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A Steel Pixel Studios original series. We take a look at restaurants around the valley and the heart behind the food. It's a conversation between the mastermind behind the food at each restaurant and our hosts Tim, Jacoby, and Rily that are visiting.
00:01:07:17 - 00:01:24:04
Tim
Hello and welcome to the Lehigh Valley Food Podcast. My name is Tim and welcome to season two. With me today I have Jacoby and we have local Mama catering. Do you want to introduce yourself?
00:01:20:08 - 00:01:58:04
Beth
Hi, guys. My name is Beth Raynock. I'm the chef and owner of local Mamma Catering here in Bethlehem.
00:01:26:19 - 00:01:47:15
Tim
Awesome. A pleasure to have you on.
00:01:28:22 - 00:01:47:15
Beth
Thank you.
00:01:29:18 - 00:01:47:15
Jacoby
So this preamble here to talk about a little bit. What did you mean by that? You're born here, but you're not really American.
00:01:36:08 - 00:02:07:21
Beth
Okay, so I. I like legally I have a Social Security card, but I believe that I'm a citizen of the planet more than I'm a citizen of this country. I identify as more of an international kind of a gal. I don't you know, when people say, what kind of food do you make? I say I make anything you want as long as I have access to the ingredients.
00:01:58:06 - 00:02:07:21
Beth
So yeah, it's like worldly.
00:02:01:01 - 00:02:07:21
Tim
Speaking of ingredients, tell me a little bit about your catering business. How did you kind of get started?
00:02:06:14 - 00:02:57:09
Beth
Okay, so I've been in the industry for a long time. It's always been a side side job kind of thing, like how to survive in this country, you know, as a single mom also. So I started working in like a bagel place, and I was 18, but I did have a very strong food upbringing. My mom and dad exposed to all kinds of international restaurants.
00:02:31:20 - 00:02:57:09
Beth
We didn't, you know. Yeah, of course, Like we were going on vacation. We pulled through at McDonald's, like, you know. And then you got the toy. And that was cool, you know, And that was fun. But, you know, then we also went downtown to Philly. So I grew up outside of Philly, and we went down to, you know, all types of foods Asian, Italian, you know, whatever.
00:02:55:07 - 00:03:28:05
Beth
So as a kid in the eighties, it was like a really big deal to go down to the city, to go out to eat. So I felt like I had some really great exposure. And then my parents both, you know, both really enjoyed cooking. I paid attention. So my mom used to make tuna casserole. And on those nights like that was not I'm not a fan.
00:03:15:13 - 00:03:55:01
Beth
So I learned how to make. She said, like, you can make yourself your own peanut butter and jelly sandwich. So I started making my own sandwiches at age five because that was my alternative. Forced to eat salad, green, green beans.
00:03:30:19 - 00:03:55:01
Tim
Is it is it the word casserole?
00:03:32:20 - 00:03:55:01
Beth
And no.
00:03:33:13 - 00:03:55:01
Jacoby
Is the tuna part right?
00:03:35:02 - 00:04:16:05
Beth
It's food, but I believe the tuna should not be hot with. Oh, you know what? You're right. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. It sounds like it. Like, you know, everybody has weird comfort foods that they've grown up with. I mean, there's a lot of food that people call. I would never try. Like, I paid attention in the industry. So, as you know, I've been in the restaurant industry for over 20 years, so I'm not I don't have a culinary degree.
00:04:05:01 - 00:04:16:05
Beth
I've never been properly trained. I'm just what you call industry taught. Yeah. So.
00:04:11:06 - 00:04:16:05
Tim
So what's the craziest thing you think you've made that people wouldn't want to eat.
00:04:16:08 - 00:04:39:14
Beth
Liver and onions now? Yeah. Yeah. I sorry to say, I make mine with, like, beer and bagels even better. Yeah, that sounds delicious. Yeah. I mean, I'm. I'm quite proud of it, but I know a lot of people who, like, won't touch it. And I'm like, that's just because you haven't had it prepared properly, you know? And I love cooking with alcohol.
00:04:35:21 - 00:05:10:01
Beth
So when we first started the business, so seven years ago and 2016 now, so I started connecting with like breweries and wineries and there's nothing like glazing a pan. You just like fried something in hot butter and have all those crispy bits and then you just pour something in there and declare deglaze the pan. That to me is like heaven.
00:05:02:17 - 00:05:38:08
Beth
Yeah, Yeah. Yeah. So, like, butter is like our staple. And in the kitchen, I run out of butter. I become a very grand person. Yeah. So that has to be, like, kept, you know? But we take pride that we can prepare pretty much for any dietary, you know, preference, I call it, instead of like, a restriction. What's that called?
