What to do when catering arrives: the first ten minutes

The moment when catering arrives is the moment most hosts stop planning and start improvising. The driver is at the door, the pans are hot, twelve people are drifting toward the table, and someone asks where the forks are. I have watched this scene from the delivery side more times than I can count, and the difference between a calm room and a scramble is about ten minutes of thinking done ahead.

The short answer: meet the driver yourself, check every pan against your order and its label, put the food where people will eat it rather than where it landed, keep the lids on until the first guest is actually in line, and open the salsas, crema and utensils last. Do those five things in the first ten minutes and the rest of the meal mostly runs itself.

Everything below assumes drop-off catering, which is how we deliver from our Richardson kitchen: hot pans, labeled by filling, carried in by our own team in the window we agreed on. If you have a full-service caterer with staff, they do most of this for you. If you have us, or any drop-off caterer, this is your job for ten minutes, and it is an easy one.

Before the van pulls up

The first ten minutes really start twenty minutes early. Three things make the arrival smooth, and none of them takes long.

• Pick one person to meet the driver. Not “whoever is closest.” One person with a phone that is on, who knows the order and knows where the food goes. In an office that is usually the person who placed the order. At a party it should not be the host who is greeting guests at the same time.
• Clear the path and the surface. A full pan of tamales is heavy and hot, and our drivers would rather not stand in a hallway holding it while someone moves a laptop. Have the table empty, wiped, and covered if you care about the finish.
• Know where the outlets and the trash are. If you are using chafing racks with fuel cans you do not need an outlet, but if you have a warming tray or a slow cooker for the beans, find the plug before the food shows up. And an open trash can near the end of the line saves you from a stack of husks on the windowsill.

If you asked for a specific window, keep the phone handy for the last half hour of it. Our drivers call when they are close, and a gate code or a suite number that nobody answers is the most common reason a delivery runs late. I wrote about the timing side of this in my guide to scheduling a delivery window that lands on time.

What to check when catering arrives

Do this while the driver is still there. It takes ninety seconds and it means that if anything is off, we can fix it on the spot instead of by phone an hour later.

The count is the important part. If you ordered nine dozen for fifty people, you should be looking at nine dozen. Our pans are labeled by filling and by count, so you can read it off the lid. If a label is missing or the number looks short, say so while the driver is standing there. Armando and Juan would much rather hear it then.

Also check what came with the pans. Salsas, crema, serving spoons and utensils come along when you ask for them on the quote, so glance at the bag against what you requested. It is much easier to grab spoons from the office kitchen now than to discover you need them when thirty people are holding plates.

Where the food should actually go

The table where the driver sets the food down is rarely the table where it should be served. Drivers set pans on the nearest clean surface because that is what you do with a hot, heavy pan. Your job is to move them once, right away, to a spot that works for a line.

The rule I give offices is that the food goes where people can walk past it on both sides, or at least along its length, with the plates at one end and the trash at the other. A table against a wall works if it is long. A round table does not. A kitchen island is nearly perfect. My article on setting up a buffet line for tamales goes through the layout in detail, but the short version is: plates, tamales, sides, salsas, napkins, then a place to sit.

For a party at home, resist the urge to put the food on the dining table where people will also sit. Guests will eat around the pans and nobody else can get to them. A folding table in the next room, or the kitchen counter, keeps the line separate from the seats.

Keeping the tamales hot until people eat

A tamal is a steamed food, and it is happiest kept in the same warm, slightly humid conditions it was cooked in. Our pans arrive hot from the kitchen, and the masa holds heat well because the husks trap it. Even so, heat is the thing you are managing in the first ten minutes, and a few habits keep it in the pan.

• Lids on until the first person is in line. Not until the first person arrives at the party. In line. A pan that sits open for twenty minutes while people finish a meeting will still be warm, but it will not be steaming, and steaming is the good part.
• If you have a chafing rack, use the water pan. The water is what keeps the food from drying and scorching on the bottom. Light the fuel before you set the food pan on top, and do not skip the water because it seems fussy.
• Serve one pan at a time. If you have three pans of pork, open one, keep the other two closed, and swap when the first is half empty. This is the single biggest thing you can do for the last guest through the line.
• Keep the husks on until the plate. Guests unwrap their own tamal. The husk is the insulation, and a tamal opened on the buffet dries out faster than one opened at the table.

If the meal will run more than an hour or so, or if the food arrived well ahead of the eating time, read my piece on keeping catered food hot for hours. It covers ovens on low, coolers as warm boxes, and the mistakes that dry out a good tamal.

