An office manager opens the Smashburger catering site, picks a boxed lunch for each person in the room, and then goes looking for the part of the form where you say what goes on the sandwich. There is no such part. There is a list headed Please remove.
That is not a glitch and it is not a short menu. It is how the whole order form is built. Across all fifteen boxed lunches this menu sells, there is not one option anywhere that puts an ingredient on a burger. Nine different ingredients can come off. Exactly one ingredient on the entire catering menu can go on, it lives on the ten-person burger bars, and it is bacon, which is also one of the nine you can take off.
Once you see that, ordering gets simple. This menu is not asking you to design a sandwich. It is asking you to pick one and then say what your team will not eat.
In this guide
- What the Smashburger catering menu actually contains, list by list
- The nine removals, and why there is no matching add list
- Why the plainest box on the menu is the hardest one to change
- The one ingredient that moves in both directions
- How the two burger bars differ, and what “build your own” means here
- Minimums, notice and how to place the order
What a Smashburger catering order actually contains
Start with the thing that catches most people out. The catering menu is not the restaurant menu with bigger numbers on it. It is a separate, much shorter list on its own catering storefront, and you have to choose a store before any of it becomes visible. The brand’s catering page describes the range as ready-to-serve selections at participating locations and hands you a button. Behind it sit twenty-seven items in six groups, and that is the whole menu.
| Group | Items | Sold in units of | What it is |
|---|---|---|---|
| Catering Packages | 3 | Ten people | Two burger bars and a chicken tender bar |
| Boxed Lunches | 9 | One person | A sandwich and a side in a single box |
| Gluten-Free Box Lunches | 6 | One person | The same shape of box on a gluten-free bun |
| Sides | 2 | Five people | Tots, and chicken tenders |
| Dessert | 1 | One person | An individually wrapped chocolate chip cookie |
| Beverages | 6 | One bottle, or ten | Water and three bottled sodas |
Three units run the whole menu: ten, five and one. That is unusually tidy for a chain catering list, and it means planning is a counting exercise rather than a conversion one. Teams sizing a similar order from an independent kitchen can compare against the Zerocater directory pages for North American catering and sliders.
The order form is built to take things off
Now the part that shapes every decision on this menu. Open any boxed lunch and look at the option groups it offers. Fourteen of the fifteen boxes carry a group named Please remove. Not one of the fifteen carries a group that adds an ingredient to the sandwich. The single box without a remove list is the chicken tender box, which is also the only box on the menu with no sandwich in it, so there is nothing assembled to take apart.
Nine ingredients appear across those lists in total.
| You can remove | From which boxes |
|---|---|
| Lettuce | All fourteen boxes with a remove list |
| Tomatoes | All fourteen |
| Mayo | The chicken, bacon and vegetarian boxes |
| American cheese | The classic and bacon boxes |
| Red onion | The classic boxes only |
| Pickles | The classic boxes only |
| Ketchup | The classic boxes only |
| Smash Sauce® | The classic boxes only |
| Bacon | The bacon boxes only |
There is no equivalent table going the other way, because there is nothing to put in it. The group the menu calls Add-ons does exist on every box, and it is worth knowing exactly what it holds: a chocolate chip cookie and four bottled drinks. Every one of the five is a separate product with its own price, and not one of them goes on the sandwich. The word “add-on” is doing merchandising work, not kitchen work.
The remove list is the ingredient list
Look at the lengths of those lists and a pattern falls out immediately. The number of removals a box offers is not a service level. It is a description of the sandwich.
| Sandwich | Boxes on the menu | Things you may remove |
|---|---|---|
| Classic Smash®, single and double | 4 | 7 |
| Bacon Stack Smash®, single and double | 4 | 5 |
| Crispy chicken, chicken Smash® and the vegetarian box | 6 | 3 |
| Chicken tender box | 1 | 0 |
The classic burger is the most built sandwich on the menu, so it offers the most to strip back. The chicken and vegetarian boxes arrive with lettuce, tomatoes and mayo and nothing else, so three is all there is. Read the right way that is genuinely useful: the length of a remove list tells you how much is on the sandwich before you have read a word of the description.
It also produces an inversion worth planning around. The plainest boxes on this menu are the least changeable ones. A colleague who wants something simple is better served by ordering the classic burger and taking four things off it than by ordering a plainer box, because the plainer boxes have almost nothing left to give up.
