Online Catering Orders: How to Set It Up Right for Your Restaurant

Online Catering Orders: How to Set It Up Right for Your Restaurant

A single corporate catering order for 80 people generates more revenue than a full dinner service on a busy Tuesday night. Most restaurants aren't actively selling catering online. Which means most restaurants are leaving their highest-ticket channel to chance.

Online catering orders are now mainstream. 75% of catering orders are placed online, on mobile or desktop, by clients who don't want to call, negotiate, or wait for a quote. If your restaurant doesn't have a direct ordering system, you're either invisible to those clients or sending them to a marketplace that takes 15–18% of every order.

This guide walks through exactly how to set it up right: the menu, the system, the commission math, the operational requirements, and how to promote it without a marketing budget.

Why Catering Is Worth Setting Up Properly

Catering isn't a side business. For most restaurants that offer it, it's the highest-margin revenue channel they have.

The numbers are clear. Catering accounts for about 11% of total food service revenue, but catering orders average 10 times the size of a standard restaurant ticket. A $600 corporate lunch, a $1,200 office party order, a $400 weekend event pickup, these are single transactions that outperform hours of table service.

72% of restaurants that added catering say it increased their overall revenue. The challenge isn't the food. It's the system.

Most restaurants handle catering through phone calls, custom quotes, and back-and-forth emails. That process doesn't scale and it doesn't convert clients who want to order online at 10pm without talking to anyone. A proper online catering setup removes those barriers, and keeps the revenue in-house.

The Commission Problem Nobody Talks About

Before you choose a platform, you need to understand what the popular options actually cost.

ezCater is the most widely used catering marketplace in the US. Restaurants list their catering menus, and businesses find them through the platform. Convenient. Popular. Expensive.

ezCater charges 15% commission per order plus a 2.99% payment processing fee, a total of roughly 18% on every catering transaction. On a $600 corporate lunch, you net $492. On $8,000 a month in catering volume, that's over $1,400 going to the platform every single month.

DoorDash catering operates on a similar commission structure.

This is the same math that plays out in hotel bookings (Booking.com takes 20%) and food delivery (Uber Eats takes 30%). The platform builds the infrastructure, attracts the clients, and takes a permanent cut of every transaction, including every repeat order from clients who only found you once through the marketplace.

A direct online catering system on your own website has a one-time cost. After the first month of average order volume, it pays for itself. After that, every catering order you take directly is commission-free.

You don't need to abandon platforms entirely. But every order that comes through your own site is an order where you keep 100% and own the client relationship.

Designing Your Catering Menu for Online Orders

A catering menu is not your restaurant menu with bigger quantities. It needs different logic, different formatting, and different pricing architecture.

Think in packages, not plates. Online catering clients are ordering for groups. They want to know: "What feeds 20 people, what does it cost, and what's included?" A sandwich platter for 10, a taco bar for 30, a breakfast setup for 50, these are the products you're selling. Build the menu around group sizes, not individual items.

Name packages clearly. "Corporate Lunch Package, Serves 20" beats "Package B" every time. The name should answer: how many people does it feed, and what type of occasion is it for?

Price everything upfront. Catering clients abandon online systems that require them to "request a quote." Price your packages flat. If customization is available, price the add-ons separately. Hidden pricing creates friction that costs you orders.

Set lead times and minimums. Decide your minimum order amount (common range: $150–$300) and your advance notice requirement (common range: 24–72 hours). Display both prominently, not buried in the fine print. Clients who can't meet your minimums will self-select out, which saves you the conversation.

Mark allergens and dietary options. Corporate clients ordering for large groups almost always have dietary requirements to accommodate. Clearly labeling gluten-free, vegetarian, vegan, and nut-free options isn't just helpful, it removes a barrier that would otherwise require a phone call to resolve.

Include add-ons. Disposable serving utensils and napkins, delivery to the venue, a staff member for setup, a dessert add-on, individual packaging for remote teams, these are extras that increase average order value and that clients are often happy to pay for. If you don't offer them, you don't get the revenue.