Serving, and the sixty seconds after

Once the line is open, the host has one more job, which is to stand near the front for the first minute and answer two questions before anyone asks them: which pan is which, and how to eat it. The labels answer the first. For the second, a quick “peel the husk back, do not eat it, spoon salsa over the top” saves the one guest at every party who has never had a tamal before. My short guide to how to eat a tamal is worth reading if you are not sure yourself.

For an office lunch, I suggest a small sign on the table with the fillings and the fact that the masa is gluten-free. It saves the person who placed the order from answering the same question twelve times, and it lets the gluten-free coworker relax without making a point of it. The details about our masa, and about the burritos with flour tortillas that come out of the same kitchen, are on the FAQ page.

Then step away. The best thing a host can do after the first minute is eat.

After the meal: leftovers and the pans

Tamales are one of the few catered foods that are honestly better the next day, so do not throw anything away. Once the line is done, put the lids back on, and get anything you are keeping into the refrigerator within two hours of when it came out of the warmer. Cooled tamales keep for several days in the fridge and freeze beautifully with the husks on. I have a full guide to how long tamales last in the fridge, the freezer and on the table, and another on reheating so they taste fresh.

In an office, leftover tamales in the break room fridge are a small kindness to the people who were in a meeting during lunch. Label them with the date and the filling with a piece of tape and they will be gone by the next morning.

The pans themselves are yours to keep or recycle, along with any serving spoons that came with the order unless we said otherwise on the quote. Chafing racks, if we brought them, we will collect, and we will arrange the time when we confirm the order.

If something is wrong

It is rare, and I say that as someone who reads every single review. But if a pan is missing, a label is wrong, or the food is not as hot as it should be, call the kitchen right away at the number on your quote. Do not wait until the meal is over to tell us. If the driver is still there, tell him first. We can turn a car around for a missing pan of chicken far more easily at 11:40 than at 1:15, and I would rather fix a problem than apologize for one.

If the timing was the problem, tell us that too, honestly. Most late deliveries trace back to a door nobody answered or a loading dock we did not know about, and both are easy to fix on the next order once we know. That is the kind of thing that goes on file for the offices we serve regularly through our corporate catering service, so it only ever happens once.

Hosting soon? Let me bring the tamales

If you are feeding an office, a birthday crowd, or a room full of relatives anywhere in Richardson, Plano or the north Dallas suburbs, tell me the date and the headcount and I will price it the same business day. Maggie’s delivers hot, labeled and on time, with salsas, crema and serving spoons if you ask, so the first ten minutes are the easy part. Read through the catering page to see how it works, and request a quote when you are ready.

Frequently asked questions

What should I do first when catering arrives?

Meet the driver yourself and count the pans against your order while the driver is still there. Read the labels so you know which pan is pork in red salsa and which is chicken in green. Then walk the pans, lids still on, to the table where people will actually eat, and light the chafing fuel or plug in the warmers before you do anything else.

How long can catered tamales sit out before serving?

Tamales hold heat well in the husk, and in a covered pan on a lit chafing rack they stay hot for the length of a normal lunch or party. On a bare table with the lid off they cool much faster. Keep the lids on until people are in line, serve one pan at a time, and refrigerate what is left within two hours of it leaving the warmer.

Does the caterer bring plates, utensils and serving spoons?

It depends on the caterer and on what you asked for. From our kitchen, salsas, crema, utensils and serving spoons come along when you request them on the quote, and the pans are labeled by filling. Plates and napkins are usually the host’s job for drop-off catering. Check the bag against your request while the driver is there so anything missing can be fixed at once.

Where should I set up catered food at a party?

On a long surface people can walk along, separate from where they will sit. A kitchen island or a folding table in the next room works well. Put plates at the start, tamales next, then sides and salsas, then napkins and utensils, with a trash can at the far end for husks. Avoid the dining table, because guests will sit around the pans and block the line.

What if the delivery is missing something or arrives late?

Tell the driver right away if he is still there, and otherwise call the kitchen at the number on your quote. A missing pan or a wrong label is far easier to fix in the first ten minutes than after the meal. Most late deliveries come down to an unanswered door or an unknown loading dock, so tell us honestly what happened and we will note it for next time.

Can I keep the pans and what do I do with leftovers?

Yes, the foil pans are yours to keep or recycle. Refrigerate leftover tamales within two hours with the husks on, and they keep for several days in the fridge or for months in the freezer. They reheat well in a steamer or a covered dish in the oven. If we brought chafing racks, we will arrange a time to collect them when we confirm the order.