We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Melissa Misgen a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Melissa thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What was it like going from idea to execution? Can you share some of the backstory and some of the major steps or milestones?
Growing up in Minnesota, I started catering with my grandmother and I loved it. I worked in catering during the summers and on the weekends while in high school and through college, and I became more and more enthralled with hospitality and the food business. . By time I was 25 I had 10 years of catering experience and I decided to make a big change and moved to Tampa with the hopeful idea of opening a restaurant.
During my first year here in Tampa, I worked in a fine dining restaurant and during that time I realized that I much preferred catering. So I started by making my own home-made business cards and telling people I met that I could help with small dinner parties.
I continued working other jobs on the side and little by little the word got out and the requests to help with small parties became requests to do even bigger parties, so I found a kitchen to lease and got all of my paper-work together and officially started my catering business. It was exciting and a bit frightening at the beginning with so many unknowns but eventually, word of mouth began to work and I became quite busy. Fast forward 23 years later, the business has grown significantly and the largest event we have catered was for nearly 2,000 people.
Melissa, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I would say I inherited the love for entertaining from my grandmother, whom I started catering with when I was very young. She was an amazing cook and baker and I always loved the way she would bring people together around great food at a beautifully set table.
I believe that sharing a meal is one of the best ways to connect with other people and making that the most beautiful experience can make for lasting memories. So when I am catering a special event for someone it gives me such a sense of instant gratification knowing that we are an important part of allowing for these meaningful connections.
With my business, we are proud to offer what we consider to be full-service “custom luxury catering”. Rather than having pre-set packages, we listen carefully to every single client to hear what their unique style is and we create a one-of-a-kind menu experience for their event, I can’t say how much fun it is to get really creative, especially when it comes to curating a themed event.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
One of the most rewarding moments I had as a business owner was when my company was awarded the much-coveted bid to cater the offical NFL VIP party for 2020 Super Bowl LV when it was in Tampa. After we got the bid and began making plans for an incredible menu, Covid hit. We then were challenged with how to pivot and turn this into something completely different in order to comply with the ever-changing limitations that this imposed on how we could safely serve hundreds of people.
In the end, the VIP party was cancelled and we ended up having the unique opportunity to cater for the Super Bowl talent instead. That was such a crazy time but it was also an amazing time to see how flexible we could be. Ultimately, it proved as a great opportunity for our team to see that when faced with a challenge we all really rallied to improvise on the fly and that is one of the most vital abilities of any talented caterer, in my opinion. Much of what we do as a caterer is improvisation. We are constantly in different spaces and often have to be able to create something from nothing. That’s my favorite thing!
Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?
For us, word of mouth was the way we grew our clientele. In the beginning, I wanted to advertise but I never really had the budget for it. I’m actually quite glad for that now because I think that growing organically through client recommendations really led us to having the most wonderful and loyal clients.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.eliteeventscatering.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/eliteeventstampabay/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/eliteeventscatering
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eliteeventscatering/
- Yelp: https://biz.yelp.com/biz_info/hxbpu9y_m6fDsgsnTYRH1w