Thoughts on 10 straight days of post-covid catered lunches

I just ended a 10-day stint as the point man on catered work lunches for 50. We don't normally do this but we're working on a big project and wanted to provide everyone with the added convenience of not having bring or go out for lunch every day. Being a food-centric person, I found it a fun and rewarding assignment, but also challenging and, at times, frustrating.

My prevailing thought is that -- most likely due to adjustments required, implemented and refined during the pandemic -- the state of catering is better than ever. For the most part, the food we had was on par or with -- or even better than -- in-house versions of the same items. Beyond that, deliveries were on time, food was packaged well (with very few exceptions) and overall, the processes were efficient. Some places preferred phone orders, some preferred emails but each place really made their preferred conduit work.

I tried to plan the menus with a focus items that would travel best but with budgetary and dietary restrictions and several other assorted preferences and parameters, there's only so much one can do. Still, even within that framework, I was very happily surprised by the quality and condition of the food that was delivered. Of course, there were ups and downs. But the highs were very high and the lows were few and far between.

Our experience is anecdotal and not without some other flies in the ointment. Most places were within just a few miles of our office in Niles. And since a few of us are regulars at some of the places that catered, that may have had an impact on the outcome. But since my main point is that catered food seems to have taken some broad leaps forward, I'm not sure that really matters. We're the same customers, whether we're eating in or getting it catered.

And that noticeable uptick in quality is really what's most interesting to me. Maybe this is one silver lining of the situation we've all endured? The places that have hung on seem to have improved their carry-out and catering games in the process. What used to make up a small fraction of their sales are now a more substantial part of their overall revenue streams. As such, they've put more resources into that area, gotten more practiced at it and have closed the gap between in-house and remote dining.

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What we all want to know: Did the Inn deliver the Pita?

JoelF wrote:What we all want to know: Did the Inn deliver the Pita?

LOL - that they did! That lunch was a very good example of the food being at a very high level for carry-out. The meats were in especially good condition.

Here's the roster, in order:

Al's Beef
Psistaria
Lou Malnati's
Little Louie's
Pita Inn
China Chef
Psistaria (the only repeat)
Los Azares
Prairie Grass Cafe
Smoque

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ronnie_suburban wrote:

JoelF wrote:What we all want to know: Did the Inn deliver the Pita?

LOL - that they did! That lunch was a very good example of the food being at a very high level for carry-out. The meats were in especially good condition.

Here's the roster, in order:

Al's Beef
Psistaria
Lou Malnati's
Little Louie's
Pita Inn
China Chef
Psistaria (the only repeat)
Los Azares
Prairie Grass Cafe
Smoque

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This is awesome! I'll never complain about free caterered lunches at work. Hopefully your coworkers appreciated that there was thought put into the quality of meals.

WhyBeeSea wrote:I'll never complain about free caterered lunches at work.

You would think pizza works well, but Piece Pizza does not travel without turning chewier than a well done steak.

That's a solid list of restaurants, your colleagues are lucky to have you =R=.

I didn't know that Prairie Grass was willing to deliver.

Is that because of your relationship with the owners ?

WhyBeeSea wrote:This is awesome! I'll never complain about free caterered lunches at work. Hopefully your coworkers appreciated that there was thought put into the quality of meals.

I think they did. It was interesting to (over)hear the differing opinions about the places. A couple that were my least favorite received a lot of positive feedback. That made me especially happy about the choices I made and the way we ordered.

lodasi wrote:You would think pizza works well, but Piece Pizza does not travel without turning chewier than a well done steak.

That's a solid list of restaurants, your colleagues are lucky to have you =R=.

The one time I ordered Piece delivered, it came via third a party and the delivery person decided to carry the box briefcase style, so you can imagine how that ended up. In any case, Piece to Niles would be a bad combination even if it traveled very well.

We as a group like the deep dish at Pequod's in Morton Grove, too but their track record on making timely deliveries took them out of the running on this series.

Lou's (Lincolnwood), we get with some regularity and these pies were as good as any I'd had from over there in a long time. On the plus side, accommodating the vegetarians is really easy with pizza. On the minus side, there's not a lot of variety once you get past the pizzas. We did have two large salads but I like to do more for the light eaters than just throw salads at them. I guess that's what thin-crust is for!

There was so much good food but a couple things that really astounded me were the egg rolls from China Chef which, miraculously, were still crispy an hour after they'd been delivered and a big tray of skirt steaks from Prairie Grass. Each one of them was indescribably tender, beautifully crusted and perfectly medium rare. It was a thing of beauty.

Personally, I also loved throwing a big pan of skordalia out there smack dab in the middle of the work day. It was kind of my Ashton Kutcher moment.

lougord99 wrote:I didn't know that Prairie Grass was willing to deliver.

Is that because of your relationship with the owners ?

I am friends with them so maybe. I asked and they said yes. I never asked them why. That said, the order was a huge catered lunch for 50 people, so I'm guessing it was worth it for them; a mutually beneficial situation. From what I know, Psistaria, Pita Inn and Smoque don't "deliver," either but I think catering is another matter. And as you can probably guess, PGC was the most expensive of the ten lunches . . . but worth every penny. I love it when you really get what you pay for.

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Very interesting information; thanks for sharing. (BTW, do you have any openings? )

Purely as a data point, Psistaria does deliver (to northwest Evanston anyway). I can never remember, but I believe it is through Grub Hub or DoorDash (or possibly both) but they are a staple in our regular Friday night ordering and we have always been quite happy with their deliveries: high quality, generous servings, well-packaged, and almost always hot, not warm.