Goshen Area Catering Businesses are Successful

YES Mobile Catering

YES Mobile Catering Company has been in business for a little more than 11 years. The company was founded by its owner and operator, a husband and wife team. Dan and Yvonne Schwartz. The company also has six drivers and eight kitchen staff to run operations.
YES Mobile caters to large factories. Yvonne said the company caters to companies in Elkhart, including all of Keystone RV. Yvonne said she and her husband designed YES to cater to big companies in order to pay their staff a better wage than if they catered to smaller organizations.
"We wanted to pay our employees more than an average salary, " she said.
The YES staff makes their own food, fresh for delivery, and they offer more than 400 different items. She also said the company offers 106 new items each month, which amounts to a 60 percent change in the standard menu on a regular basis. Due to specifications and customer protection, the YES staff mainly sticks to their own food, rather than buying from other companies. Yvonne and Dan both said their personal menu changes offer more variety to their customers, which makes them a preferred caterer.
YES's popularity has grown consistently over the last 11 years. Even during the most recent economic slowdown during the end of 2001, YES's sales increased. The company's sales are up 47% from last year.
One of the reasons for their popularity is due to the openness to customer feedback that YES promotes, according to Yvonne. She said that they aim to recruit good drivers and that assists the business "like a good waiter or a bad waiter." If the waiter is pleasant, and he or she as well as the company is open to request of customers, satisfaction is more likely.
"We have a 200 percent guarantee," Dan said, If someone does not like the food, he explained, not only do they get their money back, but they also receive free food the next day.
As their business has grown, Yvonne explained, there have been significant overhead cost, Yvonne and Dan recently put in a fan system that cost about $1.000 a foot. She also said the company began three new route at once, and it cost about $ 100,000 to update. YES most recently put in a new computer system.
To keep up to date with reaching a good customer base, YES belong to Mobile Catering Association International.
"It keeps a person updated and educated." Yvonne said.
As members of the larger organization, the owners of YES get to attend conferences and visit other corporations to see what works and doesn't work in the industry. Members also form connections through work of mouth and referrals.
"We have almost all of our original customers," Yvonne said. In order to keep up with customers, who are continually becoming more divers, she said they offer food for the Amish population, for the Hispanic population and other types of unique foods, such as Mexican, Chinese, and Italian, in order to keep everyone satisfied.