00:05:23:21 - 00:05:56:19
Beth
A restriction? Because that feels sad and kind of depressing that you're stuck in this, you know, realm of food that's not as fun. Like, it's not as fun as being able to eat all the other not. Yes. So when I say to people like, well, what's your you know, what are the dietary preferences that your clients have, I need to know everything so that everybody can eat safely, so we can do all, all the good stuff.
00:05:47:06 - 00:06:18:17
Tim
Yeah. So, so for the catering business, kind of walk me through how you run it. I've been. I've been planning a wedding. Yeah. As I was telling you just before the show, and it's been a lot. So when it comes to going to a venue and preparing like, dishes, how do you typically do it? Do you have like, a truck that you bring with you or a mobile kitchen, or do you rely on theirs and kind of like, what's your what's your favorite style of food to serve to when you're when you're doing that?
00:06:17:17 - 00:07:07:03
Beth
Sure. Right. Those are all really great questions. So I stopped doing events over a hundred people, like maybe I'll do 121 and 50 if it's the right type of event. But yeah, generally, yeah. Just yeah, which doesn't mean I saw that anyway. But you know, the micro wedding is where it's at for me. I love an intimate wedding that's maybe a little more high end.
00:06:46:00 - 00:07:07:03
Beth
I can do plated dinner. There are a lot of caterers that only do plated plated dinners or there's a lot of caterers that only do buffets. The thing about my business is that and the reason why I feel like I'm just slightly different than a lot of the other companies. I'm a food photographer and a food stylist. Awesome.
00:07:04:11 - 00:07:32:10
Beth
I write my own recipes. A lot of the stuff on our menus are my signature recipes that are not written down anywhere, so I cook by taste. Baking is a science. So like if you're baking something, it has to be an exact measurement, you know? But I can make a cake without any measurements. So I've learned, you know, even especially like a banana bread, something like that.
00:07:26:09 - 00:08:01:02
Beth
I can literally just throw things in a bowl and it still turns out okay. So, you know, like, I really I think the difficult thing about this business is that you feel like the stress of running the company takes away from the joy of why you're doing it so when people are planning a wedding, it's an extremely stressful time.
00:07:48:11 - 00:08:17:01
Beth
You know, financially it's a huge investment, a lot of people try to DIY it and then the day can be very difficult because it's not planned out properly. You don't have you haven't, you know, given people jobs or tasks to help with. And sometimes it falls on one person. Oftentimes for the day of a wedding, people are not eating or drinking because of their anxiety and they're running around like a not.
00:08:14:19 - 00:08:50:20
Beth
So we provide complimentary snacks for the bridal parties and for the families. Like they can pick whatever they want that's going to satiate them and that even in their nerves, they could eat that and it would be a comfort. So like I've had I had a lot of people tell me that planning with me was the whole stress free part of planning their wedding.
00:08:40:02 - 00:09:08:21
Beth
Yeah. And so that's something I take pride in because like, why should planning the food in the menu be difficult? So we have like, you know, huge array of questions that we ask. We also require that they have an event planner.
00:08:52:22 - 00:09:08:21
Tim
Okay.
00:08:53:17 - 00:09:08:17
Beth
Or somebody that day who's going to be appointed. There has to be someone other than the bride or them with a family that's going to be executing all the details with us. So in the absence of that, it can be rather chaotic.
00:09:08:18 - 00:09:29:09
Tim
Oh, I know. Yeah. So we actually our business started shooting weddings.
00:09:13:15 - 00:09:29:09
Beth
Oh, well.
00:09:14:19 - 00:09:29:09
Tim
And when COVID hit, we kind of switched gears.
00:09:17:02 - 00:09:29:09
Beth
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So is that how you guys began? You begin? Yeah, we began actually.
00:09:21:14 - 00:09:29:09
Tim
So we started. James was actually our first client, oddly enough.
00:09:24:17 - 00:09:29:09
Beth
Yeah. The Oh, that's awesome.
00:09:27:10 - 00:09:37:12
Tim
And through that, we met a wedding planner and a photographer who brought us on a bunch of weddings, introduced us to a bunch of people, and we did a lot of that.
00:09:35:18 - 00:10:20:19
Beth
Being in the business that I'm in. And, you know, the wedding industry is only one part of what I do. So food styling, meal planning, I do cooking classes also. So I do it for kids or for adults, and I do like demos, chef T you know, chefs to table experience, you know, experience and things like that. So I really try to cover the gamut.
00:09:58:12 - 00:10:20:19
Beth
I've even done like restaurant takeovers and pop up dinners. So, you know, if you are in a field with a wedding and you have to bring everything with you, so you have to bring your tent, your grill, you know, anything, and then oftentimes I'll say, well, we're going to gear your menu towards what kind of visibility is available to us.
00:10:16:13 - 00:10:46:01
Beth
So I'm not going to say you can have a fried, you know, fried food on your menu of. I don't have access to a fryer. Yeah, well, I don't fry I typically don't fry food. I typically air fry. I just turn my convection oven up to 500. Yeah. And then everything's crispy and it's basically the same thing. So.
