Have Food, Will Travel

Catering Industry Thrives in Northern Michigan’s Destination Wedding and Event Boom

Sept. 18, 2015

Labor Day used to mean the return of a more relaxed pace for almost every business in northern Michigan, but this is no longer the case in many of our region’s industries – especially when it comes to food. The demand for northern Michigan weddings and events mean that a caterer’s business is booming most of the year.

Caterer Larry Burdek, for example, could barely find time for an interview the Tuesday following the holiday. The next weekend would be one of his biggest of the year.

"I’ve got chili to make for 600. I’ve got two of the biggest weddings of year coming up next weekend," he said.

MORE DAYS IN THE YEAR

Burdek’s company, Chef ’s Pride, finds the majority of its business in Leelanau County weddings, and that’s enough to keep him extremely busy.

"The last three years have been just phenomenal, and the next year should be just as good," Burdek said. "It’s the festivals; it’s the wineries; it’s the restaurants; it’s the brewpubs; it’s the natural beauty of the area."

One result of the region’s popularity is that the destination wedding season now stretches farther across the calendar.

"I am doing more Thursday, Friday and Sunday weddings than I’ve ever done," he said. "It used to be only about a four-anda-half-month market, and now I’d say it’s around six."

In the winter, Burdek stays busy preparing for the upcoming season. The 49-yearold has worked in restaurants since he was 15. He started out in nursing home kitchens and moved to Traverse City in the late 1980s, where he worked at the Waterfront Inn, the Traverse City Golf and Country Club and the Omelette Shoppe before he started Chef ’s Pride.

Burdek said the average 150-guest wedding means an 18-hour workday. Preparing for two or three events on the weekend takes all week.

"It’s pretty much seven days a week in the summertime," he said. "You could never do it unless you’re passionate about it."

FOOD TRUCKS IN DEMAND

Barbi Hill became the wedding sales administrative assistant at the Traverse City Convention and Visitors Bureau in July 2014. In the past year, she’s received a lot of untraditional requests from people planning weddings.

"Since I’ve been here, I’ve actually worked with 89 brides who want their weddings in Traverse City," she said. "All of those people are from out of town and almost every single one of them requested some kind of catering."

Many request food trucks. "Everyone wants a food truck," Hill said. That request runs counter to what Hill thinks of as a traditional wedding.

"It used to be very prim and proper and you followed all the rules, and today you wear cowboy boots and flip flops and you go to the beach," she said.

Hill puts those people in touch with The Little Fleet on Front Street in Traverse City.

Jess Heller, bar manager at The Little Fleet, said she gets emails all the time from people who want a food truck at their wedding or concert or party.

"None of our food trucks here leave the lot in the summer," Heller said. "I do have a list that I give out if people are looking for a food truck."

Heller knows of five local food trucks that don’t park at The Little Fleet and are available for hire.

LESS FORMAL, MORE SOPHISTICATED

Burdek said he’s also watched weddings become less formal over the past 15 years.

"It seems to get more casual every year. People are into simple things; they're into making their own arrangements," he said. "I do more pig roast weddings than I’ve ever done."

The owner of one of the region’s largest catering companies, Catering by Kelly’s, said that, as the region has become more popular for destination weddings, he’s also seen customers’ requests become more sophisticated.

"We’ve had pretty consistent growth for the last five years," Dan Kelly said. "People are definitely getting more sophisticated. They just kind of know what they want; they come from big cities. "¦It’s not a lot of meat and potatoes anymore."

Kelly said this means the work has become more interesting, but it’s also become more challenging. Even though Traverse City is often called a foodie travel destination, Kelly believes the region is headed there, but it’s not there yet. People from big metropolitan areas can still find more sophisticated restaurants at home.

The challenge in catering those sophisticated weddings is to rise above what’s offered in the average northern Michigan restaurant. The region may be known as a foodie center, but "there’s still a lot of walleye and ribs and skirt steak out there" in the average restaurant, Kelly said.

ORGANIC FEAST AT A SUMMER CAMP 

As demand for their services grows, caterers are also challenged by the locations where they are asked to work. People don't want to have their wedding at a VFW hall anymore. They want to throw the party in a barn or on a beach or in a field.

Ginny McCallum said it’s also important for her to work with local, organic food at her business, A Matter of Taste in Ellsworth.

On Labor Day weekend McCallum served a wedding at a summer camp for a downstate couple that wanted an all-organic feast made from produce grown on Providence Farm in Central Lake.

