In this episode of Restaurant Catering Smarts, Michael Attias sits down with Amanda Quinn, Director of Catering at Viva Chicken—one of the fastest-growing Peruvian rotisserie brands in the U.S.
Amanda brings years of experience building off-premise programs across hotels, franchise concepts, and now a multi-unit restaurant group. She shares how Viva Chicken has scaled catering by focusing on people, process, and good old-fashioned hustle
From her early days taking catering orders with pen and paper to leading a modern off-premise program, Amanda breaks down the strategies that actually move the needle—like hiring for personality, reading the room, adapting your pitch on the fly, and building relationships one conversation at a time.
She also reveals how she’s using AI tools to identify high-value catering prospects, map out sample-drop routes, and save hours of manual prospecting time—giving her team more time to sell.
Plus, hear Michael and Amanda dive into:
Why great catering salespeople think on their feet
How to approach offices where no one wants to talk to you
What she learned selling catering without any marketing budget
Why chasing the “big dogs” in your market (Chick-fil-A, Jason’s Deli, Jimmy John’s) leads to gold
How AI and tools like GPT are accelerating catering growth
If you’re looking for real-world strategies to build catering sales, strengthen relationships, and work smarter—not harder—this episode delivers gold bar after gold bar.
Restaurant Catering Smarts is sponsored by CaterZen Catering Software, the all-in-one system that saves restaurant teams time, increases sales, and brings sanity back to catering operations.
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✅ Hire Personality First: Amanda’s philosophy: you can teach anyone to sell—but you can’t teach them to care, connect, or think on their feet.
✅ Read the Room & Adapt Your Pitch: Some offices want a full conversation. Others want you in and out. Great caterers know which is which within 10 seconds.
✅ You Don’t Need a Massive Marketing Budget: Amanda doubled down on being scrappy—boots on the ground, sample drops, and consistency.
✅ Follow the Big Fish: She looks at the biggest catering players in town (Chick-fil-A, Jason’s Deli, Jimmy John’s) and goes after the same customers. You can “get rich off their crumbs.”
✅ AI Is Changing the Game: Amanda uses GPT to pull lists of businesses ordering lunch for 50+ people, plus routing the most efficient path for sample drops.
✅ Relationships Still Win: Catering is personal. People buy from people—even if they sometimes just want to talk about their kid’s pet fish.
✅ Experience Beats Scripts: Every interaction is different; Amanda teaches her team to pivot quickly and keep genuine conversation at the center of sales.
🔹 “You hire the personality. You can teach anybody how to sell.”
🔹 “Sometimes you walk in and nobody wants to talk to you—so you smile, hand over a menu, and keep moving.”
🔹 “You’ve got to get scrappy. We don’t have the marketing budget of a Chick-fil-A or Jason’s Deli.”
🔹 “Follow the big power caterers in your market. You can get rich off their crumbs.”
🔹 “GPT is my best friend—I use it every day to find prospects and map out sample-drop routes.”
🔹 “Some days you’re in and out in 30 seconds; other days you're hearing about a new pet fish for 20 minutes.”
🔹 “Experience teaches you how to pivot your pitch in the moment.”
