The event request sits in the inbox
A company asks on Facebook about a corporate party. The floor manager sees the message between two orders, promises to come back with a quote and comes back three days later — or not at all.
CRM by industry · Restaurants & catering
CRM for restaurants and catering: events, catering and corporate customers, tracked from the first enquiry
A restaurant, a café or a catering company receives requests that are not settled at the till: a wedding, a corporate lunch every working day, a company party "sometime in December". They come in on Facebook, Instagram, by phone and by email, they ask for a quote, they negotiate, they confirm with a deposit. A tailored CRM keeps these requests in one place, with quote, menu, deadline and owner, alongside the POS and kitchen system you already have.
What does a CRM do for a restaurant or catering business?
A CRM for restaurants and catering takes in reservation, event and catering requests from Meta, the website, phone and email, moves them through a clear flow (request → quote → confirmation → deposit → event → close-out), keeps corporate customers with their recurring lunch orders and payment terms, coordinates catering deliveries and shows you where requests come from, how many turn into events and which customers come back. It does not replace the POS, the kitchen order system or the table-reservation software for tonight; it handles everything that is sold through a conversation.
The problems specific to restaurants and catering
This is not about table service, where the POS does its job. It is about the requests that start with a message or a phone call:
The quote is written from scratch every time
Menus, prices per person, terms for children, deposit — every quote is a new email, with variations nobody can find again.
The event details are in three people's heads
The final headcount, the allergies, the cake time, the table layout: some with the manager, some with the chef, some on the organiser's phone. The day of the event starts with clarifications.
The corporate customer is served from memory
The company across the road orders staff lunches Monday to Friday. Who remembers how many portions today, who invoices at month end, who notices when the order shrinks?
Nobody knows what Meta brings and what referrals bring
Ads are paid for events, but nobody can say how many requests came from there, how many got a quote and how many went ahead.
What information needs to be managed
An event or catering request card has different fields from a table reservation. What we usually configure:
- Customer: individual or company, contact, the channel they wrote on, type (private event / corporate / recurring catering).
- Request: event type, date, time slot, estimated headcount, location (on site or at the customer), indicative budget.
- Quote: proposed menu, price per person or total, what is included, version sent and date.
- Confirmation and money: deposit, balance, due date, method, invoice (without replacing the accounting).
- Operational details: final headcount, allergies and restrictions, schedule, team, catering equipment, delivery time.
- Recurring corporate orders: usual products by day, delivery time, contact person, monthly balance.
- History: the customer's previous events, what went well, what they complained about, when the next occasion is.
What can be automated
In a busy venue, useful automation is the kind that does not leave a request waiting and does not let details get lost:
Event requests come in from Meta and the website
The message or form creates the request with the channel recorded and assigns it to the events manager, who gets a notification in Telegram; the customer immediately receives confirmation that it was received and when they will be contacted.
Quote from a template
The quote is generated from the request using your menus and prices, with the fields filled in; the manager adjusts it and sends it from the CRM, with the version kept on the card.
Reply and deposit reminders
If the quote has had no reply after a set number of days, the owner gets a task to call; on confirmation, the customer receives the deposit details, and if the deadline passes, a polite reminder.
The event sheet for the kitchen and the floor
A few days ahead, the chef and the head waiter receive the final sheet: headcount, menu, allergies, schedule, equipment. Any later change goes out again automatically.
The corporate order repeats itself
For customers with a daily lunch, the order is generated from the standard one, the customer can adjust it up to the cut-off time, and at month end the CRM prepares the statement for invoicing.
Monthly report by channel and event type
Requests by channel, quotes sent, events confirmed, value, returning customers, seasonality — sent to the manager at the start of the month.
Example workflow
- A company writes on Facebook on Thursday: "we want a Christmas party for 40 people, in the second week of December".
- The CRM creates the request with the source "Facebook", the type "corporate" and the period, assigns it to the events manager and sends the company an acknowledgement.
- The manager checks the room availability, generates the quote from the "corporate December" template with two menu options and sends it from the CRM.
- After three days with no reply, they get a task to call. The company picks the second option and confirms the date; the customer receives the deposit details.
