ST LOUIS - April 24, 2026 - Curate, the event management platform for caterers and event professionals, today launched a built-in CRM with messaging and notification center tailored to the needs of custom event catering businesses. The feature allows catering teams to send, receive, and track all client communications directly inside the platform where they already manage proposals, menus, BEOs, staffing, and payments.

For an industry where a single event can involve dozens of client touchpoints across months of planning, from initial tasting through final guest count confirmation, the ability to keep every message tied to the event record addresses one of catering's most persistent operational challenges.

The Communication Problem in Event Catering

Custom event catering is a long-cycle business. A corporate holiday dinner booked in August won't happen until December. Between booking and execution, the client will change the guest count at least once, request menu modifications, add dietary accommodations, adjust the bar package, and confirm logistics with the venue. Each of those changes generates a thread of communication that affects the proposal, the BEO, the staffing plan, and the purchasing order.

In most catering businesses, those conversations happen over email. The menu change is in one thread. The guest count update is in another. The venue logistics are in a third. The catering manager is copying and pasting information from emails into spreadsheets, updating the BEO manually, and hoping that the kitchen sees the updated version before prep begins.

When a team member asks "did the client confirm they need a gluten-free option for table six?" the answer shouldn't require searching through three months of email. But in most operations, it does.

"Caterers run incredibly complex operations with a lot of moving parts and a lot of stakeholders," said Ryan O'Neil, CEO and founder of Curate. "The client, the planner, the venue, the kitchen team, the service staff. Keeping everyone aligned on changes is the hardest part of the job. We built the CRM to make that alignment automatic instead of manual."

How the Catering CRM Works

Curate's messaging and notification center integrates directly into the event management workflow that catering businesses use throughout the planning cycle.

Conversation threads tied to events. Every client message is linked to the specific event in Curate. Open the corporate gala, and the full communication history is right there next to the proposal, the menu, the BEO, and the staffing plan. When the client confirmed the switch from plated to buffet service, that conversation is attached to the event record permanently. No email archaeology required.

Change tracking the whole team can see. In catering operations, information has to flow from the client to the sales team to the kitchen to the service staff. When a client confirms a dietary restriction or changes the guest count, every team member with access to the event can see the conversation. The kitchen doesn't have to wait for the catering manager to forward an email. The service captain doesn't have to ask what changed. The information is on the event record.

Notifications that surface during busy seasons. A catering company managing 8 to 12 events in a single weekend can't afford to miss a client message about a last-minute guest count change or an allergy update. Curate's notification system surfaces client messages inside the platform in real time, so critical updates don't get buried in a flooded inbox during peak periods.

Client and venue relationship history. Catering businesses often work with the same corporate clients, planners, and venues repeatedly. The CRM ties the full communication history to the contact record, so when the same company books their annual holiday party for the third year running, the team can reference past conversations, past menus, and past preferences without starting from scratch.

One Platform for the Entire Catering Workflow

The CRM addition means Curate now handles every stage of the custom event catering process:

• Proposals with built-in menu presentation, per-person pricing, and live client links that reflect changes in real time

• Contracts and e-signature built directly into the proposal flow

• Payment collection through integrated Stripe processing

• BEOs, packing lists, and shopping lists auto-generated from proposal data

• Recipe-level costing for accurate food cost tracking and margin protection

• Staffing coordination with Nowsta integration

• Client messaging and notifications tied to every contact and event

• Reporting and analytics for event-level profitability and business performance

"The catering industry has been underserved by software for a long time," O'Neil said. "Most tools solve one piece of the puzzle. You get a proposal tool that doesn't connect to your kitchen. Or a CRM that doesn't know anything about your menus. We've built Curate so that everything from the first client conversation to the final invoice lives in one system. The data flows through. You enter it once, and every downstream document, from the BEO to the shopping list to the staffing plan, reflects it."

Availability

The catering CRM and messaging center is available immediately to all Curate users at no additional cost. Catering businesses interested in seeing the full platform can schedule a demo at curate.co.

About Curate

Curate is the event management platform built for caterers, event florists, and event professionals. The platform unifies proposals, menus, BEOs, production workflows, contracts, payments, client communication, and reporting in one connected system. Curate helps catering businesses reduce administrative overhead, accelerate their sales process, and maintain tighter control over food costs and event profitability. For more information, visit curate.co.

Media Contact
Company Name: Curate
Contact Person: Eugene Farber
Email: Send Email
Country: United States
Website: https://curate.co