Published July 2001

Caterers cook up camaraderie

By Kimberly Hilden
Herald Business Journal Assistant Editor

Visit the kitchen of Celebrate! Catering Inc. and you’re likely to find a group of women diligently chopping vegetables, preparing entrees or whipping up some heavenly dessert — the typical duties of a catering staff.

But at Celebrate!, you’re also likely to hear the sounds of cheerful chatter and occasional laughter as the staff assembles deli sandwiches or lunch platters, and in the background, the soundtrack of morning cartoons may be heard.

That’s because Celebrate! co-owners Sherri Hansen and Sandy O’Brien have created a work environment that’s comfortable and family focused. The company, which employs 10 steadily with another 20 on call, welcomes employees’ children at the site.

“We have kids in and out all day,” Hansen said. The older ones do their homework or “help load and unload the dishwasher. The little ones watch TV, make animals out of leftover dough” or take naps.

“We’ve always put being Mom first,” said Hansen, who started Celebrate! Catering with former partner Stephanie Firchau in 1988, two years after having her first child.

At the time, she had left her interior design job in Snohomish to work from home. Then Firchau, a neighbor and a mother, suggested they go into the catering business together.

When Hansen had her second child, the baby ended up spending time with Mom in the kitchen, rocking back and forth in a swing. O’Brien, who became a partner three years ago, used to bring her daughter Kelsey to work, where the toddler would find an out-of-the-way crate to nap on.

Along with its kid-friendly atmosphere, Celebrate! tries to tailor the work schedule “so that we can be home for the kids,” Hansen said. “We chip in for each other and work around our families.”

And working around family seems to work for the catering business, which has gone from doing $50,000 in sales from 1998 to just under $200,000 in sales last year.

“We’re hoping to hit $250,000 by the end of this year,” said Hansen, who remembers the days when the catering service was a two-person operation, working and leasing space on a per-job basis.

For the past three years, Celebrate! has had permanent digs, leasing space at Murphy’s Corner in south Everett. A Web site, www.celebratecateringinc.com, went up two years ago, and in February, the catering business began offering a deli delivery service to the businesses in the Canyon Park corridor.

Each day between 6:30 and 9:30 a.m., Celebrate! staff members prepare sandwiches, salads, microwavable entrees, fresh fruit and desserts for individual purchase at those businesses participating in the delivery program.

Afterward, the staff begins work on lunch platters and box lunches, Hansen said. Then, it’s on to preparations for evening events. Thursday and Friday afternoons are taken up with weekend wedding catering.

All the while, the all-female kitchen staff chat about life issues: children, husbands, parents and the like.

“I call it my therapy group,” said O’Brien, who oversees the kitchen while Hansen oversees the office work.

“As far as the kitchen is concerned, I try to make it a fun atmosphere for everybody,” O’Brien said — even when the women are hustling to assemble sandwiches for 800 or prepare chocolate espresso torte for 900 as they’ve had to do for some jobs.

“We’ve brought it far in the last few years,” Hansen said. “It’s grown in leaps and bounds.”

For more information on Celebrate! Catering, call 360-668-3062 or visit the company’s Web page.

Back to the top/Business Women 2001 Main Menu