James Novoa, a caterer for film and television productions, often rises at 1 a.m., loads a kitchen truck at his Brooklyn commissary and drives to a TV or film shoot. By 5:30 or so, he and a team of two begin to whip up breakfast for a crew of around 80. A hot lunch buffet follows six hours later, and the schedule repeats for the next days or weeks he’s on set. By the end, the cast and crew feel like regulars at a neighborhood joint.
“I know people’s names and orders without them having to say what they want,” said Novoa, who, as executive chef for Off the Shelf catering, has worked on commercials for Samsung, TV shows including 30 Rock and films such as Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. “It’s always been a perk, I’ve found: meeting so many people on an intimate level.”
That kind of relationship has helped Novoa create a New York presence for Off the Shelf, a Los Angeles-based catering business started in 2003 by Dustin Hoffman and his personal chef, Yossi Faigenblat. Off the Shelf ’s two local trucks are booked five days a week, and this summer the company plans to add a third to supply shoots with snacks between meals, or what the industry calls craft service.
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Such caterers are riding a boom in local film and TV production, spurred by an annual $420 million state tax credit. Although a six-month TV series might spend $500,000 on catering, as much as 30% of that cost can be refunded to producers because food and snacks count as “below the line” expenses that are eligible for the tax credit.
One year we catered eight out of the top 10 grossing movies. We felt we created an atmosphere that translated to the screen.
The tax break has led to the creation of 22,300 indirect jobs—where the caterers are counted—and $4.3 billion of spending in the city in 2015 and 2016 combined, according to a report by Camoin Associates commissioned by the state. Food-service professionals who specialize in cooking for productions say that with 336 films in 2015 and 52 prime-time episodic series in the past season, they have more business than their operations can take on. That has left plates on the table to be filled by city restaurants, event caterers and startups eager to get in on the act.
But feeding a movie crew breakfast is not as simple as making a great egg-and-cheese burrito. “We’re trying to create a culinary experience while enduring this logistics stuff,” said Tom Morales, owner of Nashville-based TomKats, which established a New York operation in 1996 and did catering for Sex and the City, The Sopranos and other long-running shows. The cooking occurs in a truck about the size of a typical New York City kitchen.
Behind the scenes, caterers plan ever-changing menus, place orders, maintain the trucks, receive deliveries on location and contend with worse weather than L.A.’s. Some stars love the buffet, while others have riders in their contracts requiring caterers to source salmon or prime rib roasts to be delivered to their personal trailers. The city Fire Department regulates caterers’ trucks because they hold propane gas—which means an additional inspection. “The rules and laws change,” said Novoa, “and there’s not a blast bulletin that goes out.”
Teamsters eat first
Though the cooks are not unionized, the rest of the film crew often is. Union rules and courtesies govern the day’s eating. Six hours after breakfast, a hot lunch must be served, containing options for every taste. Teamsters eat first, followed in particular order by different subsets of the crew and ending with the actors. Keeping the buffet lines moving is essential, because daylight and salaries don’t break for lunch. In between meals, a craft services team, sometimes but not always run by a separate company, arranges tables of snacks and brings out additional hot food at three-hour intervals. This complexity can act as a barrier to entry. “If you’re new, you wouldn’t know what’s a courtesy and what’s a rule,” said Joanna Rockwell, who has worked as a production and location assistant on locally shot shows Louie and Gotham.
On the other hand, if a director hasn’t gotten the right shot in time, a meal might get pushed back by more than an hour. “Sometimes this was to the detriment of our carefully crafted dishes,” said Kellie Leigh Evans, a chef instructor at Oceania Cruises, who worked as a film and television caterer from 2004 to 2010. “There is nothing more heartbreaking than seeing delicate, medium-rare steak Diane steam itself into beef stew in chafing dishes or hot boxes.”
But even a chef who designs the perfect menu, understands union rules and gets to know everyone’s order is put out of work when a production ends. “It’s episodic, nomadic,” said C. Samuel Craig, director of the entertainment, media and technology initiative at NYU’s Stern School of Business. “You come together to make the film and then disappear and then reconfigure to make a different show or a TV commercial or a movie.”
That flux prompted Rich Alfieri, a former TomKats chef who owns five-year-old catering company Hot & Ready Productions with his wife, to put the brakes on his rapid growth. He opened with the idea of being a boutique gourmet caterer. By the end of the second year, he had two crews. And after four years, he had four. “It’s nonstop,” he said. He does not plan to add more, though. “I try to concentrate on a few key producers at a time and hope they all keep me working,” he said. A more nimble business gives him the opportunity to control costs and quality and ensure a profit. And because Alfieri has catered here for two decades, he does not like to take work from his competition, who are also the colleagues he runs into while shopping at the Hunts Point Produce Market. “There’s enough room for everybody,” he said.
Photo: Buck Ennis FEELING JUICED: Alfieri in a food tent on the set of a Netflix production in Queens.
High costs are also a factor in a chef ’s decision to expand. Outfitted mobile kitchens are no mere food trucks. With 10 burners, flattop grills, freezers and broilers, they run $150,000 apiece. And food and leases for parking, commissary prep kitchens and dishwashing facilities cost two to three times as much in New York as they do in other cities.
