Catering & Me

ICC's truck unloading under the Barnes' iconic overhang About a month or so ago, my good friend Tia Triplett asked me to coordinate vendors for interesting food booths on the terrace at the new Barnes museum on their free ticket Memorial day weekend. Tia is the on-site GM for 1st & Fresh Catering the food service provider for the museum. Due to the extremely heavy load of catered events and opening their restaurant and coffee bar, they needed some relief for their staff and that is why they decided to subcontract this project. Tia chose me to do this because of my museum experience and my knowledge of what the best vendor solution would be to make it special for the guests. My immediate thought was to involve all my catering clients, but since only one of them has an ongoing vending component to their business model, I decided to work on this with Rocco Gallelli, Joe Divon and Steve Mastero, owners of Innovative Catering Concepts. Field kitchen and grill station ...

Charlotte NC Skyline  One of my favorite songs is the Taj Mahal version of this classic road song. I listened to it about three or four times on my recent trip to Charlotte NC and Tampa FL. It's on one of my i-pod play lists that I named "Kind of Country" It was just a coincidence that I was on the road from last Wednesday to this Tuesday. Six days on the road. Center of Charlotte. Tryon and Trade Streets. Two blocks from Time Warner Cable Arena where the DNC will be held Bechtler Museum and Knight Theater in the "CLT" I went on this journey to scout venues and catering options for the upcoming political conventions. When I get to a new town I usually start to walk all over, and talk to as many people as possible. Get my bearings, learn about what I may not have picked up in my readings before getting there, and most important, find venues that I might not have found without happening upon them. I fell in love with Charlotte. I spent time in NC as...

I love to watch cooking shows. I started with Julia Child and the Galloping Gourmet s a child, and instantly fell in love with the Food Network when it started. I got to collaborate on some Book & The Cook events (remember that?) with The Two Hot Tamales when I was at Arroyo Grille in the late 90's, and in the kitchen at the time was a budding new talented chef by the name of Jennifer Carroll. These days my favorite show is Rick Bayless's  Mexico, one plate at a time , and I really like the competition shows, Top Chef, Next Iron Chef, and Chopped. Here are two lesser known cooking shows I hope you enjoy as much as I do. Okay, next blog post will be back to covering catering world. There is lots to cover including the opening of the Barnes Museum and a new Facebook group, Philly Catering Stars. Also, I am compiling my thoughts for  chapter two of "Do the Right Thing", so today let's all do some good.

Battleship NJ, once exclusive, now semi-exclusive. Contact me for details The concept of exclusive catering contracts is a topic I have planned on writing about since I began this blog last June. It is a very interesting subject, the pros and cons are numerous and the consequence of exclusivity can make or break a catering company. My personal feelings and analysis of exclusivity has evolved over the years, and I will mostly withhold my own thoughts until I have covered the topic a bit more thoroughly. I would like you, the reader, to draw your own conclusions. Sigma Sound Studios, an iconic Philly venue, exclusive to Feastivities I would like nothing more than lively, spirited feedback on this and I will include good comments in the coming posts on this topic. This one will be short and sweet with only a brief exploration of the topic. I have a very busy day culminating in a very exciting dinner in DC with the Creative Coalition. Why do public and private special event ...

For all your venue and catering sourcing needs.  Service is free for event planners, DMCs, and anyone  looking for the right space to have a party, meeting, shindig or festival. Need help now? Call or email me:  harryspivak@gmail.com 610*955*8001

This blog post has been brewing in my brain for years. When I decided to go to business school and focus on the hospitality industry for my career, a very big part of my motivation was not financial but humanitarian. I had been out of high school for 5 years, had a few interesting jobs, a few crappy jobs, went to three different colleges for one semester each, ski-bummed for two winters, and felt I was beginning to learn enough about the world to decide on a path. Being a child of the '60s I had always wanted to do something to make the world a better place. As an adolescent, civil rights/poverty and the environment were the big issues for me. At one point I contemplated law, another thought was marine biology another was solar energy engineer. Then as I watched the world and learned more about how it worked it seemed to me the people who had the most potential influence both good and bad were the entrepreneurs. So I returned to school at CU Boulder, got my business deg...

Innovative Catering Concepts, a high capacity mobile food experience Here are some images of my catering clients from the event today. Above is Innovative's mobile food trailer which differs from most food trucks you see as they can feed up to 1000 people per hour where most trucks max out at around 100 per hour. It's a real kitchen on wheels and can be wrapped in a client's logo if desired. ICA Caterer of the year, Feastivities Events The folks from Feastivities are promoting two of their exclusive venues, Sigma Sound Stage, the iconic studio where some of Philly's best music was recorded and the Stotesbury Mansion, a classic venue on Rittenhouse Square. Yours Truly promoting my new website: PhillyVenueFinder.com The new website will be up soon for all your venue needs. Look for my venue video on You Tube in the next few days. Feast Your Eyes served Fresh made Honey Lavendar Ice Cream, YUM!!! Front and Palmer is Feast Your Eye's home base and a reall...