Local restaurant owner sees many catering orders for home football games

With eight home games for the Bulldogs, they are likely to be busy all fall.

STARKVILLE, Miss. (WCBI) – College football season is back and so is tailgating. Some people bring and cook their food to prepare for the game, but others prefer to have theirs catered.

Chick-fil-A in Starkville sees large numbers of catering orders for home football games.

With eight home games for the Bulldogs, they are likely to be busy all fall.

The same goes for Restaurant Owner Jonathan Rogers.

He said gameday means it’s all hands on deck.

“Anywhere from 50 to 150 individual catering orders on some gamedays, so we try to make that pick up as easy as possible,” Rogers said. “We schedule probably twice as many people as we would on a normal Saturday which is a lot of fun. We do concessions and catering, and we do post-game meals for some teams and things. So, the number of people it requires to execute is about twice as many as we normally have. So, believe it or not, we’ll have between 60 and 70 people on the clock at one time.”

Rogers splits his team into two squads.

Some employees stick to catering orders and even deliver to tents on campus.

While the others have to keep the normal operations going in store and the drive-thru.

Because gamedays are so busy, Rogers said they have to limit some items.

“Normally we do offer strips for catering we don’t do that on gamedays because it requires a little bit more time and effort, and it slows down the other processes. While it’s a remarkable product and people love it, we want to be able to make sure everyone has a remarkable experience,” Rogers said.

So far, Rogers has taken about 50 catering orders online or over the phone.

They also accept catering orders on the day of, but those last-minute customers may have to wait a little longer.

“I would say 90 percent of our orders are placed before the game and the ones that are placed on the same day of the game. If they come in at like one o’clock and say ‘Hey I want to place a catering order,’ we’re happy to help them they may have to wait another 30 minutes to get their catering order maybe 45 minutes,” Rogers said.

Rogers encouraged people who want to place a catering order for game day to call or do online orders at the beginning of the week for quicker guaranteed service.

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