Meanwhile, increased competition has pushed down rates. Last year TomKats left the city (in part, Morales said, because his Nashville restaurants demanded his attention). Steven Yambra, Off the Shelf ’s president, said he has no plans to expand further than the forthcoming third truck.
Hot market
Still, newcomers are looking for a way in. Noz Catering, which has served the fashion industry for the past decade, has been sending more orders for its plant-rich fare to film shoots, catering to the demand for healthier food. And more studios have been calling Noz since January, when co-owner Patricia Sanguedo opened an all-organic kitchen powered by wind and constructed to be energy-efficient.
Restaurants sometimes rent themselves out for premieres and parties. Prepaid food cards for crews have been touted as a way to support local restaurants, but the variety of shoot locations makes it hard for them to be used.
Employees of Terra Firma, a Bushwick restaurant that opened across the street from Brooklyn Fire Proof Stages in late 2015, observed off-site catering trucks arriving to feed the crew at the small-scale soundstage. At the same time staff from one production started coming in to buy lunch. So owners Tom Beaulieu and Darrin Morda reached out to the production manager. Now the same crew of 55 is returning, and the restaurant will be feeding them for four months. “Because we’re right across the street, we can be really competitive,” Morda said. “We don’t have to pack everything up and drive across the city.”
The contract represents one-third of the restaurant’s revenue during the filming period and will lead Morda to hire another cook to meet the demand, he said.
Fast-casual restaurants are finding opportunity with social media ad spots and reality TV shows, which can have tighter budgets, nonunion crews and relaxed expectations. Dropping off a platter at a filming location is only a little more difficult than catering any other event, said Jon Sherman, owner of Sticky’s Finger Joint, a chicken-finger restaurant that feeds Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen about twice a month. Volume makes catering more profitable than walk-ins at his restaurants, but catering represents only 10% of his overall business. And serving the film industry is only 10% of that.
Meanwhile, Fooda, which helps restaurants cater during off-hours, and CaterCow, a marketplace for booking caterers that focuses on office lunches, are both trying to tap into the film and TV business. A. Napadol opened Thai restaurant Samui in August near the Brooklyn Navy Yard’s Steiner Studios with the hope of serving film companies. But the bookings have yet to come. “It’s always been part of my dream to get better food for people in crews,” she said.
Why? Caterers say part of the payoff is the accolades— and the role they feel they play in making productions great. “One year we catered eight out of the top 10 grossing movies,” Morales said. “We felt we created an atmosphere in those movies that translated to the screen.
James Novoa, a caterer for film and television productions, often rises at 1 a.m., loads a kitchen truck at his Brooklyn commissary and drives to a TV or film shoot. By 5:30 or so, he and a team of two begin to whip up breakfast for a crew of around 80. A hot lunch buffet follows six hours later, and the schedule repeats for the next days or weeks he’s on set. By the end, the cast and crew feel like regulars at a neighborhood joint.
“I know people’s names and orders without them having to say what they want,” said Novoa, who, as executive chef for Off the Shelf catering, has worked on commercials for Samsung, TV shows including 30 Rock and films such as Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. “It’s always been a perk, I’ve found: meeting so many people on an intimate level.”
That kind of relationship has helped Novoa create a New York presence for Off the Shelf, a Los Angeles-based catering business started in 2003 by Dustin Hoffman and his personal chef, Yossi Faigenblat. Off the Shelf ’s two local trucks are booked five days a week, and this summer the company plans to add a third to supply shoots with snacks between meals, or what the industry calls craft service.
Such caterers are riding a boom in local film and TV production, spurred by an annual $420 million state tax credit. Although a six-month TV series might spend $500,000 on catering, as much as 30% of that cost can be refunded to producers because food and snacks count as “below the line” expenses that are eligible for the tax credit.
The tax break has led to the creation of 22,300 indirect jobs—where the caterers are counted—and $4.3 billion of spending in the city in 2015 and 2016 combined, according to a report by Camoin Associates commissioned by the state. Food-service professionals who specialize in cooking for productions say that with 336 films in 2015 and 52 prime-time episodic series in the past season, they have more business than their operations can take on. That has left plates on the table to be filled by city restaurants, event caterers and startups eager to get in on the act.
But feeding a movie crew breakfast is not as simple as making a great egg-and-cheese burrito. “We’re trying to create a culinary experience while enduring this logistics stuff,” said Tom Morales, owner of Nashville-based TomKats, which established a New York operation in 1996 and did catering for Sex and the City, The Sopranos and other long-running shows. The cooking occurs in a truck about the size of a typical New York City kitchen.
Behind the scenes, caterers plan ever-changing menus, place orders, maintain the trucks, receive deliveries on location and contend with worse weather than L.A.’s. Some stars love the buffet, while others have riders in their contracts requiring caterers to source salmon or prime rib roasts to be delivered to their personal trailers. The city Fire Department regulates caterers’ trucks because they hold propane gas—which means an additional inspection. “The rules and laws change,” said Novoa, “and there’s not a blast bulletin that goes out.”
