, in your list.

Text (day 5, only with permission)

"Hi [First name], it's [Your name] from [Restaurant name]. Thanks for the call. Here's our office lunch menu: [link]. Want me to hold [day] for your tasting? Reply STOP to opt out."

Second email (day 8)

Subject: A boxed lunch idea for [Company]

Hi [First name],

One idea for your next team meeting: our [package name] for [headcount] people, with [main dish], [side] and [dessert], individually boxed and labeled. For [headcount] people that's $[total] before tax, delivered by [time].

If a tasting first would help, I can bring one by on [day].

[Your name], [Restaurant name] · [Direct phone]

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This is an advertisement from [Restaurant legal name], [street address, PO box or registered private mailbox], [city, state ZIP]. To stop receiving sales emails from us, reply "unsubscribe" or email [address]. We'll remove you within 10 business days.

Last email (week 3)

Subject: Should I check back next quarter?

Hi [First name],

I don't want to fill your inbox. If team lunches aren't on your plate right now, should I check back next quarter instead? A one-word reply is plenty.

[Your name], [Restaurant name] · [Direct phone]

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This is an advertisement from [Restaurant legal name], [street address, PO box or registered private mailbox], [city, state ZIP]. To stop receiving sales emails from us, reply "unsubscribe" or email [address]. We'll remove you within 10 business days.

The rules for each channel

The short version, which isn't legal advice: sales email to businesses is allowed if you follow a few rules, sales calls to business lines are mostly exempt from Do Not Call, and texts and automated calls to cell phones need permission.

• Email. The FTC's CAN-SPAM compliance guide says "the law makes no exception for business-to-business email." A commercial email needs accurate header information, a subject line that reflects the content, a clear disclosure that it's an advertisement, your valid physical postal address (a street address, a PO box or a registered private mailbox) and a clear way to opt out, honored within 10 business days. The FTC says each violating email can draw penalties of up to $53,088.
• Which emails need the footer. The FTC judges an email by its primary purpose. Every email in the schedule above is commercial, so each carries the full footer. The exemption for transactional or relationship messages is narrow: content that only facilitates, completes or confirms a transaction the buyer agreed to, such as an order confirmation or an invoice. An email that mixes the two counts as commercial if its subject line suggests a promotion or the transactional part doesn't come first, so a "thanks for your order, here's our new menu" note needs the footer too.
• Calls. The FTC's Do Not Call Q&A for sellers says "most phone calls to a business made with the intent to solicit sales from that business are exempt from the Do Not Call provisions." That exemption doesn't lift the TCPA's separate consent rules for autodialed calls to cell phones.
• Texts. The FCC has said its autodialing restrictions on calls to cell phones "encompass both voice calls and texts", and that prior express written consent is required for autodialed texts that advertise. Text only people who've agreed to it, and honor STOP right away.
• AI voices. If you're weighing an AI dialer, the FCC ruled in 2024 that calls made with AI-generated voices are "artificial" under the TCPA, so the consent rules for prerecorded calls apply to them.

Keep one do-not-contact list across email, phone and text, check it before every send, and ask a lawyer about your state's rules before you scale up.

Step 5: Turn the tasting into a flawless first order

The tasting is a sales meeting with food. Run it like one.

• Bring it to the buyer at a time they chose, sized for them and two or three colleagues, not the whole floor.
• Make it look like the real order: the same packaging, labels and setup.
• Bring the paperwork: the corporate menu, a one-page order form and your card.
• Ask for a date before you leave: "Do you have a team lunch or meeting in the next few weeks we could do?" If they name one, book it on the spot.

Then make the first order flawless, because it's the audition for every order after it:

1. Two days before, confirm the headcount, dietary needs and allergies, address, on-site contact, parking and building access in writing. Have your kitchen review any allergy request before you confirm it.
2. Arrive early. Late food is the one problem the buyer can't fix.
3. Label every box or tray with the dish and the ingredient and allergen information your kitchen has confirmed.
4. Bring plates, utensils, napkins and serving tools without being asked.
5. Send the invoice the same day.
6. Check in the next morning and ask how it went. Our catering follow-up email templates include that note.

If something goes wrong, tell the buyer before they notice and say what you'll do differently next time. A problem you own is easier to forgive than one you hide.

Step 6: Turn the first order into a standing order

A one-time order is a lead. A standing order is an account, and accounts are where catering money concentrates: MONKEY's 2026 data, reported by Food On Demand, found that "60 percent of catering orders come from just 5 percent of customers." Recurring office food is growing, too. In ezCater's 2026 workplace research, daily or weekly meal programs "spiked 26% year-over-year."

After the second or third good order, propose a schedule that fits how the office already works:

• Match their rhythm: a weekly or every-other-week team lunch, a monthly all-hands meeting or quarterly planning days.
• Lock in the routine details: a standing headcount, a cutoff for changes, a rotating menu so nobody gets tired of it, and one monthly invoice.
• Name one contact: give the buyer a direct line to one person at your restaurant who knows their order.
• Review it each quarter: ask what's working, what to rotate and whether other teams in the building need food.

Worked example: Say an office of 20 agrees to a standing lunch every other week at $18 a person. That's $360 an order, 26 orders and $9,360 of sales a year from one account. If your average takeout ticket is $30, each of those orders brings in the sales of 12 takeout tickets, booked ahead on days you can staff for. Food, packaging, labor and delivery still come out of the $9,360.

To see what several standing accounts would add, run your numbers in the catering revenue calculator. If accounts go quiet after a few orders, why restaurants lose catering revenue covers where the leaks usually are.

If you don't have time to run this yourself

Every step above is sales work, and the restaurant still has to run. Kutlerri.ai's Catering Sales Agent takes on this work as a managed service: it finds catering-fit businesses within 30 miles of your restaurant, runs the email, call and text outreach with Kutlerri's own sales team behind it, answers inbound catering inquiries and drafts quotes and invoices, and you approve every quote. The RASA case study shows how those steps ran for one five-location brand.