Nine ways to take something off. One way to put something on.
Free means less, paid means more, and there is no free more
Set the utensils aside and count every choice the form offers across the whole menu. Eighteen of them are free. Twelve carry a charge. Once you see which is which, you can predict what any option costs before you click it.
| Group | Free or priced | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Please remove | Free | Takes a named ingredient out |
| Select side | Free | Picks which of two sides is in the box |
| Select cheese | Free | Picks which cheese the bar arrives with |
| Select dipping sauces | Free | Picks which included sauces come with the tenders |
| Add On | Priced | Bacon, on the burger bars |
| Add Sides | Priced | A five-person side alongside a package |
| Add Dessert | Priced | Cookies alongside a package |
| Add beverages | Priced | A ten-pack of bottles |
| Add-ons | Priced | A cookie or a bottled drink beside a box |
| Substitute For Gluten-Free Bun | Priced | Swaps the bun on most regular boxes |
The rule is clean. Every free choice either takes something out or picks between things the description already promised you. The side in a boxed lunch is free because the description says the box includes a choice of one side. The cheese on a burger bar is free because the description says the bar includes a choice of cheese. And every priced choice adds a separate product: a cookie, a bottle, a five-person side, a ten-pack. Nine of the eighteen free choices, exactly half, are removals. Not one free choice on this form puts food on a plate that was not already going to be there.
The one option that sits apart is the gluten-free bun. It is a substitution rather than an addition, and it is the only swap on the entire form that carries a charge. Every other swap is free. Worth knowing before you build an order for a team with a mix of needs, and our guide to ordering catering for mixed dietary needs covers what a menu label can and cannot settle.
Build a boxed lunch order with CaterAi
Bacon is the only ingredient that moves in both directions
There is exactly one group on this entire catering menu called Add On. It appears on the two burger bars, and it has one member. Bacon.
That makes bacon the only ingredient on the menu you can put onto a burger at the point of ordering, and it carries a charge. But bacon is also one of the nine removals, on the four Bacon Stack boxes, where taking it off costs nothing and returns nothing. The same ingredient is a purchase in one direction and free in the other, depending only on which format you picked. It is a small thing and it is the cleanest illustration of how this menu thinks: the sandwich is finished, and every change is a deviation from it.
The two burger bars, and what “build your own” means here
The phrase Build-Your-Own Burger Bar sets an expectation, so it is worth being precise about what the brand’s own description says arrives. The bar includes individually wrapped burgers on a toasted bun, individually packaged condiments, and a set of toppings: your choice of American or cheddar cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, pickles, Smash Sauce®, mayo and ketchup.
The toppings are included rather than chosen. There is no list on the order form where you pick which ones come, and there is no remove list on a bar at all. The one decision the form insists on is the cheese, which is the only mandatory group either burger bar has, and it offers four answers: American, cheddar, half of each, or none.
The difference between the two burger bars is the protein and nothing else. Both carry identical option groups. The standard bar is beef throughout. The assorted bar states that a ten-person order arrives as five beef and five chicken burgers, which makes it the only item on the menu that puts two proteins in one order.
The third package is the chicken tender bar, and it is the one item on the menu with no mandatory choice at all: its sauces and its sides are both optional. Teams that want the same idea from a local kitchen can compare against the Zerocater pages for build-your-own burger bars and fried chicken catering.
The boxed lunch line, and the one decision it forces
The boxed lunches are where most office orders land, because they are the only format sold one person at a time. Nine sit in the main list and six in the gluten-free list, and every one of the fifteen is the same object: a sandwich, a side, in a box.
Each of those fifteen boxes has exactly one mandatory group, and it is not the sandwich. It is Select side, offering two answers: tots, or a bag of classic Lay’s chips. That is the only thing the order form will not let you skip.
So a boxed lunch order is a set of sandwich picks, a set of two-way side picks, and a set of removals for the people who need them. Nothing else is asked. If your room expects to assemble its own plate, that is a format mismatch rather than a menu gap, and our guides to boxed lunch catering for meetings and boxed lunches for conferences and training days set out when each shape works.
