In early July, Great Thyme Catering merged with Blend Catering, owned by my good friends and awesome chefs, Josh and Whitney Deri. The merger allows us to grow the business together, while maintaining our existing relationships and building great new ones. It also frees me up to explore new opportunities, forge new partnerships and build community with other professional organizations in food service.
I had a great time last week as a brand ambassador for Rancho Llano Seco demonstrating how to take apart a whole pig for chefs from around the Reno area. I love helping people like the great folks at Rancho Llano Seco grow their brands in the food service world, and to help bring better products into the local market.
This new chapter in my life is so exciting – I will be focusing on working with people with good products and interesting, challenging business problems they are trying to solve. I won’t be reinventing products or recipes, I’ll be helping take them to the next the level with my 20 years of insight in the food service industry.
The best part is I still have the opportunity to experience my favorite part of catering – savoring that moment when we just finished serving a big group of people in an interesting venue. We’ve served 300 people 5-course meals using nothing but propane burners in the middle of a forest. Some of the stuff we pulled off for happy customers seemed impossible and we did it. Those are my fondest memories in catering and I’m thrilled to be able to do it as I move forward.