Fast Food Catering Ideas

A lot of fast food establishments offer catering packages now. Catering packages can be quite profitable and help grow a fast food’s business by offering more services that, in turn, gain more revenue and help get the word out about your business.

But how does a fast food restaurant offer catering? What all would you serve and what events could you market to with the most success? There are a lot of different food items you can serve as a fast food establishment for catering that will be well received to boost business. 

Types of Events to Cater

Fast food facilities can do well catering a lot of different types of events. Everything from corporate lunches that might be smaller scale, or even birthday parties will probably be the best scenes for fast food catering. A lot of people enjoy fast food catering for smaller events or ones with tighter budgets. Thus fast food catering can be the perfect option since it is typically more affordable and most companies offer smaller package options. 

Fast Food Catering Menu Ideas

So what does a fast food catering menu look like? There is a lot of food that performs well at events catered by fast food facilities. The most common trend appears to be trays for buffet-style catering. You can offer a bunch of different food trays to your clients. 

• Fried Chicken: Fried chicken is so easy to put in a tray and even easier for guests to serve themselves in a buffet line. These are great options for something more casual as well.

• Sandwiches: You can offer a variety of different sandwich trays. From ham clubs, Italian subs, and more, you can designate a tray for each type of sandwich. These trays will be perfect for a corporate lunch that needs someone to cater.

• Pizza: Pizza also works perfect for casual settings and makes for a very easy grab-and-go buffet line so no one is stuck waiting too long. This is especially important when serving a lot of people with limited time, such as corporate lunches where dining trends are always on the up and up.

• Chicken Nuggets and Fries: Another casual option for sure. These work great together with different tray sizes to accommodate a variety of crowd sizes. They’re definitely a favorite among children and thus are a great option to have when catering kids parties. They also can easily be made in bulk and served in bulk making them very easy to offer. 

• Hot Dogs and Sausage: Hot dogs and sausages are always a classic. You can serve them in trays as well and allow people to select a hot dog or sausage, put it in a bun, and then choose from an assortment of condiments at the end. 

• Italian Beef: This can also be served similar to how you set up the hot dogs and sausage. For condiments at the end you can have small trays for peppers and even shredded cheese.

• Pasta Bar: This is where fast food gets a little fancier for less casual catered events. To set up a pasta bar you can let your customer select a couple trays of different types of plain pasta and then a few trays of different sauces like red, pesto, or alfredo. Guests can then build their own pasta dishes. You can also let customers add trays of meatballs, sausage, or chicken for an upcharge so guests can add meat to their pasta.

• Salads: Salad can be fancy and also very simple to serve and set up. You could do a salad bar with lettuce and different trays for toppings or you can do premade trays of specific salads like cesar or cobb. They also make for a great healthy option as well. 

• Taco, Nacho or Burrito Bowl Bar: This can also be a more customizable catering option like the pasta bar. You can let your customers choose between tacos, nachos or burrito bowls. For tacos you can let them start by picking from corn or flour and hard or soft shells for their tacos. For the filling, options can include a few meats like chicken or beef and nacho toppings ideas like cheese, onion, cilantro, tomatoes and more! A burrito bowl bar can be set up almost exactly the same: just swap out the shells for rice and beans.