August Business Spotlight: The Catered Kitchen
Meet Zac and Katie Smith! They are the owners of The Catered Kitchen. They deliver ready to heat and eat meals. The Smith family is a precious family and I am so happy to see the success that they are having with The Catered Kitchen.
Q: Tell us a little about yourself, your background and family!
“Our names are Zac and Katie Smith. We’ve been together for 18 years (married almost 10 now) and of course we met in a restaurant. We have 2 amazing children: Hattie Jane- 7, and Ward – 3, and our “1st child” is our four- legged fur baby, Bama. Zac is originally from Alabama and bleeds Crimson, but he definitely has an uphill battle in our ‘house-divided’ as Katie graduated from UGA and both children were born in Athens, Ga.”
Q: How long have you lived in Jefferson?
“We moved to Jefferson back in 2007 (15 years) as it was the halfway point for Katie to go back to school at UGA and Zac to continue working in Gwinnett.”
Q: What inspired you to open The Catered Kitchen?
“The Catered Kitchen came about after our daughter was born. Zac had reached a point in his career where it was time to go out on his own and we wanted him to be around more! A chef’s life is not for the faint of heart. Working 70-80 hours a week, nights, and weekends is pretty common. We thought it was a fresh concept at the time as home delivery options were just coming into the market. Life happens and sometimes we are forced to be patient even when we don’t want to, but it took a pandemic to bring about the right timing. Restaurants were really struggling, and they were really having to make some tough decisions on how to survive so Zac decided it was the perfect time to step down and start this new career path.”
Q: What is The Catered Kitchen (your mission and goal/desire for your business)?
“Our mission is to offer wholesome and healthy meal options that will bring families back to the dinner table! While we do traditional catering: Home. Office. Event., our business model was inspired by home deliveries. We as a couple had exhausted ourselves over “what’s for dinner?”, “who’s cooking?” and looking for healthy take-out options on busy nights. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a single person that doesn’t want to cook for just 1 or a busy family of 5 that has sports and extracurriculars every night. The struggle is the same. Eating out every night is unhealthy and let’s face it, our little hometown (which we love and wouldn’t change!) doesn’t have many options. Yes, there are other home delivery options, but they still require some time to prep and cook and then you’re left with DISHES. We want a good family meal to be super simple – Ready to Heat, Ready to Eat.”
“After the birth of our daughter, Katie had some health issues that required we cut out a lot of the processed junk from our diet and really look at what is in so much of the foods on our grocery store shelves. Once you go down that path, there is no turning back! Which is exactly why Zac makes all his own sauces, dressings, salsa’s, etc. from scratch. We want to know every ingredient in our food. We aren’t buying the heavily processed ingredients. We aren’t cutting corners. If Zac wouldn’t feed it to his family, he isn’t going to feed it to yours.”
Q: What are your hours and what do you offer?
“We are not a restaurant and likely never will be. We currently have a set delivery schedule and deliver on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, with pick up hours on Fridays. We are continuously adding new neighborhoods and addresses to our routes and the goal is to expand into multiple locations with week-long pick-up and delivery availability. The new menu comes out every Sunday via a subscribed email list and/or our Facebook post. If you are within our delivery route, you place your order by 5:00 p.m. the day before delivery. Our delivery hours are between 1:00 and 5:00. You will get a text message when your food is on its way and when it has been delivered. If you are not home during those hours, simply leave a cooler with ice packs or have us deliver it to a neighbor (with their permission of course).”
Q: What is something on your bucket list? This can be business related or just fun/personal!
“To own a wedding venue! With Katie’s background in interior design and Zac as a chef we had the HARDEST time picking out a venue for our own wedding. We even had a 2-year engagement because we were convinced we’d buy a venue and ours would be the first wedding we held. Oh… to be young and that ambitious again (or naïve 😊)”
Q: What is your favorite thing about Jefferson?
“We LOVE the small town feel of Jefferson and… it’s not Gwinnett 😉.”
Q: What are you currently watching/listening to/reading?-
“Together we just finished Stranger Things and are currently trying out Blackbird. Zac is watching Severance and enjoys listening to Joe Rogan while he’s out on deliveries. Katie recently finished Virgin River and she and Hattie Jane just finished up Heartland. Katie has been blessed with an amazing group of women which is about to start their 6th bible study together – ‘Woven” by Angie Smith.”
Q: Greatest piece of advice you’ve ever been given?
Z: “Nothing is ever as good or as bad as it seems in the moment”. K: “Say what you mean and mean what you say.”
Q: Tell us something good happening in your life, big or small, that we can celebrate with you?
“We recently broke a record for home deliveries and exceeded a goal we’d set for our 1st 3 years of business, but we have a big anniversary coming up and… 10 years of marriage seems like a slightly bigger thing.”
Congratulations on breaking that record! The Catered Kitchen is located at 386 Hwy 82 South
in Jefferson. Follow them on Instagram and like their page on Facebook for updates and information. We are excited to continue to see your success in our community!
