Feeding Your Hungry Startup

For the most part, there are two types of companies that bring in lunch for their employees: Those who don’t want their employees leaving their desks and those who genuinely care about the “people connection.”

At Bluecore, we’re firmly in the latter camp.

We cater lunch every day from a myriad of vendors across New York City, ask new employees about their food preferences (including everything from the necessary dietary restrictions to the helpful cuisine likes and dislikes) and, most importantly, encourage everyone to eat together.

Why Do We Do It?

First, we do it because we prioritize taking care of our people. We value and appreciate them, and we wish to support their ability to perform at their best. Beyond a benefit or “perk,” our daily catered lunches are a meaningful demonstration of our priorities. And, as Tina Fey says: “All anyone wants in this life is a great sandwich.” Hear, hear!

Second, we do it to foster a sense of community. While food itself does not define our culture, the environment the food creates most certainly contributes to it, because when you see 120+ people eating lunch together everyday, there’s no doubt that we’re a community-driven place to work. Remember: We’re not doing the “stay-at-your-desk-expense-your-Seamless-order” lunch, we’re doing a “family-style-let’s-all-sit-together-and-talk” lunch. It’s the workplace equivalent of the family dinner.

And in this digital age, we can’t underestimate the value of in-person exchange and communication. When we have lunch, we do it together, and that means we’re talking, we’re communicating, we’re connecting — we are building our relationships with one another, which makes us more than a workplace. It’s all about good old fashioned CONNECTION!

How Do We Do It?

Of course this family style feast doesn’t just appear on its own — it takes a lot of work to put together and get right. Some of the key challenges we’ve faced (and how we’ve overcome them) include:

• Finding the right price point per head and working within a budget: Feeding a growing team is expensive, and there’s no getting around that. But unless you have an endless supply of money (and unless you want to spend that endless supply on food), you have to set a budget. For us, that means determining the average price per head per lunch based on our projected headcount for the year and what we can get approved by finance. And average means that some days will be more (you have to plan for those special circumstances) and some days will be less (hello, Pizza Friday!). From there, it’s a matter of finding which vendors can best work within your budget.
• Gauging the right headcount for each order — daily: Headcount is a moving target — between planned time off, unexpected sick days, new hires, remoties who are present, office visitors and so on, it’s never the same number two days in a row. You have to settle for knowing you’ll never get it just right, but you can get pretty close (and remember, it’s always better to have too much than not enough). Try taking it month by month and taking into account things like new hire start dates, lower attendance in the lead-up to holiday weekends and so on.
• Pleasing everyone: Pleasing everyone when you’re cooking dinner at home is hard enough, let alone pleasing over 120 people. The key is not to go it alone. Listening to feedback as people discuss their lunch with one another is important, as is picking a trusted source who can help you identify what’s working and what’s not. I also like to map out each day for the entire month to ensure we have a good mix each week and that I’ve slotted in the favorites (Taco Tuesday, anyone?) on a good cadence.
• Finding the right vendor: We actually don’t go directly through the restaurants but instead use Cater2Me, who coordinates with the restaurants for us (and is one of many companies that offers this type of service). Having that single point of contact is great. I’ve found a few things helpful in getting this right though. First is simply getting a strong sense for the company culture and what we need. Second is thinking about what the space we’re in requires. For example, we recently moved offices and the space we have for lunch is completely different now, so we’ve had to rethink the packaging for what we bring in. And the third is sharing tips with others. I’m part of an amazing Slack channel with admins from across the city where we share tips with one another, and that community is invaluable.
• Setup, clean up and team compliance: These are the details you probably don’t even think about until they’re happening, but trust me, they’re a biggie. When you’re feeding 120 people and counting, there’s a lot involved in setup and even more involved in cleanup. Most importantly, make sure you have someone you can trust to help out the vendor and keep the space clean. It’s also essential to put some responsibility back on your team to clean up after themselves and to wait until the vendor is completely finished setting up before they take anything (you’d be surprised what hungry people will do!).

Ready to L(a)unch

At the end of the day, feeding your hungry startup is a commitment — it takes significant time, effort and resources — but if you can get it right, the results are worth it. And there’s a return on that investment when it comes to caring for your people and fostering new connections within the workplace.