Starting my own BBQ business, I have some questions about starting up.

[chumslam]

Not sure if I am in the right area of the forum.

I am starting my own bbq business out of my home. I have a lot of people asking me to sell to them. I work in a restaurant and have met people there that appreciate bbq. I am not in any way competing with my restaurant as I will be doing this on my day off.

How do you attract customers, online? business cards? fliers?

Have you vacuum sealed and reheated bbq before?

How did you promote catering options?

And any other advice would be greatly appreciated, Thank you in advance!

 

[rgautheir20420]

Ok so a few things. I HIGHLY suggest you look at making anything you sell in an inspected kitchen and registering yourself as a business 1st!!! You'll also need a bit of insurance, 1 million should suffice to start and is relatively cheap. 

Now more, does your job already sell BBQ? If it does, it don't matter if you're doing it on your off time, you're still taking business. Now, does that matter? Not really if you're planning on going into business yourself. It might matter if your using your connections with their customers to directly tell them to come to you instead (ethically mostly). 

Marketing can be done a number of ways to taking out small ads in local papers. Also mail box stuffers. Social Media and word of mouth are the cheapest and are both great way to get it known what you're doing. 

Plenty of people vac seal and reheat. It mostly applies to pulled products. I can't see it working well for something like ribs.

For a catering deal, I'd recommend coming up with a menu first...figuring all costs and finalizing pricing. Then maybe get yourself into a farmers market or craft show? Hell, you could even set yourself up a stand at a popular event or a busy park. Somewhere where people will see you. Give out free food along with your menus and maybe some coupons.

Now that you've read this....go back to the top! Look at getting a license as a business to produce food fed to others. Get insurance and find a place that's inspected to produce your stuff at. A call to your local health department would be very valuable right now to see what needs to be done to get this going.

Good luck!

 

[chumslam]

Like a commissary to prep the food? 

 

[rgautheir20420]

 
Like a commissary to prep the food? 

Just somewhere that has an inspected kitchen to cook your food. Also, as I'm learning right now, some health department require special plans to smoke some types of food for sale. You really need to call your local health department and see what steps need to be taken in order to do what you're lookin to do.

 

[frog1369]

 
Just somewhere that has an inspected kitchen to cook your food. Also, as I'm learning right now, some health department require special plans to smoke some types of food for sale. You really need to call your local health department and see what steps need to be taken in order to do what you're lookin to do.

This is the best advice for a first step.  You need to know what is required for your particular area in regards to your equipment and location.  I owned a pizza shop, ice cream shop and a bar, if you aren't selling from an inspected environment you are looking at all kinds of issues.  Even with a huge liability policy, if something happens and they can prove you were not certified by the board of health to sell the product you stand to lose everything forever.  You should not take this part lightly.  There area a lot of rules and you need to know what they are before yo venture in.

 

[smokesontuesday]

Not sure where you're from but I know when my aunt retired from teaching and started her catering business here (Oklahoma) she had to build on an inspected industrial kitchen to her home specifically for catering prep and cooking. She wasn't allowed to use her normal home kitchen at all. I'm sure that varies place to place but there are going to be regulations you're going to need to follow and contacting the local health department is going to be your first step.

 

[chumslam]

So for instance, on my time off from work I could use their kitchen with their permission since it is inspected. Maybe pay them a small fee.

 

[rgautheir20420]

Ok. So this is exactly what I would have had to do if I was to do a catering business using someone else's kitchen here in Plainfield, IL.

1st: Register yourself and a business. LLC, S Corp...whatever suits your situation.

2nd: Go get a 1 million dollar liability policy for the business

3rd: Apply for a license with the county for your business

At this point, you haven't even started cooking yet!!!

4th: You would need a contract written and signed by both parties showing that I "my company" has permission to use the kitchen to cook food for catering purposes.

5th: The kitchen will be inspected again by the county and you'll be asked to submit a menu along with all ingredients (maybe recipes?). At this point, your cooking methods will be called into question also. For me, the county I was looking at didn't allow outdoor smoking for example.

Once the place is inspected and passes, you'd get your license and be on your way to making food for catering. 

Now these is a rough outline of what I would have had to do HERE. Like I said, your 1st step should be to call your local office and outline what you want to do and they will let you know what's required of you to do it.

 

[jlcnuke]

A colleague of mine's wife started her own baking company. It took them about 6 months to establish the necessary requirements for retrofitting their home to have a kitchen certified for the business with the local authorities (obviously the process changes based on location etc).  An established business isn't very likely to let you run your business out of their kitchen would be my guess though...

As mentioned, call the local agencies and figure out what they will require, that should be your first step as anything else is anecdotal unless someone who's done it where you live happens to chime in.

 

[bmaddox]

Look for co-op kitchens in your area that you can pay a fee to use. There is a small market by me that has a commercial kitchen that they rent out to their members.

 

[rgautheir20420]

Just a note on co-op kitchens, most require insurances also and often times they are cost restrictive for a small part time catering place. Also, you'd be hard pressed to find one with smoking ability...at least in my area.