Labor of love or pain in the A$$

The restaurant/catering business is a labor of love. You log long hours, deal with a lot of different problems and headaches and you get up each day because as much of a pain in the arse it is, you love it. It is something that you cant just do as a daily grind and be miserable doing because your food will show that you aren't happy. And if your food is sub par, you will in the end lose business/money and you will lose more of yourself trying to get back what you lost.

I started down the road to become a chef, I did become a cook. It was hard work, which I loved, but, it was not for me. It turned out I was far better as a landscape architect, for far more money and a lot less work.

I do love the large feeds I do from time to time, even doing a small gig, such as this week, when I catered the Continental breakfast for 150 at a conference. I still dig the feeling that people were fed and happy, that I did a good job and that has value. It was essentially two days, between sourcing fruit, sourcing pastry, tea, coffee and all the stuff that goes along with it. I was up at 4:30am washing and cutting fruit. I was running like a mad man by 6:00am to get everything where it needed to be and was on site all day managing tea, coffee and snacks. Got home at 8:30pm. I think I got the entire job done for my $900 budget and maybe made $8 an hour.

I'd do it again.

I feel like just starting out catering is tough. There's no way to prove yourself or your product. BBQ, like any food business is tough. Do your market research, see if there's a need for it, and plan any investments you make wisely.

Each personality is different so it's hard to answer this for you. Consider working for another catering business or bbq restaurant to get a taste of the life before making large investments of time and money. Don't think about the money, think about whether the style of work and experience is something you could do on the side or full time. Pay attention to all the other stuff the owner or managers do because those will be your tasks as well.