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Party On.

Article Excerpt
By Christine LaFave Grace, Associate Editor

Operators seek pockets of opportunity in catering, even as potential clients face drastically curtailed events budgets.

For Spartan Catering, the catering arm of San Jose State University Dining Services, the business picture heading into the 2009-2010 fall semester was pretty bleak.

'For [August], we were down almost 40%,' says Jay Marshall, executive chef and assistant director of catering. 'The vice president of finance and administration, [his office] usually does a welcome-back breakfast; that was cut out altogether.' And Marshall and his staff already have been told that an annual end-of-the-school-year celebration will have a budget 40% to 50% of what it was in spring 2009. 'I guess 40%, 50% is better than zero,' Marshall says, aiming to put things in perspective.

Still, for Spartan Catering, the new economic reality doesn't mean merely cutting operating expenses temporarily but rather making wholesale changes to the business. Already some employees have had their hours reduced, and the department is considering a name change to help promote the fact that it also provides off-campus catering services.

Across the country, operators that offer catering find themselves in similarly...