Gourmet Catering Looks to Hold Corporate Bashes in Historic Ballroom
Sheri Smith has cooked for Broadcom Corp. Chief Executive Henry Nicholas and Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan. Now her Gourmet Catering is looking to transform a ballroom in a historic downtown Fullerton building into a showcase for her family-owned catering business.
The company recently moved into the landmark Williams Co. building on Commonwealth Avenue, where it leases a 2,000-square-foot office plus a 13,000-square-foot, two-story ballroom. The International Order of Odd Fellows built the building, one of the oldest in Fullerton, in 1927. Local lore has it the site served as a speakeasy during Prohibition.
Today, Gourmet Catering is looking to host company parties and other catered events in the building’s ballroom.
“The projections are really excellent for this building,” Smith said.
But first, Gourmet Catering has to do about $500,000 in refurbishments to the ballroom. Smith and her partners are wrestling with a common issue for family businesses: financing. The company said it is looking for investors to help it fix up its new digs.
“This whole building needs work,” she said. “We’re looking for anyone interested in making money with us.”
Gourmet Catering is in the process of developing an investor letter, according to Steven McGlawn, Smith’s brother-in-law and part owner of the company. Gourmet Catering, which employs 35 full-time workers and had sales of $2 million last year, has exclusive catering rights for events at the Ridgeline County Club in Orange and Brea’s Wildcatter’s Picnic Park.
“We’ll be adding more employees with the addition of the Fullerton building,” McGlawn said. “We expect to add six to eight full-time employees by the end of the year.”
Corporate clients include Santa Ana-based PacifiCare Health Systems Inc., Fullerton-based Beckman Coulter Inc. and Costa Mesa-based Balboa Instruments Inc., a maker of electronic hot tub controls. The company’s biggest job so far: a $175,000 bash for Anaheim’s Extron Electronics/RGB Systems Inc., a maker of computer video presentation gear.
This summer, Irvine chip maker Broadcom hired Gourmet Catering to plan its $100,000 company picnic. The theme: the Australian Outback Olympics.
“It was a gala event,” Smith said. “They ate shrimp on the barbie.”
The company recently catered an event at Mayor Riordan’s home in Brentwood for the Wildlife Waystation, a nonprofit animal sanctuary located in the Angeles National Forest. Some 900 guests attended, Smith said, while Waystation officials displayed animals on the mayor’s lawn.
At a recent picnic in Ridgeline Park in Orange, Smith talked about what it’s like working with family members.
“We do a whole lot of teasing with each other,” she said.
Smith became co-owner of Gourmet Catering in 1989 when her husband, John Williams, began recruiting family members to the business. McGlawn joined the company six months ago after running his own company, Royal Catering. The biggest benefit of working with family members is trust, McGlawn said.
“You don’t have to worry much about stealing because the employees are your family members,” he said.
A father of five, McGlawn employs two of his children as servers for company events.
Still, working with relatives isn’t easy, Smith said.
“When you work with your family, you don’t necessarily get the recognition for your accomplishments,” she said.
Both Smith and McGlawn agreed that the husband and wife relationship is one of the most difficult in a business.
Over the years, Smith said she has met some interesting people in her work. For a decade, the company provided backstage catering services at the Irvine Meadows Amphitheater (now the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater). The biggest star she’s met? Michael Jackson, and his pet chimpanzee, Bubbles.
“I didn’t let Bubbles go through the line, but the chimp ate the food,” she said.
When British rockers the Smiths came to town, the band asked Smith to remove all the red M & Ms; from a candy dish because of concerns about red dye, she said.
When Moody Blues played the venue, Smith said the band let her sit by the side of the stage and watch the show because she had just broken her ankle in a horseback-riding accident.
“I was in tears,” she said. “They are my idols.”
Gourmet Catering’s other celebrity credits include Stephanie Powers’ fundraiser for the William Holden Wildlife Foundation and a Republican Party fundraiser hosted by Charleton Heston. That job also led to work at the christening of Heston’s granddaughter, she said. n
