Understanding Catering: What type of Catering is right for me?

Catering is more than just preparing food — it’s the art and service of providing custom meals for events, gatherings, or everyday convenience, outside of a traditional restaurant setting. At its core, catering bridges the gap between the food and beverage industry and the clients who are looking for a tailored dining experience at a specific time and place. There are several types of catering services that provide their own value to meet the preferences of the client. Let's explore them below.

Drop-Off Catering: Convenience Delivered

When the average person thinks of catering, they typically tend to default to the sub-sector of Drop-off catering. This type of catering is one of the simplest and can be personalized with dietary accommodations, themed packaging, and a variety of menu options tailored to the occasion. It involves prepared food being delivered to a location, often packaged in disposable trays or containers, ready for guests to serve themselves. This service is mostly sought out for casual events like office lunches, birthday parties, or funerals where the goal is to simply feed their guests high-quality food. The end product is ready-to-enjoy meals that are easy to consume and dispose of after the event.

Full-Service Catering: The Restaurant Literally Comes to You

LemonCo's full-service catering takes things a step further by offering not only custom, unique food items, but also decoration design & implementation, servers/mixologists, setup/breakdown crew, and essential rentals. It’s perfect for weddings, galas, or large-scale events where presentation, timing, and guest experience are key. In many ways, full-service catering mimics a mobile restaurant — transforming a venue, tent, or even a backyard into a fully functional dining space tailored to the event's overall theme. The full-service catering team handles everything from plating to bartending, ensuring guests are served hot, beautifully presented dishes, just like in a fine dining establishment — except everything is brought to the location of the event.

Full-Service Catering or a Restaurant?

If full-service catering brings the restaurant to me, why not rent out a space at a restaurant? This is a very valid question and should be addressed at the beginning of the event planning process.

From your personal experience, what restaurants have you been to (or know of) where a customer can walk-up to the chef and ask them to create a menu from scratch for you and your guests?

If you are looking for a culinary experience that your guests won't forget, it's worth while exploring the customization factor provided in the full-service experience.

In addition, restaurants have a specific theme and vibe that attracts people to their locations. You have to ask yourself if their environment aligns with the experience you are trying to create at your event for your guests.

Having the full-service catering experience allows you create the custom menu, choose the venue, and take control of the decoration theme. This type of service is for those who are looking to create a one-of-a-kind event.

Catering as Mobile Dining Experience

Catering is essentially the evolution of the restaurant — portable, flexible, and highly customized. Whether it's the hands-off ease of drop-off catering or the immersive, hospitality-driven approach of full-service catering, both models allow people to enjoy high-quality food wherever they are. In that sense, catering acts like a mobile restaurant: bringing culinary experiences to life beyond four walls.

Connect With Us!

Interested our drop-off or full-service catering services? Still curious which catering is right for you? Reach out below and we will talk through your vision with you and figure-out the best possible option!