"Kind Words"

The delivery of your food is REALLY important!

Our Customers have told us that one of the most important areas of service for a corporate caterer is the delivery of their food.  We will prepare a wonderful meal for your group, but if it doesn’t get to the right place at the right time then we haven’t helped you very much at all.  We devote a lot of effort into making the delivery of your food as effortless on your part as possible.   First, we feel that a trained representative from Gourmet FoodWorks  (not a courier) is the best person for the job.  Because the delivery itself is such an important part of the overall service we provide to you we feel that it’s vitally important to keep this service “in-house.”  Besides, we really do enjoy getting to know you better.  (The better we know you, the better we can take care of you!)  To give you an example of how getting to know you can help you out I’ll tell you about another of our Customers.

This Customer (actually several Customers at the same company) has meetings in any of several buildings.  If we had outsourced our delivery to a courier company, this Customer would always get their deliveries at the Main Building.  But because we have gotten to know them (and learn where their various buildings are) we now simply ask them which building to deliver to and deliver right where they need their food.   And we volunteered to do this even before they thought of asking us to do it because we just thought it made sense to save them some time.

Our “regular” hours of delivery are really flexible and are from 6:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Monday through Friday.  If you need delivery outside of that we’ll do our best to help you out.  We can deliver your food anywhere in the Metro St. Louis area, including Illinois.  Sometimes (very rarely actually) a Customer will ask about whether they can come to our place to pick up their food.  And if our South City location (not far from Downtown) is convenient then by all means come on over and save yourself the Delivery Charge (and while you’re here we’ll show you around our huge commissary).

Another service that is really important for some of our Customers, after we get the food to the right place,  is to set up the food so that it is ready to eat.  Not all of our Customers want help getting the food set up but we’re always ready to lend a hand.  By the way, we wouldn’t think of adding on an extra “Set Up Fee” to your invoice or forcing you to know ahead of time whether you’re going to need help getting the food set-up.  If you want us to help, just ask.  It’s also another way that we get to learn more about our Customers.   For example, because we help with setting up our Customer’s food we’ve learned that many times our Customers are pressed for space so we always try to use as few serving platters/trays/bowls as possible.

We would rather not have a separate delivery fee but I‘ll tell you why we do.  Because delivery of your food is so important we offer a Money-back Guarantee.  (We may be the only caterer in St. Louis to do this!)  Although I hate “Nickel and Diming” you for the Delivery Fee (which is usually less than $15.90, depending on your location) I want you to know that Gourmet FoodWorks has something direct and tangible to lose, the Delivery Fee, if we’re late or more than 30 minutes early with your food.  It would be nice to say that we’ve never been late before, but every once in a while (about 2% of the time, actually) we are running a few minutes behind schedule.  If for any reason we are running behind, here’s what we’ll do for you:    We’ll do our best to help you get set-up and ready for your group;  We’ll apologize;  We’ll send you a revised invoice with the Delivery Fee removed.  We offer our Money-Back Guarantee because it’s a way of showing you that we do things with integrity.  That if we don’t provide you with the service that you expect then we shouldn’t be compensated as if we did.

In addition to getting your food to the right place at the right time, we have a system of FIVE double-checks that make sure we get you the right food, too!  The first check is when you place your order.  We’ll make sure we understand you, that there are no communications errors or simple math errors and that we know when and where we’ll be going with your food.  Secondly, our culinary staff will review your order and how it was entered into our system to make sure there are no questions.  Third, while making your food we use lots of little double-checks to make sure, for example, that the right number of servings are put into a Bread Basket.  The fourth check is when our culinary staff completes your order, they will review it to make sure that everything was actually completed.  Our fifth check takes place when your food is loaded into our delivery vehicle.  Each item is checked by two (2) people so we know that every item that should  be there, is  there.  While this may seem excessive, it works really well for our Customers.

Our Customers have also told us that most of the time they want the invoice delivered with the food.  That way you can take care of it while it’s still fresh in your mind.  However, if you want us to do something different that fits your needs better, like mailing the invoice or faxing it ahead of time, just tell us.

Milan

On all special contracted events which include staffing and special rentals service fees of 18% will be charged as will the tax rate of 8.75% on all services and foods provided.