Catering & Me

The previous two parts of my story are very good prep for this episode, either read them now, or after you read this post. Or don't. This post will mostly cover planning our participation in catering over 25,000 meals in the two week period before, during and after the Republican National Convention of 2000 that took place in Philadelphia, based at The First Union Center. Headquarters of the Union Pacific Railroad. Their history is great stuff. The first client we had for the RNC was the Union Pacific Railroad and by mid May or so most of the menus and pricing had been settled on and contracted. Max had actually been flown out to Omaha to UP headquarters to see the antique rail cars we would be serving on and meet many of the folks we would be interacting with ahead of time. The Electric Factory. Republicans once stampeded here. I'm not sure of the exact date, but our second client for the RNC came to us through our Electric Factory connection. Rob Jennings, who ...

In Part One I started the story with what led up to my employment at Max & Me Catering. This post will start with my first day and lead up to about the beginning of the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia in the summer of 2000.  Some of you have asked why I am doing this, and there are a number of reasons. One is that when I started blogging a few years back I had always planned to tell the story of the best job I have ever had, my years as GM then partner at Max & Me Catering. I think many of the stories over those years are very interesting and make a good read, many of you have told me that it is in fact nice to read. I also plan on writing at least one book some day, so this is practice, and also maybe advance work that I can cut and paste later into a manuscript. Another reason is that for those of you in the catering business these stories can also be educational, with many things you can learn both to do and not to do. Finally, I love history, and this s...