Minimums, notice and how the order travels
Two minimums govern this menu, and the gap between them is the thing to plan around.
| Route | Minimum order | What the brand states |
|---|---|---|
| Pickup | The lower floor | Collect from a participating restaurant |
| Delivery | Exactly twice the pickup floor | Delivered to your location |
| Notice | Next day availability | Stated on the brand’s catering page |
| Packaging | Party-ready | The brand’s own phrase for the catering packaging |
Both minimums were identical at every storefront checked for this guide, across five states, so the doubling is a national rule rather than a local quirk. Individual boxed lunch prices did move between stores; the three package prices did not. Check your own location before you commit to a headcount.
One consequence is worth spelling out. A package clears both floors on its own and a single boxed lunch clears neither, so the minimums quietly push the smallest orders toward the packages. If your team is small enough that this bites, our guide to last-minute office catering covers what else ships on a short clock, and office lunch ideas covers the alternatives to a chain order entirely.
How to order Smashburger catering for a group
The flow is short, and the order of the steps matters because the menu will not show you anything until you have picked a store.
- Open the catering storefront, not the main site. The regular ordering site does not carry the catering menu; it links out to it.
- Choose pickup or delivery, then pick your location. The minimum that applies to your order is set by this choice, before you have added anything.
- Pick the format before the food. Packages for ten, boxed lunches for one, sides for five. The two formats offer completely different customisation, so this choice decides everything after it.
- For boxed lunches, collect the removals up front. Ask your team what they do not eat rather than what they want on it. That is the question this form can answer.
- For a burger bar, settle the cheese. It is the only choice the form requires of you.
- Add the sides, dessert and drinks last. Every one is a separate priced product, and the package sides come in five-person units while the box sides are already included.
- Check the total against the minimum for your route before checkout, not after.
The brand also publishes an email address on its catering page for orders that need a conversation rather than a form. For anything with a run sheet attached, our corporate event catering checklist is the companion piece.
Pros and cons for office catering
What works well
- Three clean serving units, ten and five and one, with no conversion to do
- Boxed lunches are genuinely individual, so nobody has to serve anything
- Every removal is free, and the lists are explicit rather than a notes field
- A dedicated gluten-free category exists rather than a single hedge
- The assorted bar puts two proteins in one package
- Package prices held steady across every storefront checked
Where it runs out of room
- Nothing can be added to a sandwich, so a request for extra anything has no home on the form
- The plainest boxes offer the fewest changes, which is backwards for simple eaters
- Two sides on the entire menu, and the same two inside every box
- One dessert, and it is the same cookie in both formats
- The burger bars carry no remove list, so a bar is one answer for the whole group
- The catering menu lives on a separate site from the brand’s regular ordering
Who Smashburger catering is best for
A good fit
- Teams that want a burger everybody recognises, with no serving to organise
- Rooms where the main dietary need is taking things off rather than adding them
- Groups of ten, or clean multiples of ten, ordering a package
- Meetings that need food to arrive individually portioned and labelled
A poor fit
- Rooms that expect to build their own plate from shared components
- Recurring programmes that need the menu to look different week to week
- Groups with several distinct dietary needs at once, where one category will not stretch
- Events where sides and dessert are meant to carry part of the spread
Smashburger vs. other catering options
Set against the other chains we have read the same way, the differences are structural rather than culinary.
| Option | Customisation model | Serving units | Best when |
|---|---|---|---|
| Smashburger | Remove only, plus one paid addition | Ten, five and one | The room wants a familiar sandwich and no serving work |
| Five Guys | Toppings chosen at order, carried separately | Boxes and bundles | Eaters want to finish their own burger |
| Portillo’s | Trays finished on site | Trays by headcount band | You have a kitchen and somebody to run it |
| Noodles & Company | Hot dishes chosen by the dish | Packages and single dishes | A hot lunch that holds through a long meeting |
| A local caterer through Zerocater | Menu built around the room | Set to your headcount | The team eats together regularly |
If the comparison you actually want is cost rather than structure, our guides to boxed lunch catering costs and budgeting for office catering put numbers on the same question. And if you would rather order a burger spread from an independent kitchen near the office, the Zerocater directory carries operators like Burger Bar in Chicago, Nomnom Burger in San Francisco, Lucy’s Burger Bar in Denver and 206 Burger Company in Seattle.
A better option for recurring office meals
A chain catering menu is built to be the same everywhere, which is exactly why its order form can only subtract. The sandwich has to be identical in every store, so the only lever left is what comes off it. That is a reasonable trade for a one-off lunch and a poor one for a programme.