Corporate Catering: The Channel Most Restaurants Ignore

Corporate clients are the most valuable catering segment. They order frequently, they pay reliably, and they refer other companies. A marketing agency that orders lunch for meetings twice a month is worth $15,000–$20,000 annually in repeat business, with zero acquisition cost after the first order.

Most restaurants don't actively pursue corporate catering because they don't have a visible, dedicated way to take those orders. A corporate client Googling "catering for office lunch in [city]" won't find you if your catering offering is buried in a footnote on your main menu page.

A dedicated catering page on your restaurant website, with its own URL, its own content, and its own ordering flow, does two things. First, it gives you something to rank for in local search ("corporate catering [city]," "office catering [city]"). Second, it gives corporate clients the professional, direct experience they expect. They're not looking for a marketplace. They want to order directly from a restaurant they can rely on.

The setup is simple: a page that explains what you offer for corporate clients, what the minimum order and lead time are, and a direct ordering form or link to your catering menu. No phone tag. No back-and-forth. Just a clean ordering experience that treats their purchase like the high-value transaction it is.

What Your Online Catering System Needs to Handle

Not all online ordering systems are built for catering. A system designed for individual restaurant orders won't manage the specific requirements of catering without workarounds.

Here's what a proper online catering setup needs:

Advance order cutoff controls. You need to block same-day or next-day catering orders below a certain lead time. Most systems let you set a minimum advance notice per menu item or category. Without this, you'll get a catering request for tomorrow that you can't fulfill.

Minimum order enforcement. The system should reject or flag orders below your minimum automatically, not rely on you to catch it manually.

Deposit or full-payment flexibility. Catering orders typically require a deposit (commonly 50%) at time of booking with the balance due on delivery or pickup. Your payment system needs to support this split. Clients are accustomed to it. A full-payment-only system creates friction on large orders.

Package and add-on builder. The ability to create fixed packages (feeds 20, feeds 50) with optional extras (delivery, setup, utensils) is the operational core of online catering. A standard per-item ordering flow doesn't replicate this well.

Automated confirmation and prep sheets. When an order comes in, two things need to happen automatically: the client gets a confirmation with order details and pickup/delivery instructions, and your kitchen gets a prep sheet showing quantities and timing. Manual coordination at this stage is where catering operations break down.

Delivery radius and fee settings. If you offer delivery, the system should calculate delivery fees by distance and block orders outside your radius. Letting a client 40 miles away place an order and then explaining it manually costs everyone time.

Across the 50+ restaurant and hotel websites we've built at DoHospitality, the operators who invest in a dedicated catering ordering setup, rather than patching it with a contact form, handle significantly more volume with fewer operational errors.

Promoting Catering to the Audience You Already Have

Getting your first catering orders doesn't require a new marketing budget. Your restaurant already has an audience that trusts you. They just don't know you do catering.

Email your list. A single email announcing your online catering menu to existing customers, past diners, loyalty program members, newsletter subscribers, is the fastest way to generate initial orders. The subject line "We now take catering orders online" costs nothing to send and reaches people who already like your food.

Post on social. A photo of a corporate setup, a boxed lunch spread, or an event you catered performs well on Instagram and Facebook. Pairing organic posts with Google Ads for restaurants can drive local search traffic directly to your catering page. Tag the location. Use a local hashtag. These posts reach people actively looking for event catering options in your area.

Add a link at checkout. If you have online ordering for regular meals, add a "Need catering?" link on the order confirmation page. Customers who just placed an individual order are a warm audience for a catering conversation.

Put it on your website homepage. Your catering service should have a visible link in your main navigation, not just a mention in the footer. Guests who visit your site to check the menu should be able to find catering in one click.

Create a Google Business Profile post. A post announcing your online catering system, linking to your catering page, reaches people actively searching for your restaurant or searching for catering options in your area. It costs nothing and takes five minutes.

The best catering clients, repeat corporate accounts, often come from one of these zero-cost channels. They don't need to be convinced. They just need to know the option exists and find a system that makes it easy to order.

DoHospitality's online ordering system is built for restaurants serious about catering — catering packages, add-ons, deposit payment, advance order controls, and mobile-optimized checkout. One-time cost. No commission on any order. Get in touch to start taking catering orders directly.