Indiana Market & Catering

Indiana Market & Catering puts a premium on client satisfaction – after all, where would we be without happy customers?

Nothing can ruin an otherwise perfect catered event – delicious food, gorgeous décor and inspired entertainment – than lousy service. And more often than not, subpar service isn’t the result of inexperience. It’s due to the gradual deterioration of standards.

Some of our pet service peeves at Indiana: staffers who show up without the proper equipment to get the job done, an incorrect or unsightly and stained uniform, surly ’tudes. Talk about leaving a bad taste in your customer’s mouth!

But unlike many others in the biz, we’re committed to nurturing a pool of staffers; we’ve found that working with a consistent A-Team not only builds confidence and camaraderie within the ranks, but it ultimately gives our clients more reliable and superior service. When our A-Team starts to look more like a D-Team, we take aggressive steps to pull them back up to where we know they can be.

This year we have begun:

• Re-designing our Catering Curriculum to ensure our floor and kitchen staff are prepared to communicate with each other effectively, serve beautifully prepared food seamlessly and set up and load out events as carefully and quickly as possible.

• Sending out bi-weekly tips to our floor staff to make sure they are up to date on our latest uniform/skill/and equipment requirements.

• Organizing bi-monthly brainstorming sessions with our planners, captains and chefs to see what has worked at recent parties and what hasn’t, so that events run from conception to execution in one smooth arc.

If you ever see our team slipping – let us know!

Themed parties take a little bit of work, but done right, they can amuse and surprise your guests. A “Clue” Party, based on the famous board game and movie adaptation, is especially fun.

Things You’ll Need:

• Clue board game
• Nine squares of white poster board (12”)
• Envelopes (one for each player)
• A tray of drinks and hors d’oeuvres for each room

Prepare for the party

Step 1

Send invitations. A cryptic e-mail will work fine for this game: “You are hereby summoned to a Clue party at the home of (your name) at (time) on (date), where you will investigate the murder of Mr. Boddy. Please come dressed as (choose one of the following for each guest: Colonel Mustard, Miss Scarlet, Professor Plum, Mr. Green, Mrs. White or Mrs. Peacock).”

Step 2

Decide who will be designated as the murderer, in which room the murder was committed, and with which weapon was used to carry it out. Take the cards that represent each of these elements out of the Clue set and place them in the provided envelope.

Step 3

Label nine areas of your house by making and hanging poster-board signs that designate each area as one of the rooms in the Clue mansion.

Step 4

Collect the following “murder weapons”: the revolver (use a toy gun, please!), the candlestick, the knife (use a plastic or rubber one), the rope, the wrench and the pipe.

Play the game

Step 1

As the guests arrive, give each of them an envelope containing a suspect card, a weapon card and a room card. Also give them each a game sheet and a pencil (which are provided with the Clue set).

Step 2

Announce which player will begin the game and which room the game will start in. All players will report to that room.

Step 3

Explain to the players that they will use the game sheets to take notes and eliminate suspects, weapons and rooms as they play.

Step 4

Have the first player (A) guess who the murderer was, what weapon was used and in what room the murder was committed. The accused individual (B) then either says to A, “I have none of those cards,” or privately shows one of those cards to A.

Step 5

Tell Player B that it is now his turn. He may stay in the same room or request that all the players go to a different room.

Step 6

Play continues until one player decides to make a formal accusation. He does so, and then looks into the envelope that was prepared before the guests arrive. If he is correct, he has won the game. If he is incorrect, he continues to participate but is not allowed to make another guess.