Zerocater works the other way round: it pairs teams with vetted local caterers, builds the menu around the room rather than around the chain, and stays on the order through the day. For an ongoing rota, corporate catering is the route in, and for one-off events with a headcount and a run sheet, corporate event catering handles the logistics a chain order form has no field for.
And if you already know the room but not the menu, CaterAi builds a spread around your headcount, dietary needs and date from restaurants near your office, and you can adjust the items in the chat before you check out.
Menus, option groups, serving counts, minimums and prices are set by Smashburger and vary by location. Every fact in this guide is read from the brand’s own published catering page and its own catering ordering storefront, checked across storefronts in five states. Confirm the current menu, quantities and timing with your own location before you plan around any of it.
Plan your next team lunch with CaterAi
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Smashburger do catering?
Yes, and it runs on its own separate storefront rather than on the regular ordering site. The brand’s catering page describes ready-to-serve catering selections at participating locations and sends you to a dedicated catering ordering site, where you pick a store first and the menu appears afterwards. That menu is not the restaurant menu. It is a short, purpose-built list of twenty-seven items in six groups: catering packages, boxed lunches, gluten-free boxed lunches, sides, one dessert and bottled drinks.
Can you add toppings to a Smashburger catering order?
No. This is the single most useful thing to know before you start. Across all fifteen boxed lunches there is no option group that puts an ingredient on a sandwich. The customisation group on a box is called “Please remove”, and it lists things to leave out. The group called “Add-ons” holds a cookie and four bottled drinks, none of which goes on the sandwich. One ingredient on the whole menu can be added to a burger, and that is bacon on the two burger bars. If your team expects to build its own plate, read our guide to boxed lunch versus buffet catering before you choose a format.
What can you take off a Smashburger boxed lunch?
Nine ingredients appear across the menu’s remove lists: lettuce, tomatoes, red onion, pickles, ketchup, Smash Sauce, American cheese, mayo and bacon. No single box offers all nine. The classic burger boxes offer seven, the bacon boxes offer five, and the chicken and vegetarian boxes offer three. The list you get is the ingredient list of the sandwich you picked, so the more built the sandwich, the more you can change about it.
How many people does a Smashburger catering package feed?
Each of the three catering packages states that it serves ten. The two sides on the menu each state that they serve five, so a side does not cover a package on its own. Boxed lunches are sold one at a time and feed one person each. Those three units, ten and five and one, are the whole arithmetic of this menu, which makes it easier to plan than most chain catering lists. Our guide to office catering costs works through the same headcount question across formats.
What is the difference between the two Build-Your-Own Burger Bars?
The proteins, and nothing else. The standard bar is described as everything you need to build your own beef burgers. The assorted bar swaps half of them, and its description states that a ten-person order arrives as five beef and five chicken burgers. Both bars carry the same option groups, the same included toppings and the same mandatory cheese choice. If you want both proteins in one order, the assorted bar is the only item on the menu that does it.
Is there a minimum order for Smashburger catering?
Yes, and there are two of them. The catering storefront publishes a minimum for pickup and a separate, higher minimum for delivery, and the delivery floor is twice the pickup floor. Both figures were identical at every storefront checked for this guide, across five states, so the gap between the two is a national rule rather than a local one. Prices for individual boxed lunches did move between stores, so check your own location before you build the order.
Are there vegetarian or gluten-free options on the Smashburger catering menu?
Both exist, and they work differently. The vegetarian option is a single boxed lunch built on a Southwest seasoned black bean burger. Its own description carries this note: “Please be aware that due to shared cooking and preparation areas, food may come into contact with meat, and animal byproducts.” Gluten-free arrives two ways: a separate category of boxed lunches on a gluten-free bun, and a bun substitution offered on most of the regular boxes. That substitution is the one swap on the entire order form that is not free. Our guides to vegetarian office catering, gluten-free office catering and allergy-safe boxed lunches go further than a menu label can.
What is the smallest useful Smashburger catering order?
One boxed lunch is the smallest item, but the pickup minimum means a single box will not place an order on its own. In practice the floor is a handful of boxed lunches for pickup, or roughly twice that many for delivery. The packages clear both minimums by themselves. For a small team the boxed lunches are the flexible route, because each eater gets their own sandwich and their own remove list, while a package hands the whole room one set of decisions. Our guide to budget-friendly office lunches covers the same trade-off across other chains.
