An open invitation to caterers: Your services are cordially
requested by dinner party hosts throughout the nation. Menu
selections vary, but your clientele will generally be upscale
consumers. No RSVP required.
Hungry for more information? We're happy to dish it out:
Small dinner parties are enjoying increasing popularity of late,
and caterers are enthusiastically satisfying the demand. Indeed,
the National Restaurant Association is projecting a sizzling 5.3
percent increase in such catering this year.
What's cooking? Michael Roman of the Chicago food-service
consulting firm CaterSource points to rampant anti-smoking
regulations in restaurants as a key ingredient in the dinner
party's resurgence. Rather than sit through yet another meal
with the lights out, plenty of puffers-and their friends-are opting
instead to host their own catered affairs.
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"People are taking the easy way out and bringing [the
party] back into their homes, yachts or whatever," Roman
observes.
No-nicotine policies aren't the only reason for the
popularity of small dinner parties, however. Roman also cites
pricey restaurant-mandated gratuities and the desire for
conversation-friendly atmospheres as other factors.
"It's very hard to converse in a restaurant in some
cases-it's just too noisy," he notes. "The idea [now]
is, Let's eat and let's talk."
Just don't do both at the same time.
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