Teamsters eat first
Though the cooks are not unionized, the rest of the film crew often is. Union rules and courtesies govern the day’s eating. Six hours after breakfast, a hot lunch must be served, containing options for every taste. Teamsters eat first, followed in particular order by different subsets of the crew and ending with the actors. Keeping the buffet lines moving is essential, because daylight and salaries don’t break for lunch. In between meals, a craft services team, sometimes but not always run by a separate company, arranges tables of snacks and brings out additional hot food at three-hour intervals. This complexity can act as a barrier to entry. “If you’re new, you wouldn’t know what’s a courtesy and what’s a rule,” said Joanna Rockwell, who has worked as a production and location assistant on locally shot shows Louie and Gotham.
On the other hand, if a director hasn’t gotten the right shot in time, a meal might get pushed back by more than an hour. “Sometimes this was to the detriment of our carefully crafted dishes,” said Kellie Leigh Evans, a chef instructor at Oceania Cruises, who worked as a film and television caterer from 2004 to 2010. “There is nothing more heartbreaking than seeing delicate, medium-rare steak Diane steam itself into beef stew in chafing dishes or hot boxes.”
But even a chef who designs the perfect menu, understands union rules and gets to know everyone’s order is put out of work when a production ends. “It’s episodic, nomadic,” said C. Samuel Craig, director of the entertainment, media and technology initiative at NYU’s Stern School of Business. “You come together to make the film and then disappear and then reconfigure to make a different show or a TV commercial or a movie.”
That flux prompted Rich Alfieri, a former TomKats chef who owns five-year-old catering company Hot & Ready Productions with his wife, to put the brakes on his rapid growth. He opened with the idea of being a boutique gourmet caterer. By the end of the second year, he had two crews. And after four years, he had four. “It’s nonstop,” he said. He does not plan to add more, though. “I try to concentrate on a few key producers at a time and hope they all keep me working,” he said. A more nimble business gives him the opportunity to control costs and quality and ensure a profit. And because Alfieri has catered here for two decades, he does not like to take work from his competition, who are also the colleagues he runs into while shopping at the Hunts Point Produce Market. “There’s enough room for everybody,” he said.
High costs are also a factor in a chef ’s decision to expand. Outfitted mobile kitchens are no mere food trucks. With 10 burners, flattop grills, freezers and broilers, they run $150,000 apiece. And food and leases for parking, commissary prep kitchens and dishwashing facilities cost two to three times as much in New York as they do in other cities.
Meanwhile, increased competition has pushed down rates. Last year TomKats left the city (in part, Morales said, because his Nashville restaurants demanded his attention). Steven Yambra, Off the Shelf ’s president, said he has no plans to expand further than the forthcoming third truck.
Hot market
Still, newcomers are looking for a way in. Noz Catering, which has served the fashion industry for the past decade, has been sending more orders for its plant-rich fare to film shoots, catering to the demand for healthier food. And more studios have been calling Noz since January, when co-owner Patricia Sanguedo opened an all-organic kitchen powered by wind and constructed to be energy-efficient.
Restaurants sometimes rent themselves out for premieres and parties. Prepaid food cards for crews have been touted as a way to support local restaurants, but the variety of shoot locations makes it hard for them to be used.
Employees of Terra Firma, a Bushwick restaurant that opened across the street from Brooklyn Fire Proof Stages in late 2015, observed off-site catering trucks arriving to feed the crew at the small-scale soundstage. At the same time staff from one production started coming in to buy lunch. So owners Tom Beaulieu and Darrin Morda reached out to the production manager. Now the same crew of 55 is returning, and the restaurant will be feeding them for four months. “Because we’re right across the street, we can be really competitive,” Morda said. “We don’t have to pack everything up and drive across the city.”
The contract represents one-third of the restaurant’s revenue during the filming period and will lead Morda to hire another cook to meet the demand, he said.
Fast-casual restaurants are finding opportunity with social media ad spots and reality TV shows, which can have tighter budgets, nonunion crews and relaxed expectations. Dropping off a platter at a filming location is only a little more difficult than catering any other event, said Jon Sherman, owner of Sticky’s Finger Joint, a chicken-finger restaurant that feeds Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen about twice a month. Volume makes catering more profitable than walk-ins at his restaurants, but catering represents only 10% of his overall business. And serving the film industry is only 10% of that.
Meanwhile, Fooda, which helps restaurants cater during off-hours, and CaterCow, a marketplace for booking caterers that focuses on office lunches, are both trying to tap into the film and TV business. A. Napadol opened Thai restaurant Samui in August near the Brooklyn Navy Yard’s Steiner Studios with the hope of serving film companies. But the bookings have yet to come. “It’s always been part of my dream to get better food for people in crews,” she said.
Why? Caterers say part of the payoff is the accolades— and the role they feel they play in making productions great. “One year we catered eight out of the top 10 grossing movies,” Morales said. “We felt we created an atmosphere in those movies that translated to the screen.
A version of this article appears in the February 13, 2017, print issue of Crain’s New York Business as “Catering to the stars”.
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