We recently connected with Tanya Gurrieri and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Tanya thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear you experience with and lessons learned from recruiting and team building.

Salthouse Catering turns 10 years old in 2023! It’s crazy to think about where we started and how far we’ve come. In the beginning, my business partner, Todd Mazurek and I were doing it all ourselves. I sold the events, he cooked the food and we would load the van and execute the events together, coming back to the shop to wash dishes and do it all again the next day. We had one person helping us with our staffing and a skeleton crew in the kitchen that included mostly chefs Todd had worked with in previous places.

Our growth was slow and steady. We went from 2 employees to 3 and then 4 but it didn’t happen overnight. We were cautious to avoid being top heavy with labor before the business could support more people.

Now, we have a core team of around 20 full time and hourly people and on any given weekend could have 75 or more part time people working parties. Our labor budget is nearly 1/3 of our total income annually. We invest a ton of money and time into recruiting and retaining good people and it’s one of the biggest challenges we face as business owners. Since Covid, it’s been incredibly difficult to recruit staff members for catering. There’s no magic formula, but we try to show the folks working for us that we appreciate them every chance we get. We’ve upped our benefits package to include paid time off, even for key hourly employees. We offer annual reviews with guaranteed pay raises based on merit and cost of living. We give cash and other bonuses throughout the year and for Christmas. We recognize birthdays and offer paid sick and bereavement leave as well as a health care stipend that they can use for anything related to their well-being (massage, chiropractic visits, acupuncture, well visits, etc). We even offer free yoga classes with a nearby business. We host a team building event in the summer and a staff party around the holidays. Anything and everything we can do to retain staff is key for us at this point in time.

We’re only as strong as the team members that represent Salthouse to the public. Our team is our most important commodity. Without them, we wouldn’t be where we are today. We look forward to the next decade with optimism because we have a good team in place. Looking back, I don’t think we’d change anything about the slow and steady way our company has grown over the past 9 years.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

My business experience came from working in the event industry since college. After starting several successful catering companies for other people, it was time to branch out on my own and I’m so glad I did! Being a business owners is one of the most rewarding and fulfilling things I’ve ever done. Salthouse Catering is my baby and I am so proud of the growth we’ve had over the past 10 years.

Have you ever had to pivot?

Covid was the ultimate pivot for catering. The 2020 calendar completely cleared out and we had to figure out how to keep folks working and stay afloat until the event industry opened back up. We created a new concept for chef prepared food that would be available for delivery or pick up during a time that no one was hosting events. Our gourmet to go program was born out of necessity, but it’s evolved to be a great extension of our full service catering. Now we have an online ordering platform that folks can order food for their business or family without having to throw a big, full service catering event.

We’d love to hear about you met your business partner.

Todd and I worked together nearly 20 years ago and had no idea our paths would cross again and we’d become business partners. He worked at Coast Bar and Grill while I worked for Good Food Catering, both concepts of the 39 Rue de Jean restaurant group. He left the company to work for other restaurants and we met again when I was hired to start a catering division for Caviar & Bananas. Once that concept was cut from their business plan, we left and started our own company together and we’re so glad that we took the risk!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://salthousecatering.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/salthousecatering/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SalthouseCatering
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/salthousecatering/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIHcwJIGFu-hsnr4qCggYHA
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/salthouse-catering-charleston

Image Credits
Monika Gauthier, Tim Will, Shanley Cox, Molly Joseph, Brandon Lata, Catherine Ann Photography