4 Ways We Partner With Caterers Who Don't Have a Bar Team

4 Ways We Partner With Caterers Who Don't Have a Bar Team

Food and drinks don't always come from the same vendor — and that's exactly the gap we've found ourselves filling for a number of caterers over the years. In our work, we've partnered with quite a few catering companies that don't have a specialised bar or beverage team of their own. Rather than turning away a client who wants cocktails alongside their catering, these caterers have found it easier to bring in an experienced bar partner behind the scenes. Here's what we're currently offering, based on arrangements we already have in place with existing partners.

1. Manpower Fee, Bundled Into Your Package

The most straightforward arrangement: we charge caterers a manpower fee for our bartenders, and caterers are free to package that fee into a combined food-and-cocktails offering for their own clients. Because this is a direct partnership rate rather than a standalone booking, we're able to offer caterers a slightly better rate than an individual client would pay booking bar services on their own.

This setup works well for caterers who already have strong client relationships and food menus, but simply don't have the bar expertise (or the desire to build it in-house) to offer drinks as part of the package. It also means caterers don't need to hire, train, or manage bar staff themselves — the manpower fee covers experienced bartenders who already know how to run service independently.

2. A Complete Food-and-Cocktails Package for Clients

Once the manpower fee arrangement is in place, caterers can present their clients with a single, unified package that covers both food and drinks — without needing to manage two separate vendors or two separate quotes. For the client, it looks like one seamless booking, coordinated by a caterer they already trust. Behind the scenes, it's a caterer and a bar team working from an established partnership rate, with clear expectations on both sides about who's responsible for what.

This is often the easiest way for a catering business to expand what it offers without taking on the operational complexity of running a bar service department internally.

3. Outsourced Bar Management for Specific Duties

Not every caterer needs a full bar team — some just need certain duties covered. We can act as an outsourced bar manager, fulfilling specific responsibilities you define rather than taking over the entire beverage operation. If you have a particular gap you need filled — menu consultation, execution on the day, ingredient sourcing, or something more specific — that's a conversation worth having, since the arrangement can be shaped around what you actually need rather than a fixed package.

This flexible arrangement suits caterers who already have some in-house bar capability but need support scaling up for a larger event, or who want an experienced partner to consult on menu design without necessarily handing over the whole beverage operation.

4. Ad Hoc Bartending Support for One-Off Events

Sometimes it's simpler than an ongoing partnership: you have an event that requires bartenders, but your team doesn't have the expertise to run it. In that case, there's no need to build out a formal arrangement — just get in touch, and we can step in for that specific event. This works well for caterers who only occasionally get asked for a bar component and don't need a standing partnership to justify the conversation.

Why This Matters for Caterers

Bar service is a specialised skill set that most catering businesses haven't invested in building internally, and for good reason — running an excellent kitchen and running an excellent bar are genuinely different disciplines, from ingredient handling to pacing service during a rush. Rather than turning down a client's request for cocktails, or trying to cobble together bar service without the right expertise, a partnership arrangement lets caterers offer complete event bar services under their own brand, backed by a team that already knows how to run one.

There's also a business case here beyond simply saying yes to more requests. Clients increasingly expect food and drinks to be handled as one cohesive package, and caterers who can't offer that risk losing bookings to competitors who can. A bar partnership closes that gap without requiring caterers to build out a new department from scratch.

How These Partnerships Typically Start

Most partnerships begin with a simple conversation about what a caterer actually needs — sometimes that's full-scale manpower support for every booking, and sometimes it's narrower, like help with one large event that's outgrown what an in-house team can manage. There's no fixed template that has to be followed; the arrangement gets shaped around the caterer's existing operations and client base.

What Caterers Don't Have to Worry About

One of the more reassuring parts of these arrangements, based on what partners tell us, is how little changes on the catering side once a bar partnership is in place. Caterers don't need to source bar equipment, manage bartender scheduling, handle ice and mixer logistics, or troubleshoot cocktail recipes — all of that sits with us. What caterers keep control of is the client relationship, the food menu, and the overall event coordination, while the bar component runs as a dependable, pre-arranged add-on rather than a scramble every time a client asks for cocktails.

This division of responsibility is really the point of a good partnership: each side does what it's already good at, rather than a caterer stretching into bar operations it has no real experience running, or a bar team trying to manage catering logistics it isn't set up for.

A Note on Event Bar Services as a Growing Expectation

It's worth mentioning why this kind of partnership has become more relevant, not less, over the past few years. Increasingly, clients booking a caterer for a wedding, corporate event, or private party expect drinks to be part of the conversation from the start, rather than something they have to separately source and coordinate themselves. Caterers who can answer "yes, we can arrange that" without missing a beat tend to win more of these bookings than those who have to say "you'll need to find your own bar vendor."

A bar partnership is one of the simplest ways to close that gap, without the caterer needing to build an entirely new service line from the ground up.

Building a Partnership That Fits

Whether it's a straightforward manpower fee arrangement, a fully bundled package, outsourced bar management for specific duties, or one-off support for a single event, the goal is the same: making sure a lack of in-house bar expertise never has to mean turning down a client's request for drinks.

Have an idea for a partnership, or an event that needs bartenders your team doesn't have the expertise for? Get in touch — we're happy to talk through what would work best for your business.