How Real Mediterranean Kitchen Turned Direct Catering Into $73K in 9 Months with ChowNow

Real Mediterranean Kitchen didn’t need catering to survive. In five years on ChowNow, the Palo Alto restaurant, located inside Real Produce Market, already built the kind of business most operators envy: a loyal base of regulars, more than a million dollars in lifetime sales, and the large majority of its orders flowing through a direct channel. The team had proven it could own its everyday demand, and the growth shows it.

“We started doing only about $1,000 to $2,000 a month when we started, and we’re doing 10 to 15 times that right now,” says Ash, the consultant who runs the restaurant’s online ordering, menu, and pricing. “All our orders come in online, whether they are takeout, delivery, or catering.”

Real Mediterranean Kitchen already had a way to collect catering orders, but once available, ChowNow Catering gave it a way to run those orders without the chaos, and without handing its biggest orders to a third-party marketplace.

Why catering orders were Real Mediterranean Kitchen’s hardest orders to manage

Real Mediterranean Kitchen had offered catering for years, built into its regular menu with a note in brackets asking for 24 hours of lead time. The trouble was that not everyone read the brackets.

“There were orders that came in the same morning, $2,500, sometimes even more, and it would be like, okay, how are we supposed to get everything ready for this order in the day?” Some of those the kitchen scrambled to fulfill. Others, it couldn’t. “Sometimes we had to cancel orders, and that was not ideal for us or the customer.” Orders that valuable were exactly the ones the restaurant could least afford to scramble on or turn away.

So when ChowNow surveyed partners about what to build next, Ash asked for the fix directly.

The fix: a dedicated catering page

ChowNow moved Real Mediterranean Kitchen’s catering items onto a dedicated catering page on RealMediterraneanKitchen.com, alongside its regular ordering experience, so guests browse, build a large order, and checkout on a channel the restaurant fully controls, with no intermediary.

The difference is in what the new menu doesn’t allow. Because prep windows are built in and flexible, a customer can’t place an order the kitchen has no time to make. That single change removed the back-and-forth, the scramble, and the cancellations.

Catering and takeout run from one dashboard, every order is flagged as catering and printed for the kitchen, so the big ones are easy to track and easy to plan around without disrupting a normal rush.

That calm carries all the way to the plate. “It just makes life for our staff in the kitchen less stressful, and that translates to better food,” Ash says. “If you’re less stressed in the kitchen — if you’re actually having fun doing what you’re doing — it shows in the product.”

About half of Real Mediterranean Kitchen’s catering orders go out as delivery, most of them handled through ChowNow’s Flex Delivery rather than the restaurant staffing its own drivers. And because every order, pickup or delivery, runs through ChowNow, the customer’s information stays with the restaurant.

Keeping large catering orders in-house

Real Mediterranean Kitchen could’ve routed its catering demand through a third-party marketplace, but keeping it direct is a deliberate choice, and the personal touch is how they win.

“Most times we’re very aware the catering order is coming in because we’ve spoken with the customer. We’ve actually guided them through what and how much to order,” Ash says. Corporate buyers placing a $3,000 or $4,000 order want to talk it through, and Real Mediterranean Kitchen does, then sends them to order online. “It is this relationship-building that is the easiest way to get them to order on ChowNow and not go to any other third-party platform, because that is what they don’t get there. They don’t get that personal touch, that interaction.”

For others, a custom inquiry form is available through ChowNow that collects event details upfront with headcount, budgets, and event details so there’s less back-and-forth for operators to handle manually.

That relationship shows up in repeat business, corporate and otherwise. When asked what brings customers back, Ash credits their whole operation.

ChowNow Catering results: over $73K through July at a $631 average order

Real Mediterranean Kitchen’s orders are large, and they keep coming. From a late-October launch through July, the restaurant booked 116 catering orders worth over $73,000. The average catering order is $631, more than ten times the restaurant’s typical online ticket.

These aren’t occasional outliers bumping up their averages. About one in six of Real Mediterranean Kitchen’s catering orders tops $1,000, and the largest single order reached $3,287. Volume built steadily too, growing from 15 orders in the first month to over 20 orders and roughly $16,000 in May, then holding steadily through the summer.

The margins are where it adds up. ChowNow Catering charges 5% commission, an industry low, compared with the 15% to 30% that third-party catering marketplaces take. Across the catering volume Real Mediterranean Kitchen has already captured, that lower rate kept more than $7.3K with the restaurant versus a 15% marketplace. Just as important, every additional diner added a contact to Real Mediterranean Kitchen’s marketing list, not one locked inside a marketplace delivery app.

Success by the numbers

In nine months, Real Mediterranean Kitchen turned catering demand into a meaningful revenue stream through ChowNow Catering:

• $73,208 in catering sales, start through July
• 116 catering orders
• $631 average catering order value
• More than 10x the restaurant’s typical online ticket
• About 19 catering orders over $1,000
• $3,287 largest single catering order

It’s the same playbook that built the business in the first place, now working on its highest-value orders: capture the demand, keep the margin, and own the relationship.

Turn catering into high-margin revenue you control

Ash’s advice to other operators is the whole case study in a sentence.