Office lunch catering

Shared lunches that fit a real lunch break

An office lunch has one hard constraint: the break. If a team of 40 has 45 minutes, the food has to be ready before the meeting ends, the line has to move, and there has to be enough of the popular dish for the last person in line. Everything about how we plan a shared lunch comes from that.

We cater two shared formats. A hot lunch buffet is one or two mains, a grain or potato, a vegetable side, a salad and bread, kept hot in chafing dishes or insulated carriers. Platters are cold or room-temperature: wraps, sandwiches on good bread, grain bowls, salads and a fruit or sweet tray. Hot buffets start from $32 per person; see the hot lunch buffet menu for dishes.

Buffet, platters or boxes: how to decide

Choose a hot buffet when people will sit down together for at least 30 minutes, the room has a table or credenza for the line, and it is cold outside. A warm main does a lot for morale in February.

Choose platters when the meeting runs through lunch and people will eat while they work, when there is no safe place for chafing fuel, or when food will sit out for part of the afternoon.

Choose boxed lunches when attendees are spread across floors, some are visitors who need to eat and leave, or several people have allergies that make a shared line risky. Our comparison of boxed lunches and platters goes into cost and waste.

How much to order for a team lunch

For a buffet, we portion mains at roughly 150–180 g of cooked protein per person when there are two mains, with sides sized so that nobody has to ration the last tray. We add a small buffer for the most popular item rather than ordering extra of everything.

• Order for confirmed attendees, not invitees. For internal lunches, 90–95% of RSVPs is a realistic turnout; for optional lunch-and-learns it can be lower.
• Split the mains. With 30 or more people, two mains (one of them vegetarian) spread demand and cover more dietary needs with fewer special orders.
• Count special meals by name. A vegan or halal meal set aside for a named person stops someone else taking it.

Delivery, setup and timing

We schedule arrival 30–45 minutes before your lunch time. That covers the loading dock, security sign-in and the freight elevator in a downtown tower, plus 10–15 minutes to lay out the line in the right order: plates, salads and sides, mains, then cutlery and napkins at the end so nobody juggles them.

Some Toronto buildings do not allow open-flame chafing fuel. Tell us if yours is one of them and we will send the hot food in insulated carriers timed to your service. If you are on a lower floor in a Mississauga or Markham office park, we will ask where the closest entrance to the meeting room is so we are not wheeling trays through a lobby.

Drop-off orders need 48 hours notice and at least 15 people. Delivery is $45.

Food safety after lunch

General food safety guidance is that perishable food should not sit at room temperature for more than about two hours in total. For a noon lunch, that means leftovers should be refrigerated or discarded by early afternoon, not left on the kitchenette counter until 4 p.m.

Every drop-off includes the time the food was delivered, so whoever tidies up knows the clock. If your team likes to keep leftovers, have containers ready and a fridge with space. We do not recommend reheating chafing-dish food the next day.

Dietary labelling on a shared line

Each dish on the buffet has a card with its name and tags (vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, halal where applicable) and a note if it contains nuts, sesame or other common allergens. Serving utensils stay with their dish so a gluten-free tray does not get the spoon from the pasta.

If someone has a severe allergy, we recommend an individually packed meal for them rather than relying on a shared line. Read more on our dietary page and in our guide to catering for dietary restrictions at the office.