How to start a catering business in the US: kitchen, permits, costs and first clients

Can you start a catering business from home?

Mostly no. Catering means cooking meals with meat, dairy, rice and sauces that must be held hot or cold, and health codes treat those as time and temperature controlled foods. Almost every county requires them to be made in a permitted food establishment, not a household kitchen.

Cottage food laws are the source of the confusion. They let people sell certain foods made at home, but they were written for breads, jams and baked goods sold directly to customers. Texas is one of the most generous states: it now allows many foods, yet it still excludes meat, poultry and seafood and limits a cottage food operation to $150,000 in annual gross income. A typical wedding menu falls outside that on day one.

Some counties do allow a second, fully separate commercial kitchen inside a home. King County in Washington, for example, says a residential kitchen cannot be used for catering unless the home has two completely separate kitchens and the commercial one meets every food service requirement. That route costs more than renting commissary time, so most new caterers start in a shared kitchen and move later.

There is one narrow exception worth knowing. Several health departments exempt a private chef who cooks only in the client's own home for a private event, with no food prepared or stored in advance. That is personal chef work, not catering, and it stops being exempt the moment you prep anything elsewhere.

Step by step

1. 1

   Pick your catering model

   Decide between drop-off catering (corporate lunches, trays), full-service events (weddings, galas with staff on site) or a mix. The model sets your kitchen size, staffing and insurance, so choose it before you sign anything.

2. 2

   Check what your county allows

   Call the environmental health or food safety office for the county where you will cook. Ask which permit covers caterers, whether you need plan review, and which commissary kitchens near you already hold a permit.

3. 3

   Secure a permitted kitchen

   Lease hours in a commissary, a restaurant kitchen after closing, or a church or community kitchen. Most health departments want a signed commissary agreement from the kitchen owner with your application.

4. 4

   Register the business

   Choose a structure (an LLC is the usual pick for liability protection), register it with your state, then get an EIN online from the IRS. The EIN is free and is issued straight away when the application is approved.

5. 5

   Get the food permit and certifications

   Submit the caterer permit application with your menu, equipment list and commissary agreement. Make sure the person in charge holds a certified food protection manager credential, and check whether your state also requires food handler cards for staff.

6. 6

   Register for sales tax and set up insurance

   Apply for your state sales and use tax permit, because catered food and many service charges are taxable. Buy general liability, product liability and, if you hire, workers compensation before the first event.

7. 7

   Build your menu, pricing and paperwork

   Cost every dish, set a per-guest price with a food cost target near 28 to 35 percent, and prepare a quotation, contract, deposit receipt and invoice you can send the same day an enquiry arrives.

8. 8

   Book the first events

   Run two or three tastings, photograph every dish, list with local venues as a preferred caterer and follow up every enquiry within the hour. Speed of reply wins more early bookings than advertising.

Permits and registrations a US caterer needs

Food permits in the US are local. The FDA writes the Food Code as a model, and states and counties adopt it with their own changes, which is why the rules in Austin differ from those in Seattle. Treat the list below as the usual set and confirm each item with your county.

The SBA puts it plainly: most small businesses need a mix of federal, state and local licences, and you have to research your own state, county and city. For a caterer, nothing is federal unless you sell alcohol across state lines or ship food products, so the work sits with the state and the county.

Choosing a commissary kitchen

A commissary is a permitted kitchen that rents time, storage and equipment to several food businesses. Health departments want it to have dedicated areas for storage, cleaning and preparation, and they will ask for a signed agreement from the owner before approving your permit.

Look at more than the hourly rate. Ask how much cold and dry storage comes with your plan, whether you can load a van at night, whether the kitchen has blast chilling or enough refrigeration to cool large batches safely, and whether other tenants book the same Saturday mornings you will need. A cheap kitchen with no Saturday access is useless to a wedding caterer.

Restaurants that close on Mondays and Tuesdays, churches and community centers with licensed kitchens, and culinary schools are good places to ask. Get the kitchen's permit number in writing; your application usually needs it.

What it costs to start

A lean full-service caterer can open for roughly $25,000 to $40,000 if it rents kitchen time and buys used equipment. That figure comes from the sample business plan on our catering business plan page, not from an official survey, so build your own number from real quotes. The SBA groups launch spending into one-time costs such as equipment, permits and design work, and monthly costs such as rent, salaries and utilities, and suggests projecting monthly costs for at least a year.

The biggest early items are holding and transport equipment (chafing dishes, insulated carriers, hotel pans), a reliable refrigerated vehicle or van, serveware and linens, the opening food inventory, and the first insurance premium. Rent before you buy wherever you can. Party rental companies supply plates, glassware and tables per event, which keeps cash free for the first months.

Labor is your largest ongoing cost once events start. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a median of $17.00 an hour for nonrestaurant food servers and $30.03 an hour for chefs and head cooks in May 2025, so price events with real wage rates, not hopeful ones.

Finding the first clients

Venues are the fastest route. Many event spaces keep a preferred caterer list, and coordinators recommend whoever answers fast, shows up on time and leaves the kitchen clean. Offer the coordinator a tasting and a one-page sheet with your menus and per-guest prices.

Corporate drop-off lunches fill weekdays when weddings cannot. Office managers reorder from caterers who deliver on time with clear labels for allergens and dietary needs, so make that part of your standard packaging.

Reply speed matters more than anything else in the first year. A couple who sends five enquiries on Sunday night often books whoever sends a clear quote first. Prepare a quotation template with your packages, minimum guest counts, deposit terms and what is included, so you can answer in minutes.

• Photograph every tasting plate and buffet setup; you will need the images for listings.
• Ask every happy client for a review the week after the event, not a month later.
• Track where each enquiry came from so you stop paying for channels that never book.

Running bookings without spreadsheets

Once you take more than a few events a month, the risk moves from cooking to paperwork: two quotes for the same date, a deposit nobody recorded, a final guest count that never reached the kitchen. Most of the problems new caterers describe start there.

The Venura catering app keeps enquiries, quotations, event dates, deposits, invoices and staff schedules in one place, on the web, Android and iOS. You can try it free for 30 days, and pricing outside India is quoted on request. Whatever you use, keep one source of truth for every confirmed event and its payment status.

Start a catering business: questions from the United States