We realize it can be confusing to understand how to allocate one’s dollars between the major components of the food and beverage budget. The Heritage Food Truck Catering company can offer food, service, and equipment rentals; we cannot provide bartending services as we are not licensed to do so, but can coordinate this service for you with our preferred partner, Premier.
Before we dive into lots of details below, rest assure that we will work with you to fit into your budget. but please realize that we do have a few constraints in terms of minimum spend and travel distance:
We do have a food minimum spend of $4,000 per event for Monday to Friday events and $4,500 per event for Saturday and Sunday events.
This includes the price of food only. Service is not included and will vary based on the service type your select, such as buffet, family style, or plated service.
This minimum spend does not include any equipment rented from us such as tablecloths, napkins, plate ware, silverware, glasses/cups.
We travel up to 1.5 hour from our Malden base. While food trucks are by definition trucks that can travel, they tend to become economically ineffective when moving much beyond 1 or 1.5 hour from their base, between their mediocre fuel mileage and the cost of having a full staff spending a lot of time on the road just getting there.
We like transparency, so we have tried to itemize and detail the three major components of a typical wedding food + service + equipment budget for a midsize to large wedding. (Please note these can vary based on the number of guests).
1. Food itself
This is what the caterer will charge you per guest for the ingredients contained in the food, the labor to prepare that food and the kitchen overhead associated with that food. It does not include serving that food at the venue, however (this is the next section called “service”).
This is the equivalent of the menu price you would see in a restaurant.
In the case of Heritage, our weddings tend to cluster around four peaks: $50 per person for simple menus, around $65 (typically going to slightly fancier proteins and adding desserts), around $75 (these menus typically include fish/seafood and more elaborate appetizers, proteins and desserts), and around $90 and above (for truly original culinary creations).
You will find 4 examples of detailed menus here.
We pride ourselves on being a “value innovator” in that we offer a much cheaper price than the traditional “white glove and chandelier” caterers (we are routinely 50% cheaper than other caterers at the venues where we are present), but also provide a customized, culinarily differentiated, ethnically-inspired, farm-to-table menu from the food truck tradition, and a high-quality, corporate level service.
On average, the food cost represents about 68% of the total food and beverage budget.
2. Service
We offer four levels of service, in ascending order of cost:
i. Service from the food truck window. This is the cheapest of all. It is difficult to use this type of service for weddings because cooking everything to order is slow and it usually creates lines or requires that the wedding party orchestrates a batch flow of a number of people at a time, which is uncomfortable. Also depending on your venue and time of year, you may have to be inside and you do not want your guests to have to go outside to the truck for their food.
ii. Buffet service is the next level of service and many weddings adopt this format. The buffet can be set up in front of the food truck if the weather allows, or we try to set it up close to the main building at your venue if the reception is inside. Appetizers and desserts can be placed on stations inside or outside, or we can have our staff pass them around. As long as you pick a buffet format, there is no additional cost for passing appetizers or desserts around vs. having them on stations.
iii. The third option is to do family-style service, which has us serve the meal in common dishes geared for 8 to 10 people sitting at each guest table. This costs a bit more, allows the creation of table-based dynamics for people who already know each other or are encouraged by the seating to get to know each other, but has the disadvantage of creating a lot of waste. For example, table 1 may not have enough salmon or pork loin, while table 5 has an overflow of those, but wishes it had more Portobello mushroom. The buffet of course balances all that out.
iv. The fourth and final option is to have everything plated individually. This is the costliest option because our staff has to assemble each plate and deliver it to individual guests at each table, matching a seating chart that has been prepared from the RSVP you have organized. The advantage of this format is that it allows a unique pairing of the proteins with the grain/starch and the vegetables, and we can provide a visually stunning array for the whole dish. The disadvantage, besides the high cost, is that it slows things down considerably, and guests can become frustrated waiting for their food.
v. The typical cost of service is computed by multiplying the hours spent by each category of person at an hourly rate. Notice that we do not expect you to pay any gratuity over and beyond that amount. (By contrast, bar service is not included in the bartender cost and requires a separate addendum of 20%, see below).
vi. For mid-size to large size weddings utilizing a buffet format for entrees and passed or stationed appetizers and desserts, it amounts to about 17% of the total food and drinks budget.
3. Equipment rental
Most venues provide the tent or building, as well as chairs and tables, as part of their venue price.
We typically provide all the rest: specialized tables for buffet and bars, linens for all tables, napkins, silverware, plates, glasses (for both tables and bar) and cups, pitchers/coffee urns, etc.
You will find more information here on our rental offerings.
We have a nice collection of each item, but our choice of colors and motifs is limited. For example, our linens are either black, white or cream colored. We have seven colors of napkins. If you want birds or flowers on your linens, we are happy to go to a specialized supplier and rent that for you (or you are welcome to go do that yourself if you wish).
The typical cost of equipment rental is usually around 15% of the total food and drinks budget.
You will also need to think about Bar Service!
Bar service cost is made of 3 components when you work with Premier, our preferred partner:
- The bartender cost itself (plus some small fixed cost associated with the event). Bartenders have a high cost per hour ($45.00+ per hour) and typically charge for 9 hours of time, including travel time, set up time and actual service time (typically 6 hours for a wedding). Premier recommends 1 bartender per 50 people. There is also a fee per bar to account for the placemat and other items (mixing tubs, etc.): weddings typically have either one bar, or two bars if the cocktail/appetizer area and the main reception/dinner area are some distance apart. There is also some small site permitting cost, some insurance cost, and a beverage management fee if you have your bar company order and deliver the beverages for you.
- Gratuity is usually computed as $100 per bartender.
- Drinks: the advantage of working with Premier is that they give you the choice of buying your own beverages or they can source it for you. If they source it for you, they allow you to return all the unopened bottles and get full credit for it. The net cost of beverage/alcohol after return typically works out to somewhere between $13 and $17 per guest. There is of course a large variation of alcohol consumption per guest.