Brunch Catering

Brunch is one meal doing the work of two, and the order has to say which two. A party running from 10:30 to 1:00 replaces breakfast for the late risers and lunch for whoever was up at seven.

So split it roughly in half. The breakfast side is already covered by our breakfast menus for an office. The lunch side has to be genuinely lunch: a salad with protein in it and one savory main worth a plate, from our office lunch catering formats.

A brunch that is only breakfast, scaled up, reads generous at 10:30 and thin at 12:30. Order the lunch half first.

A brunch party has no start gun. Guests arrive across an hour and a half, and the table stays open the whole time.

So every dish has to be as good in its second hour as its first, which rules out anything that depends on staying crisp and anything plated to order. Our breakfast buffet holding times page has the detail.

Then mind the order things go out in. Set the whole table at 10:30 and the breakfast crowd eats through the lunch half too, because it is there and the guests it was ordered for are still parking. Send the breakfast side out first and let the savory main follow.

Brunch fits the occasions where the hour is the hard part.

• The weekend team event. A Saturday ask costs goodwill before anyone eats. Brunch is the cheapest version, because it ends at one and gives the afternoon back.
• Saturday onboarding or training. Same trade, and the food is most of why anyone turns up.
• The unhurried celebration. A catered lunch has a meeting behind it. A brunch has none.
• The shower. A baby or bridal shower over brunch reads as a party, not a long break. Shower styling is its own job.

It does not fit an ordinary workday, which already has a breakfast order and a lunch order. The full list is at every occasion an office orders food for.

The mimosa is brunch’s signature, so an office cannot dodge the question by leaving it off. Decide it, and say so on the invite.

Alcohol at eleven in the morning is a different call from a Thursday evening, since most of the room drives home after. Make it one pour rather than a bar, opened once food is out. Our guide to alcohol policy at work events covers the policy, and bartenders and licensing belong to catering a happy hour.

Skipping the alcohol does not cost you the drink. A mimosa is juice with wine, so the same drink one ingredient short still pours well: blood orange and grapefruit with sparkling water, plus a coffee setup that lasts the window.

CaterAi takes the window, the headcount, and the split you want, and builds both halves into one order.