An office manager has a thankless job. Order a catered lunch for the entire company, and instead of “thank you,” they hear: “Didn’t we get this last week;” “Is the salmon farm-raised;” “There better not be any gluten.”
Abia Rosa knows this dance well. She is the environment manager at Yesware, in charge of keeping the Boston-based company’s 71 employees happy and well-fed. That can be a challenge — when it comes to food, clear factions have emerged among the staff.
“My favorite place is this organic cafe, but you don’t please the junk-food crowd with that one,” Rosa said. “Then we have our vegans, and our people who are not vegetarian but like vegetarian entrees. And there are people who only want pizza and Chinese food.”
It might all sound like a lot of whining, especially at Yesware, which offers a suite of generous fringe benefits that include an in-office yoga studio and free Uber rides home. But Rosa said the catered lunch improves productivity and is another carrot to attract coveted talent.
To satiate its picky eaters, Yesware hired Cater2.me , a New York City-based outfit that curates a roster of restaurants, tracks employees’ preferences and allergies, collects ratings, and handles the billing and logistics of lunch. The service debuted in Boston last spring.
Cater2.me cofounder Alex Lorton said he was inspired to start the company in 2010, when he and a college buddy were griping about the lunches their bosses would order.
“Here we were in New York City, surrounded by the best restaurants in the world, and we were getting the same old turkey sandwiches,” Lorton said.
Cater2.me is picky: To participate, restaurants must audition their food and service skills before a panel of critics. Lorton calls these lucky employees his “vendor foodie team.”
“When we put up job postings for those positions we get inundated,” he said. “It’s not a bad gig at all.”
The lunches cost Yesware around $2,000 a week. For Rosa, who has effectively outsourced employee griping: “It’s worth every penny.”
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