Catering inquiries you can actually quote from
A caterer can’t price “some kind of party for a bunch of people.” This intake captures the event, the head count, how the food is served, and the menu direction — so the reply is a real quote, not five questions back.
The questions this niche actually needs
A blank “how can we help?” box gets you a callback and three more questions. Here's what the catering intake asks up front, so the request arrives ready to act on.
- What are you catering — a wedding, a corporate event, a private party, or a standing order?
- When is it, and is the date set?
- Roughly how many guests?
- How should it be served — drop-off, buffet, stations, plated, or full-service?
- Menu direction, a per-guest budget, and any dietary counts to build into the menu.
Try it — this is the real form
The same engine a paying business would use, running in demo mode. Answer a couple of questions and watch the brief that would land in the owner's inbox. Nothing is emailed and no account is created.
The real form — go through it yourself
What lands in your inbox
Answer on the left — each answer prints here, then the finished brief lands after you submit.
What the photo does here
A photo of the venue or serving space tells the caterer what they’re walking into — whether there’s a prep area or power for hot service, how the tables lay out, where a buffet or stations would go. That’s the difference between a quote that holds and one that gets revised on the day of setup.
Inquiry: Catering — private party or celebration
Event date: In the next couple of months (60th birthday dinner)
Guests: 75–150 · Service: Buffet, set up on site
Menu & dietary (as given): “Mediterranean spread, ~$40/head; 10 vegetarian,
2 gluten-free, one nut-free table.”
Venue photo attached: backyard tent, power run from the house
Location: 75204
Preferred contact: email
What a caterer would note: a mid-size buffet with clear dietary counts and a
workable budget — worth confirming kitchen/power access at the tent and whether
staff and rentals are wanted before pricing. Dietary figures are menu counts, not
guest health details.What “structured intake” means here
A catering intake is a hosted inquiry form that captures the event type, the date, the guest count, the service style, and the menu direction — including dietary needs as menu-planning counts — before a quote is written. It’s the input a caterer needs to price a job accurately, instead of trading messages to assemble the basics.
Where this is the wrong tool
This is an inquiry form for event catering — weddings, corporate, private parties, standing orders. Dietary needs are collected as counts to cook to, not as anyone’s medical history; it asks nothing about guests’ health and gives no nutritional advice.
See how it compares, or set it up
Every niche gets its own question set — browse the rest, or read how this differs from a chat widget or an answering service.