Jim Hanna never expected to make burritos in the middle of the Los Angeles freeway. But one morning, when he was the on-set caterer for the Christina Ricci comedy “Pumpkin,” he got a flat tire while driving his mobile kitchen to work. “There was no way I could get there on time, but I still had to feed people,” he told IndieWire.
“So I called the production manager and said, ‘Look, I’m gonna cook burritos on the side of the interstate. I need you to send me a van that can get them to set.’ And after that, a tow truck came and towed the kitchen directly to location.
” Give or take a flat tire, that’s how it goes when you’re feeding a film or television crew. It takes a special kind of chutzpah to consider production catering’s unique blend of logistical challenges, dietary demands, and health regulations and think, “Yes, this is the life for me.” Just ask Maria Valadez, co-founder of the Nashville-based M & M Plus Catering .
“There are no off days and no times when you can just say, ‘Sorry, we’re closed,’” she said. “You have to be very committed to it and very passionate, or you won’t make it.” Consider what it takes to organize a kitchen.
If a project shoots in a single location, then the caterer can count on cooking and serving with the same set-up every day. Many productions, though, move from place to place, and every time that happens, the caterer has to improvise a new plan. (Note that this is catering, which refers to full mea.