Building Community and Excellence in Restaurant Catering: Insights from a Veteran Sales Leader
In a recent episode of "The Catering Cage" podcast, host Erle Dardick welcomed Mary Shillue-Goldberg, the Director of Catering at Clover Food Lab, to share her expertise in restaurant catering. With 18 months under her belt at Clover, Mary brings a wealth of experience as a catering sales professional to a brand she genuinely believes in. Clover, which evolved from a cult-favorite food truck on MIT's campus to a 12-restaurant chain in Boston, has built its reputation on locally-sourced vegetarian food that manages to win over even the most committed meat-eaters.
Mary's journey highlights the importance of operational excellence in building a successful catering program. Before diving into aggressive sales expansion, she spent considerable time understanding Clover's operations—even making "120 box lunches between 4:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m." This hands-on approach allowed her to develop systems that restaurants could execute consistently while delivering the brand experience off-premise, which she identifies as one of the biggest challenges in restaurant catering.
The conversation touched on a critical question facing many restaurant operators: how to scale catering across multiple locations without dedicated catering personnel at each store. Mary and the host discussed potential solutions including "catering captains" for each shift, creative in-store displays of catering options, and leveraging technology to capture catering opportunities. They also emphasized how connecting front-line staff to the catering mission requires ongoing education about looking beyond immediate in-store sales.
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As competition intensifies from unexpected quarters—grocery stores, convenience chains like 7-Eleven, and delivery platforms—restaurants must innovate to capture their share of the catering market. Mary Shillue Goldberg described how joining the Caterlink community provided valuable peer connections and specific ideas she could implement, like strategies to convert third-party platform customers into direct clients without undermining valuable partnerships.
The podcast concluded with Mary's practical advice for restaurants starting their catering journey: "Start with operational excellence... start small, don't hire a catering salesperson initially... invest in training your GMs or whoever's producing those orders." This measured approach ensures quality execution before scaling sales efforts. As the host noted in a friendly disagreement, the decision to invest in dedicated catering personnel ultimately depends on a brand's commitment level—"If you're not going to hire Mary, then don't put a sign on your door saying 'We cater.'"
Throughout the episode, both Mary Shillue Goldberg and Erle Dardick emphasized that restaurant catering isn't just about food delivery—it's about relationship building, storytelling, and extending the brand experience beyond physical restaurant walls. The conversation provided a refreshing honesty about the challenges and opportunities of catering in today's competitive landscape, complete with an adorable cameo from Mary's cat Taco, bringing a humanizing touch to this professional dialogue.
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