Open House

If you're trying to attract attention, whether it's with the aim of promoting a house for sale in Mississauga Ontario or trying to drum up customers interested in your new business, there's one sure-fire way to attract a crowd: free food. Everyone needs to eat and no one likes paying for it, so any place that's serving free food generates automatic interest. However, adding catering to your budget can be an expensive prospect. Luckily, catering events like these yourself isn't difficult. To help you host a successful open house, we've compiled these helpful tips on self-catering and serving food.

Finger Foods Are Key

The thing to remember about catering an open house is that the point of the event is still the open house; the houses for sale in Ajax rental lawn mowers, or plastic baby barns you're promoting, and not the food. You want to encourage people to pick up the food and wander around looking at the house or the products, where hopefully they will see something they like. For this reason, finger foods and snacks are best. You can get fancy finger food, like cucumber sandwiches or pate and crackers, or more informal foods, like pigs in a blanket or potato chips, to suit your needs.

Don't Forget the Utensils

If you're going to have food out, you're also going to need plates, napkins, utensils, and cups for beverages. You need something for people to carry the food around on, unless you want everyone hanging out at the snack table the whole time. Paper or plastic plates and disposable napkins also give you an extra avenue of exposure, since you can get the printer to stamp the Scarborough Realty logo on them for a nominal charge. Make sure you also set out an easily visible garbage can for the discarded food and used plates, or you'll be finding them all over the place when you go to clean up.

Food Storage and Handling

Many foods require special care for serving and handling. Those containing meat, milk products, or mayonnaise are most likely to grow harmful bacteria if left out. No one's going to remember your promising startup realtor web design company favorably if they came down with food poisoning at the open house, so make sure to throw away any at-risk items if they've been out of the fridge or oven for longer than a few hours. Use hot plates and covered dishes to keep hot foods warm, and ice buckets to keep cold foods cool.

Buying Food versus Preparing It Yourself

While cooking the food from scratch will save you money, it may take time and effort that could be better spent on your business. When you prepare food yourself, you're not only set back if anything goes wrong, but you also have the responsibility to keep traces of nuts and other allergens out of the mix. Just like a Toronto SEO helps your company advertise when you don't have the time or expertise to do it yourself, grocery stores and catering companies are often worth the extra expense because you can be sure it's done properly and on time.