We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Viktoria Tabak. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Viktoria below.

Viktoria, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

After relocating from Orange County to Santa Clarita, California in 2014, I went back to work full time in a restaurant setting, in order to slowly rebuild my catering clientele, as I was new to the area. After acquiring a few repeat clients, one of them said to me “Do you ever do everyday food and not just special occasions? I’m so busy with work, getting kids to different sports practices across town, and eating healthy food is such a struggle!”

From this short conversation, I gathered what a need there was in my community for healthy, whole foods in a pinch. Thus, my meal prep program was born, and I went full time with VLT Catering. Santa Clarita is a very family-oriented area, so I offer not only individual portions for busy workday lunches, but family portions that feed four. The menu rotates weekly to keep flavors exciting, and each offering is high protein, low carb, and 100% from scratch.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My name is Viktoria, and I am the owner of VLT Catering. I am a professionally trained private chef & full-service caterer located in Santa Clarita, California. I started working in the restaurant industry while I was still in high school and fell in love with the hospitality industry as a whole. I moved to Florence, Italy when I was 20 years old, studying & interning under excellent teachers in the city. After moving back to Orange County, I studied for another year under a French chef in Laguna Beach, perfecting my knife skills & getting practical, hands-on training in the industry.
Since graduating in 2012, I have worked for both corporate establishments & Mom and Pop restaurants, executed many new restaurant openings, and eventually pulled the trigger and went off on my own, combining my love for hospitality & cuisine with my catering company.
The flexibility of my schedule allows me to be a hands-on Mother to my son, feeds my creative instinct through menu & event design, and allows me to work one on one with my clients to create events of their dreams.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

Building my audience on social media is a daily commitment & a slow & steady process. I started with daily Instagram posts, both meal prep and catering related, as well as funny & informative food content. I also made it a point to join a lot of local Facebook groups, and stay active daily, engaging in conversations when people are seeking catering or local meal prep. Word of mouth is huge for me, and I encourage my clients with incentives to leave reviews, post photos of their meals and/or events, and spread the word about my business to their family and friends.

Any thoughts, advice, or strategies you can share for fostering brand loyalty?

I keep in touch with clients by keeping things personal and small scale. I have opted not to adopt an online ordering system as of yet, and all of my weekly orders are placed either through my business Facebook and business Instagram pages, or with direct texts with my clients. I stay apprised on what’s going on in their day to day lives and regularly receive word of mouth referrals from my core clientele group. The key to this is reliability & consistency. People who are familiar with me know that I always deliver what I say I’m going to, and I focus on quality and over quantity.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.vltcatering.com
• Instagram: @vltcatering
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=vlt%20catering
• Linkedin: Viktoria Tabak
• Yelp: VLT Catering