Catering multiple office locations with the same lunch on one day

Catering multiple locations on the same day sounds like three separate headaches, but from my side of the kitchen it is one order with three delivery windows. A company with an office in Richardson, a warehouse in Plano and a sales team in Frisco wants everyone to eat the same lunch on the same day, feel like one team, and hand accounting a single invoice. That is very doable, and this is how I do it.

The short answer: Treat a multi-location lunch as one order with one menu, one contact and one invoice, then give each site its own headcount, address, on-site contact and delivery window. Stagger the windows about thirty to forty-five minutes apart in driving order, plan two tamales per person at each site, and label every pan by filling and by location so nothing gets swapped in the truck.

Below is the planning sheet I ask for, the way I route the day, and the small habits that keep the third office from feeling like an afterthought.

Why one order beats three separate ones

Office managers sometimes place three orders with three different lunch spots, one per site, because it feels simpler. It is not. You end up with three menus, three delivery calls, three receipts to reconcile, and a Richardson team eating tamales while the Frisco team eats sandwiches and wonders why. One order fixes all of that:

• Same menu, same quality. Every site gets the same pork tamales in red salsa and chicken tamales in green salsa, made in the same batch that morning.
• One conversation. You tell me the sites and the counts once, and I handle the routing.
• One invoice. Itemized by location if your accounting team wants it that way, which I explain in my note on office catering receipts and invoices.
• Volume that makes sense. Three sites of twenty people is a lunch for sixty, which is ten dozen tamales at $60 a dozen, and easier for a kitchen to plan than three small orders on the same morning.

Our corporate office catering page describes the office packages, and a multi-site lunch is simply one of those packages delivered to more than one door.

The planning sheet for catering multiple locations

When you write to me about a multi-site lunch, I need the same five things for each location. Put them in a short list or a little table in your email; it saves us both a round of questions.

1. Address with suite, floor and door. A business park in Plano can have six identical buildings. Tell me which one and which entrance.
2. Headcount at that site. Not the company total; the number of people eating in that building.
3. On-site contact and phone. Someone who will be at the door, not the manager who is driving between sites.
4. Eating time. When lunch actually starts at that site. Shift teams and warehouse crews often eat earlier or later than the front office.
5. Setup notes. Break room with a counter, or a conference table that needs spoons, plates and salsas laid out.

With those five lines per site, I can write the quote, set the route and label the pans. Everything else, from the chicken-to-pork split to the sides, can be the same across all locations unless you tell me one site has different tastes.

How I route the day so every site eats hot

The kitchen is in Richardson, so the truck leaves from there and follows the map. A typical three-site day might run Richardson first, then Plano, then Frisco, moving north; or Dallas first and north from there. Each stop needs time to unload, set up and check in with the contact, so I stagger the windows rather than promising every site the same minute.

Notice two things. Each site’s lunch starts fifteen to forty-five minutes after its window opens, which is exactly right for tamales delivered hot in their pans. And the order of the stops follows the road, not the org chart. If the Frisco office is the headquarters and wants to eat first, we can run the route the other way; just tell me. For very large days, or sites far apart, we may send two vehicles, which is confirmed with the quote. My article on scheduling a catering delivery window explains how to choose a window that fits your building.

Our city pages for Plano and Frisco describe delivery in each area, and the full list of cities is on the service areas page.

Labeling and packing so nothing gets swapped

The quiet risk in a multi-site day is that the Plano pans end up in Frisco. We prevent it the boring way. Every pan is labeled by filling, as always, and on a multi-location day it is also labeled by site and stacked in the truck in stop order. Each site gets its own bag of salsas, crema, serving spoons and utensils if you asked for buffet-style service, so the first site cannot accidentally take the third site’s spoons.

Two habits on your end help. First, have the on-site contact count pans against the label before signing; it takes thirty seconds. Second, if one location has a dietary note, say a gluten-free group that wants the tamales kept well away from the burritos, tell me so that site’s pans are packed separately. Our tamales are made with gluten-free corn masa, but flour-tortilla burritos come from the same kitchen, so a clearly separated pan is the honest way to serve a sensitive team.

Keeping the menu identical without making it boring

The whole point of a company-wide lunch is that everyone eats the same thing. Keep the core the same at every site: two tamales per person, roughly half chicken and half pork, with rice, beans, chips and both salsas. Then allow one small local difference if a site asks for it. The warehouse crew might want burritos because they eat standing up; the sales office might lean toward chicken because two people are spice-shy. Those are easy tweaks that do not break the shared menu, and I compare the two options in tamales versus burritos for an office lunch.

What I would avoid is ordering fancier food for headquarters and plainer food for the branches. People talk between offices, and the whole warmth of a shared lunch evaporates the moment a photo of the “good” spread shows up in the group chat.

Making it a recurring, one-invoice program

Many companies try a multi-site lunch once and then ask to repeat it monthly. That is the Tamale Day program: a standing count per site, a fixed day each month, one delivery route and one invoice. You change the counts when they change and otherwise do nothing. One office reviewer wrote that everyone looks forward to tamale day, and that is the effect across three buildings at once.

Setting it up takes a single email with the same five-line sheet per site, plus who receives the invoice. My guide to setting up a corporate catering account covers the billing side, and the catering FAQ answers the everyday questions about reheating, storage and delivery hours.

Ready to feed every office on the same day?

Whether it is two sites in Richardson and Plano or four across north Dallas, Maggie’s can plan one tamale lunch, route it in stop order, label every pan by location and send you a single invoice. Send me the date and a five-line sheet for each site, and I will reply with a menu, a route and a price the same day. Request a multi-location catering quote and let me handle the map.

Frequently asked questions

How does catering multiple locations on the same day work?

You place one order with one menu and one contact, then give each site its own address, headcount, on-site contact and eating time. The caterer plans a route from the kitchen, staggers the delivery windows so each stop gets hot food shortly before lunch, labels the pans by site, and sends one invoice, itemized by location if your accounting team needs it.

How far apart should the delivery windows be for different offices?

About thirty to forty-five minutes apart, following the driving order from the kitchen. Each stop needs time to unload, set up and check in with the contact, plus the drive to the next site. For a lunch that starts at noon at every location, that means staggering the start times slightly by site or, for large or distant sites, sending a second vehicle, which is confirmed with the quote.

Can each office have a different headcount and menu?

Different headcounts, yes, always; that is why I ask for a count per site rather than a company total. Small menu differences are fine too, such as burritos at a warehouse or more chicken tamales at a spice-shy office. I recommend keeping the core menu the same everywhere so the lunch feels shared, and adjusting only the mix and the portions per location.

Will we get one invoice for all locations?

Yes. A multi-site order is one quote and one invoice, and I can itemize it by location so each site or department can be charged its share internally. For recurring programs such as a monthly Tamale Day across several offices, the invoice arrives once a month with the same breakdown, which keeps the accounting team as happy as the people eating.

How much food should I order per location?

Plan two tamales per person for lunch at each site and round up to whole dozens, so twenty-four people is four dozen and thirty-six people is six dozen. Add rice, beans, chips and salsas in proportion. If one site has shift workers who eat heartily or standing up, consider burritos there instead. Leftover tamales freeze well, so a small buffer per site is inexpensive insurance.