"Wednesday all the produce was delivered to us. It was just boxes and boxes and boxes, you know. It looked like Christmas out there when it was delivered," she said.

"What made it so challenging was there was no electricity, no water; the wedding was on the beach and there was 200 people."

CATERING ON THE ROAD

Ronda Elam and her husband own BJ’s Restaurant, Rental & Catering in Gaylord. They’ve taken advantage of the popularity of untraditional locations.

"It was always like the Elks or the Eagles, the Knights of Columbus; day-in and dayout, we’d sell out a different hall," Elam said.

Today it’s different. People want to have their event in a pavilion or a park or their grandparent’s farm.

"You go in there and you literally set up a tent, table, chairs; you literally set up a full kitchen right there in the middle of a field," Elam said.

When Elam and her husband noticed this shift several years ago, they decided to bet on it. They bought a mobile kitchen. Mobile kitchens are larger than an average food truck. Elam said her trailers can run crews of 10 kitchen staff.

"I now sit as the proud owner of five of them and they’re sold every single day," Elam said.

BJ’s takes advantage of its central location, catering weddings and events around the state. They’ve also greatly expanded their tent rental business. They went from 25 tents just a few years ago to 80 today.

"We are more than busy," she said. "We probably couldn’t handle more than what we have now."

LOTS OF OUT-OF-TOWNERS

Eighty percent of Chef ’s Pride clients are from out of town, a fact that Burdek says surprises a lot of locals when they call him looking for a caterer.

"When the locals call, they have no idea that we’re that busy," Burdek said. "They just don’t realize how busy we are with out-oftown weddings."

Like other caterers in northern Michigan, McCallum also says there is too much business for her keep up.

McCallum and her husband started A Matter of Taste a decade ago. Several years back, they took over the former home of legendary restaurant Tapawingo, which they converted into a wedding hall.

In the past few years, business has been incredible, mainly because the region now draws people from all over the world, she said. Summer weekends typically include five events.

"It’s been exploding – our phone rings non-stop," McCallum said. "Ten years ago to now, it’s like exploded. We get people from Europe; we get a lot of people from the Midwest; California is a huge clientele; people from Australia."

The loss of Tapawingo

undoubtedly upset many people, but McCallum never wanted to open a restaurant and she can’t imagine anyone taking over famed chef Pete Peterson’s place.

"I had no intent of opening a restaurant and I knew that catering is where I want to be," she said.

A CHANCE TO COME HOME

Weddings sometimes offer an opportunity for someone who moved away to return home, if only for a weekend, but northern Michigan’s wedding industry has offered some people a chance to move home for good.

A few years ago, northern Michigan native Amber Jaeger figured out a way to return to Traverse City full time. She’d been teaching in Colorado and spending summers back home when a friend started a bartending service in Denver.

She’d noticed wedding parties all over the place in the summers when she was home, and she realized her friend’s business could be transplanted.

"I knew about the wedding venues around town and kind of everything really popping up," she said. "I told him as soon as I knew about his bartending concept that I’d be very interested in branching out and opening a franchise in northern Michigan."

She’s owned With a Twist Bartending in Traverse City for three years and business has been good, though it’s not steady year round. Jaeger also bartends at Amical restaurant. Most of her business comes from weddings, but she hopes to branch out to corporate and private parties to create steady business throughout the year.

Jaeger can bartend just about anywhere because she has liquor liability insurance. She can provide everything needed for a party except the alcohol, which must be purchased by the client.

Business is often so busy in the summer that she employs additional bartenders.

"I certainly do have help. I had one day this summer where I had six bartenders all out at once at three different events," she said.

BUSY FOR A DOZEN YEARS

For some, business has remained steady for years. Julie Adams, owner of Julienne Tomatoes in Petoskey, runs a restaurant and a catering company and she said business has been pretty steady in the dozen years she’s been open.

The level of service people wanted dipped during the recession in 2008 and 2009, but now it’s come back. What she’s noticed this summer – along with businesses across northern Michigan – is that it’s hard to keep up with demand because it’s hard to find help.

"This year more so than ever," she said. Much of Adams’ catering jobs are business lunches, post-wedding brunches, graduation parties or cocktail parties. Adams said Julienne has achieved a steady flow of business by setting themselves apart, offering custom menus that feature local ingredients.

"We’re not heating and serving or dumping out of a bag or a can," she said.