BBQ Catering
The shortcut: Skip wedding-only catering. The path to $5-7K/month after expenses runs through Mon-Fri corporate drop-off lunches — 5 weekly office regulars at $1K each plus 2-4 weekend events.
Industry: food-beverage
Investment level: small ($5,600-$17,000 for full kit; truck/van assumed)
Time to launch: 6-12 weeks (ServSafe food handler certification + county permits gate the first paid event)
Best for: Anyone with BBQ experience, $5-15K capital, and willingness to cold-walk into offices during the 8:30-9:30 AM window. What you'll likely make: **$800-1,500/month after expenses by month 3, $3-4K by month 6, $5-7K by month 12** with 5 weekly corporate regulars.
Market Opportunity
Workplace catering — not weddings — is where the real growth is. People who build year-1 revenue on Mon-Fri corporate drop-off lunches keep the cash flowing all year. Wedding-only competitors hit a 5-month off-season cliff. A solo pitmaster with $5-15K capital can realistically land 4-8 weekly accounts inside a 15-mile radius. That's enough to take home $5-7K/month before scaling.
- US off-premise caterers (industry code NAICS 722320): ~$14.4B revenue (2025), forecast ~$15.7B (2026) at 6.7% 5-year compound annual growth rate. IBISWorld - Caterers in the US — full report paywalled.
- Workplace/office catering is the fastest-growing sub-segment of the broader $60B+ US catering market per Grand View Research.
- ezCater 2025 workplace report: 60% of orderers plan to spend more on workplace food in 2025, with nearly a third planning 25%+ budget increases. ezCater press release — that's a platform self-report, so treat the directional growth as real but the specific percentages as marketing.
- BBQ-specific signal from people in the trade: demand outpaces supply for "real-pit" BBQ above $20/person. Below $15/person, you're competing with Costco rotisserie chicken plus slider rolls and a DIY setup. (BBQ Brethren forum consensus).
Target customer: small-to-mid offices (15-150 people) with regular Monday/Wednesday/Friday in-office days post-hybrid. Medical, law, accounting, and real-estate firms cluster well. Secondary: graduation parties, retirement parties, holiday office events.
Why this is a good time to start: hybrid work locked specific in-office days at many companies, so offices now order lunch on a predictable Mon/Wed/Fri rhythm. ezCater trained office managers to expect catered lunches as a perk. But ezCater takes a 15-25% cut, which is exactly the opening for someone who bills the office directly.
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