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What is the average cost of catering an event in New York City at a union staffed exclusive venue (please provide as many examples as possible)?
Hello! Thanks for your question about the average cost of catering an event at an exclusive venue using only union staff in New York City. The short version is that catering a full-service event for up to 75 people will cost in the range of $3000, plus an additional $25-95 per person if you wish to have an open bar. Venues in New York City vary in cost depending on size, location, and prestige, ranging anywhere from $300/hour to $1700/hour for a typical venue capable of holding 75 or more people. Below you will find a deep dive of my findings.
METHODOLOGY
We started by looking up event catering and venue costs in New York City in general, hoping to drill down from there. We were fortunate that someone had benchmarked catering costs in New York City before us. We compared these to the pricing of specific New York catering companies where we could find a price list and found it to be reasonable, though lacking information about the additional cost of an open bar (which we have supplemented).
Pricing venues proved to be more difficult, both because venues varied so much in price and because most venues do not publicly publish a per-hour fee for exclusive rental. We hypothesize that this is so that they can vary costs according to the timing of the event; obviously, they would wish to charge far more for a Christmas Eve event, for example. While you did not specify the type of event you wished to benchmark, we found a site specializing in wedding venues which did publish hourly rates and therefore used that to ballpark a reasonable range of exclusive venue rental fees.
We specifically searched for information about union staff for both catering and venues. We could not find union staff specifically mentioned or excluded in regard to any catering company or venue in New York City, and therefore cannot give a price comparison for working with a union company vs. a non-union one.
COST OF CATERING
One of the first sources that we found was an excellent page on Thumbtack Journal. As expected, catering costs depend on "various factors, including the number of guests at your event, the time of day, the cuisine you choose, the dishes you need prepared, and the staff you require." A full-service catering event will cost upwards of $3000, or about $24-40 per person.
This does not include the additional cost if you desire to have a bar. Thumbtack suggests that $400 for the services of the bartender is reasonable, but doesn't include the cost of the drinks themselves. The NYC Catering Company advertises $25 per person for a partial bar and $60-95 for a full bar.
COST OF VENUE
The cost of exclusive rights to a given venue was much harder to pin down, since every venue has its own price. In many cases, exact prices were not given. We found that wedding venues were the most open about their pricing and thus these provided our benchmarks. On the low end of wedding venues, for example, we found Loft 29, an indoor venue which rents at $300/hour and can hold a maximum of 80 guests. At the high end, the Montauk Yacht Club resort rents at about $1600/hour and can hold up to a thousand guests in its outdoor area. Even larger venues are of course available for a variety of events, but such venues do not openly advertise a set rental price, and must be contacted and negotiated with individually.
CONCLUSION
To wrap it up, catering a full-service event for up to 75 people will cost in the range of $3000, plus an additional $25-95 per person if you wish to have an open bar, while exclusive rental of a venue ranges from $300 to $1700 per hour. We were unfortunately unable to determine how a requirement for union staff will affect the price.
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