ELITE CATERING GETS CREATIVE FOR HOLIDAYS
The holidays may be over and the spreads of rich, delectable food McClure and her teamhave always been ones to watch — now more than ever. idays had to offffffffffffer.s
One of themore impressive, creative operations that I saw this holiday season was Elite Catering. The company, founded by Renee McClure in 1999, has grown rapidly into one of Dayton’s best- known caterers. Still owned and led by McClure, who accurately and hilariously calls herself a “food fashionista,” the company has continued to fifine- tune its craft while fifinding ways to infuse creativity and innovation into its business model.
This year, Elite launched a new “Cravings to Go” menu for the holidays via its website, www.elitetogo.com, to deliver favorite dishes to its customers’ doorsteps. The meals were easy-to-prepare spreads that just needed an oven.
Meals include a traditional holiday turkey feast that served six to eight ($129), a holiday ham feast that served four to six people ($99), a mascarpone and fifififig stuffffffffffffed chicken marsala dinner for four ($79), a goat cheese and pesto stuffffffffffffed eggplant Parmesan vegetarian feast for four ($79), a fifilet dinner for four ($99), a braised short rib dinner for four ($89) and a Southern BBQ feast ($99) that served four to six six.
The me mealsals we werere te terrrrifific,c, but the real creativity came in the formof order addons like fresh flfloral centerpieces, a decorate-yourown-holiday-cookie box, charcuterie andmy personal favorite — praline bacon.
Letme take amoment to highlight this delicious salty savory piece ofmagic. Elite’s praline bacon is the local caterer’s No. 1 selling hors d’oeuvre, and for good reason — it’s glorious. This mouth-watering ambrosia is a perfectly crafted hand-held food that delivers a satisfying crunch with every bite.
This year Elite offffffffffffered it by the pound ($29, one pound is 16-18 full pieces or 32-36 half-size pieces) for the fifirst time ever. It’s a great gift any time of year that will leave quite the impression on whoever is receiving it, especially if it’s me. I kid, but it is defifinitely a favorite treat of mine.
It’s great for parties, gifts, stocking stuffffffffffffers, breakfast, lunch or dinner, winter, spring summer, fall and just about any occasion that you could dreamup.
“We picked ourmost popular dinner items to pull together for this program. We focused on the celebration aspect and wanted our meals to look and taste just as you would expect froma high-end restaurant. We may be stuck at home, but that doesn’t mean we are not celebrating all the wonderful things we have to be grateful for,” said McClure. “We are in the business of large gatherings, and they have not been allowed to happen since March, so this was our pivot into something difffffffffffferent to help keep the small staffff we have retained, busy. It started slow, because nothing like this has been offffffffffffered in our market before. There was a little bit of educating the corporate clients on what it was and how it could work for them. Now, we are full tilt and bringing in additional workers who had been laid offff previously to help with the demand.”
In December the Elite team has been averagingmore than 150 boxes a week. Thanksgiving was a huge week and they had to close Christmas orders a week before the holiday based on the volume of orders they received.
“COVID-19 reared its ugly head on our event calendar in 2020 and once the fall hit we worked to come up with a solution to all of our holiday parties being canceled,” said McClure. “With many companies having their employees work remotely still, we thought we were developing this programfor themto replace their holiday party. While several of our corporate clients took advantage of the program and sent anywhere between 19 to 178 boxes, depending on the size of their company, we were pleasantly surprised by the number of past clients taking advantage of the program for their own family meals and gifting needs. We have gotten to see so many familiar faces from weddings we catered eight and 12 years ago and honestly, that has been the best part.”
Ordering online was smooth and they added a way to give back. In a partnership with Premier Health and Miami Valley Hospital, they created a donation programwhere customers could conveniently feed a front-line health care hero just by adding it to their cart.
“When we were sketching this programout, we wanted to include some of our friends in the event industry as well other small businesses that could use the support. Mehaffffffffffffie’s Pies has probably been the most popular,” said McClure, who emphasized the importance of shopping local now and throughout the year.
When it comes to food and creativity, McClure and her team have always been one to watch — now more than ever.
DaytonEats looksat the regional foodstoriesand restaurantnews thatmake mouthswater. Shareinfo aboutyourmenuupdates, special dinnersandevents, newchefs, interesting newdishesandculinary adventures. Doyouknow ofexcitingoutdoorspaces, newexcitingformat changes, specials, happy hours, restaurantupdates oranyothertastynews? E-mailAlexis Larsenat alexis.e.larsen@hotmail.com withtheinformation .