Valentine’s Day Catering

There is usually one order worth placing, and it is a tray of sweets partway through the afternoon. Chocolate, red velvet, something iced and pink, set out where people already walk past.

It works because of everything it skips. Nobody is seated, nothing is scheduled, and the day gets marked without anybody being asked about their personal life. Leave the couples material alone. A table for two with a rose on it is a restaurant’s job.

Piece counts and formats live on our dessert catering page. What follows belongs to this date.

This is the rare office occasion that decorates itself. Bakeries switch to red and pink in the first week of February, so ordering the seasonal tray is the theming.

Worth naming in the order:

• Chocolate twice, once rich and once light. Truffles and a brownie tray cover both.
• Red velvet in single servings, so nobody has to cut anything.
• Strawberries, dipped or plain, which do the most for the color.
• One item with no chocolate at all, because every room holds people who will not touch it.

That leaves a decorations budget with nothing to do. Red, pink and white is the whole palette, and you are not buying cupids.

February 14 is an evening people have plans for, whatever day it lands on. The 13th is the better office date, and either way this belongs inside the working day. The 13th also carries a name. Galentine’s Day marks friendship rather than romance, the register a workplace wants, and it needs no explaining on an invite. When the 14th falls at a weekend, take the Friday before it.

Then make it optional. A table people pass on the way somewhere lets anyone who would rather skip the day skip it quietly.

The 14th is one of the busiest dinner services on the restaurant calendar, with tables gone weeks ahead and delivery windows jammed between 5 and 7pm. None of that reaches the middle of a workday, so a tray or a lunch on either date books like any weekday order and prices like one, $12 to $20 a head.

The bakery is the exception. A stock tray still comes together in a few days, but anything iced to order joins a queue that fills well ahead of the date. Our full Valentine’s Day planning checklist puts two to three weeks on anything custom.

CaterAi matches the date and headcount to bakeries near the office that still have it open. February’s other office order is Super Bowl catering at work, and every other date sits under the holidays an office actually orders for.