- Five days ahead, the chef and the head waiter receive the sheet: 42 people, two allergies, cake time, table layout. A change to 38 people goes out automatically the next day.
- In January, the customer's card shows the event closed, and in October the manager gets a task to ask about the December party.
What changes after implementation
What employees do differently
- The events manager sees every open request, which quote was sent and who needs to be called today.
- The quote goes out the same day, from a template, not once they "find time" at the end of the shift.
- The chef and the head waiter receive a complete event sheet, not questions on the day.
- Corporate lunch orders do not depend on who answered the phone; they are on the customer's card, with time and quantities.
What the manager sees
- How many event and catering requests came in, by channel, and how many reached confirmation.
- The calendar of confirmed events and the load by week and season.
- Corporate customers: monthly volume, balances, who is growing and who has cut back.
- Which event types and menus bring the most value and the fewest complaints.
Useful integrations for restaurants and catering
The CRM sits next to the systems the venue already has and connects to them where it makes sense:
- Facebook and Instagram (Meta)Messages and request forms for events or catering go straight into the CRM, with the channel recorded for reporting.
- TelephonyA call from a customer who has held an event before opens their card; a call from a new number creates the request with the channel "phone".
- Website / event formThe website form creates the request with the date, headcount and event type, with no retyping.
- Telegram for the teamNew requests, event sheets and changes reach the events manager, the chef and the head waiter on their phones.
- Excel / accountingExport of confirmed events, deposits and corporate orders for invoicing; the accounting and the POS stay where they are.
- AI, optionalExtracting the date, headcount and event type from the customer's message into a completed request, plus a first draft quote from your menus that the manager checks.
Why a customised CRM rather than a generic one
A generic CRM knows how to hold "opportunities" with a value and a closing date. In restaurants and catering, an event request has a date, a headcount, a menu, allergies, a deposit and an operational sheet that has to reach the kitchen — and the corporate customer with a daily lunch is not an "opportunity" at all, it is an order that repeats. In a standard CRM these things go into comments and attachments. A CRM built for the venue has them as stages and fields, and the kitchen gets what it needs without the manager rewriting anything.
- The request → quote → deposit → event → close-out flow, not B2B sales stages.
- An event sheet with menu, allergies and schedule, generated for the kitchen and the floor.
- Recurring corporate orders as a separate object, with a cut-off time and a monthly balance.
- Reports by event type, channel and season, not by "pipeline value".
What this CRM does not do
- It does not replace the POS, the kitchen order system or the table-reservation software for tonight. Those are specialised systems; the CRM handles the requests that are sold through a conversation and the customers who come back.
- It does not do the bookkeeping and does not issue tax invoices. It prepares the data for invoicing and exports it.
- It does not manage kitchen stock or recipes. It sends the kitchen the event sheet, not the ingredient list.
Frequently asked questions
How long does it take to implement a CRM for a restaurant or catering business?
A standard customised CRM can be implemented in roughly 14 days, depending on integrations and process complexity. A venue with events and a few corporate customers usually fits; a catering operation with several locations and teams may need longer.
We already have a table-reservation system. Do we still need a CRM?
It depends on what you sell beyond the dining room. If you have events, catering or corporate customers, those requests do not fit in the reservation system; the CRM takes them on and sits alongside it, without replacing it.
Can the CRM send the quote to the customer?
Yes. The quote is generated from your templates and menus, adjusted and sent from the CRM, and the version stays on the request card.
Can daily lunch orders for companies be tracked?
Yes. Each corporate customer has a standard order, a cut-off time for changes and a balance; at month end the CRM prepares the statement for invoicing.
How much does it cost?
It depends on integrations (Meta, telephony, website), the number of users and the automations. A clear quote, stating what is included and what is not, comes after a 45–60 minute conversation.
Continue with
Want to see how it would look for your venue?
We'll show you, on an example with an event request and a corporate customer, how the request comes in, how the quote goes out and what the kitchen receives. No commitment.
- A 45–60 minute conversation about the event and catering requests you receive today
- An honest recommendation: a customised CRM, Bitrix24 or simply a better flow within your current team
- A clear quote after the conversation, stating what is included and what is not