Beyond the Marketplace: Building a First-Party Catering Growth Engine


First-party catering is becoming a major growth opportunity for restaurant brands, but building it takes more than waiting for orders to come in. In this fireside chat, we’ll sit down with catering leaders actively growing first-party revenue in 2026 to unpack what’s working across outbound sales, customer re-engagement, and direct ordering, plus how they’re using AI to move faster without adding more headcount. Listen to those crushing it in first-party catering to bring back practical ideas for your team.

Presenters
Claudie Newman
Director of Catering Sales
Founders Table
Claudie Newman is a hospitality leader with more than 20 years of experience in food and beverage, event sales, private dining and catering. Her career has taken her from South Africa to Las Vegas, and San Francisco and Washington, DC, where she has focused on driving growth and innovation for multiple nationally recognized restaurant brands. Claudie currently leads catering sales for New York Based Founders-Table, the company behind: Chopt Creative Salad Co. and Dos Toros Taqueria. Claudie is focused on strengthening brand reputation and sales to deliver a best-in-class catering product that continues to expand in step with her company's rapid growth.
Julianna Severino
Director of Social and Field Marketing
Lonestar Bagels
Brandon Smith
CoFounder
Coordi
Brandon Smith comes from a background in catering and events, having built Officewell, a New York City-based events and catering business serving some of the city’s largest companies and offices. Through that experience, he saw firsthand how challenging it can be for restaurants to build and scale their catering business. Today, Brandon is the Co-Founder of Coordi, a platform helping restaurant brands grow first-party catering through outbound sales, customer re-engagement, and AI.
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