Wolfgang Puck at the Oscars: catering harder than running a restaurant

Wolfgang Puck has led the culinary team at the Governors Ball for more than 30 years and this weekend his crew worked in a temporary kitchen next to the Dolby Theatre. He says running a catering company is even more difficult than running a restaurant, because the workload can swing from very busy to very slow.

The operation for the Governors Ball underscores that volatility: Puck’s team prepares 84 different dishes and about 30,000 small plates for roughly 1,700 guests, supported by around 75 savory chefs, 45 pastry chefs, and hundreds of servers. The unpredictability makes it hard to retain a stable, skilled staff when hours and pay fluctuate.

Industry analysis firm IBISWorld notes the US catering sector employs about 158,000 workers across thousands of businesses, with the average company having roughly 11 employees, so most firms rely on temporary or event-based staff to scale up. Nearly 89% of event industry leaders reported labor shortages affected their ability to deliver successful events in the past year.

United States

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