How to Choose a Caterer: An 18-Year Caterer's Checklist

How to choose a caterer: taste the food, verify they're licensed and insured, check real references, and read the contract for staffing, timing, rentals, and cancellation before you sign anything. The food is the fun part. The other four are what save your event.

I've been on both sides of this. I've been the caterer getting hired, and I've been the friend who gets the panicked text two weeks out: "Lucia, the caterer just told me linens aren't included and the balance is due Friday, is that normal?" Most of those panics trace back to the same thing. The host picked on price and a pretty website, and never asked the boring questions.

So here's the boring-questions checklist, in the order I'd actually use it. Eighteen years of weddings, corporate events, and private parties taught me this list, and most of it I learned by watching things go wrong.

Start With the Tasting

If a caterer won't do a tasting, that tells you something. For weddings and larger events, a tasting is standard, and a good caterer wants you to have one. It protects them as much as you. Nobody wants to discover on the day that you hate their signature sauce.

A few things to watch at a tasting beyond whether you like the food:

• Is the food presented the way it'll be served? A single plated portion in a quiet kitchen is easy. Holding 120 of those portions at temperature across a two-hour service is the real test. Ask how they hold and plate at volume.
• Do they listen? If you say "my mother-in-law can't do dairy" and they nod and move on, that's a flag. A pro writes it down and asks follow-ups.
• Is the seasoning consistent? Catering food is cooked in bulk. Bulk food drifts bland if the kitchen isn't disciplined.

Some caterers charge for tastings, often crediting it back if you book. That's fair. Free unlimited tastings are a luxury most good shops can't afford, and I'd be a little suspicious of a busy caterer who offers them.

One more thing about tastings: bring the people who actually decide. I've watched a couple love every dish, only to have a parent who's footing the bill veto half the menu a week later because they were never in the room. If someone has a real say in the food, get them to the table while there's still time to adjust. And come with your guest profile in mind. A tasting that delights two of you is lovely, but you're feeding 100 people with different palates, so ask how a dish reads to a crowd, not just to you.

Verify Licensing, Insurance, and Permits

This is the part nobody wants to ask about and everybody should. A real catering business has:

• A business license and food handler / safe-serve certification. The people touching your food should be trained. Ask.
• A health department permit for their commissary kitchen. Cooking out of a home kitchen for paid events is illegal in most places, and it means no inspection, no accountability, and real liability if someone gets sick.
• Liability insurance, usually $1 to $2 million general liability. Many venues require it and will ask for a certificate of insurance naming the venue. If your caterer can't produce a COI in a day, they may not actually have coverage.

I keep all of mine in a folder ready to send. Any established caterer does. If asking for these makes someone defensive, you have your answer. Move on.

Check References That Are Real

Online reviews are useful but gameable. I ask hosts to request two or three references from events similar to theirs, ideally in the last year, and to actually call them. The questions that matter:

• Did the food arrive on time and hot?
• Was the final bill close to the quote, or did fees appear?
• How did the staff handle problems? Because something always goes a little sideways, and the measure of a caterer is how they recover.

A caterer who's proud of their work hands over references without flinching. One who stalls is buying time.

I'd also weigh recency over volume. A glowing review from four years ago tells you about a team that may have completely turned over since. Kitchens change. The chef who built a caterer's reputation might be long gone. Ask who's cooking your event specifically, and whether the references you're calling worked with that same crew. A caterer with a great name and a brand-new kitchen brigade is a different bet than one with a stable team, and you deserve to know which you're hiring.

Read the Contract Like It's a Lease

The contract is where the real deal lives. The menu is the easy part. Here's what I tell friends to find in writing before they sign.

A few of these deserve extra attention.

Staffing in writing. "We'll bring enough staff" is not a number. I put exact counts and hours in my contracts. If your caterer won't, you have no recourse when two servers show up for 100 guests and the line backs up to the parking lot.

Overtime. Events run long. Find the overtime rate now, not at 10pm when the staff are technically off the clock and your dance floor is full.

Cancellation and weather. For outdoor events especially, know the rain plan and who pays for it. Deposits are usually non-refundable, and that's standard, but the cancellation tiers should be spelled out so a life event two months out doesn't cost you the whole bill.

For a deeper list of what to ask before signing, I keep a running set in questions to ask a caterer.

Dietary Handling Separates Pros From Amateurs

How a caterer talks about allergies and dietary needs tells me everything about their kitchen discipline. The right answers sound like this: they ask for restrictions in advance, they label dishes at buffets and stations, they keep allergen prep separate, and they can speak intelligently about cross-contamination. The wrong answer is a shrug and "we'll figure it out."

I've watched a guest with a shellfish allergy go pale because nobody flagged the stuffing. That can't happen on a competent caterer's watch. If dietary planning feels like an afterthought to them, it'll be an afterthought on your plate.

Pin Down What's Included

Half the catering complaints I hear are really "I didn't know that cost extra." Before you compare two quotes, make them include the same line items. The usual hidden ones:

• Delivery, setup, and breakdown fees
• Rentals (this one's huge, and drop-off quotes almost never include it)
• Service charge versus actual gratuity, and whether staff see the service charge
• Cake-cutting or corkage fees
• Tasting fees

I broke down how these stack up in catering cost per person in 2026. The short version: the headline per-head number is the least reliable thing on a quote.

Red Flags in a Vague Bid

After 18 years, here's my gut-check list. Any one of these is a yellow flag. Two or more, and I'd keep looking.

• A single per-head number with no itemization
• No mention of staffing counts or hours
• Reluctance to show insurance or permits
• Pressure to sign fast or pay a large deposit immediately
• "Don't worry about it, we'll handle everything" with nothing in writing
• Communication that's already slow during the sales phase, when they want your business most

That last one is underrated. If a caterer is hard to reach while courting you, imagine how reachable they'll be on a Tuesday when you have a question about a wedding that's 90 days out.

One Small Tool That Helps

If you're managing the planning yourself, keep everything in one place. I'm old-fashioned about it and still like a physical wedding and event planner notebook for tracking counts, deadlines, and which vendor said what. The paper trail has saved more than one of my clients an argument.

My Honest Take

Choosing a caterer is mostly about removing surprises. The food matters, but you can find good food in a dozen places. What you're really hiring is reliability, paperwork that holds up, staff who show up trained, and a person who tells you the truth about what things cost. Taste the food, verify the boring stuff, read the contract twice, and trust how someone treats you before you've paid them. It predicts how they'll treat you after.

When you're ready to compare real, vetted options, browse our caterer directory and bring this checklist with you.