00:10:37:01 - 00:10:46:01
Beth
Yes. Right. So it's lighter and, you know, it still has the same effect. Yeah, absolutely.
00:10:45:04 - 00:11:08:12
Jacoby
Getting the silly questions you said for the bridal party, you give them like specific snacks, Right. Like what? Like the.
00:10:52:04 - 00:11:08:12
Beth
One of the compliments.
00:10:53:17 - 00:11:08:12
Jacoby
Is or whatever they.
00:10:54:11 - 00:11:08:12
Beth
Request. Yeah. It's really funny the requests that we get. Do you any.
00:10:57:15 - 00:11:08:12
Jacoby
Sir, I would love to hear it again in your top five.
00:11:00:08 - 00:11:36:20
Beth
Okay. Weird. Right? Okay. So for the dudes. Yeah. Like they do is really want, like, something carb, right? They're already like, maybe they're drinking so on you. Right. Well, like, so I, I don't allow them to have any because I'm like, you're not allowed to get my food on your suit. Your bride will kill me. Right? So, like, I'm, you know, I've had a group say like, can I have like the rolls from Texas Roadhouse with the cinnamon honey butter?
00:11:28:11 - 00:12:01:16
Beth
And I'm like, that's really, you know, And that's like, so comforting if soaking up the alcohol, you know, whatever they're enjoying the for, you know, I've had I've done like for the brides. Someone asked me to fill raspberries with chocolate. So we took a piping bag and we took chocolate ganache and we just inserted raspberry. You know, the chocolate into the raspberry.
00:11:53:16 - 00:12:01:16
Beth
And they're delicious.
00:11:54:21 - 00:12:01:16
Tim
I bet that took forever.
00:11:56:02 - 00:12:25:09
Beth
No, it wasn't that bad, huh? Yeah. I mean, you know, it's just a little like, if it was a little, I'd say tedious, but, you know, it wasn't like, 3 hours later. We're only giving them a small portion, you know? And then so the really fun thing about what I do is that I've never made the same menu twice, okay?
00:12:16:04 - 00:12:49:07
Beth
Never. And I don't have any pricing on my menus because market prices are subject to change. Right? So, you know, I and this is another really important policy that a lot of companies, you know, because people are in business, you know, you don't want to lose money. Right. As a business owner, I got married a week and a half after 911 when I was very young and I was like 21 and because of that, a lot of our guests could not attend the wedding.
00:12:44:12 - 00:13:26:04
Beth
So let's see. I said to the caterer, Hey, like we lost a third of our guest count. Can you please reduce our bill? Nope, absolutely not. I'm already like, everything's a place. I have staff. I cannot lower your bill, which, you know, is like, if you were say that to a caterer, like, they would laugh at you. Like, why on earth would I lower your bill and lower the amount of money that I'm making off of you for sure.
00:13:09:08 - 00:13:39:22
Beth
But I do. So a week and a half before we you know, before your event, I get your final number and you don't pay for guests that are unable to attend. So people really appreciate that during COVID, during COVID, like things shifted so much. I got a letter from Governor at the time saying that we were a necessary, you know, a necessary business.
00:13:33:01 - 00:14:00:20
Beth
And we, you know, we shifted like we were like, I have to feed people, you know, all I lost like 40 grand. All of our spring events were canceled or whatever, right? We don't if people hire us instead of losing their deposit, I just let them credit it towards the next event. Yeah. So it's not lost money. It's just that they're not going to use it for that.
00:13:56:23 - 00:14:27:11
Beth
They're going to use it for something else. So I mean, it happens, you know, happens, things get canceled, things shift. So I really don't believe in in doing that to people. Let's just say that.
00:14:10:20 - 00:14:27:11
Tim
That's good.
00:14:11:05 - 00:14:39:13
Beth
Practice. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so you're you're building a relationship with your clients. You want them to trust you. You want them to feel confident that you're not going to hurt them financially or or destroy their wedding day, right. By like, your mistakes or your, you know, whatever. So you really do the best that you can. There's a lot of things sometimes that go awry that are completely out of our control.
00:14:33:20 - 00:14:52:06
Beth
And then you just have to like, shift in, you know, try to pull everybody together and, you know, make it happen. So sometimes it pours rain. You know, you just have to roll with it. So.
00:14:47:14 - 00:14:52:06
Tim
Oh, for sure.
00:14:48:04 - 00:15:37:12
Beth
Yeah. Yeah. But now the wedding industry is just one part of what we do. You know, I would much rather do a private dinner for eight people. Yeah. Then than do away hand stuff.
00:15:00:23 - 00:15:37:12
Tim
I have bought for like my dad, my stepmom, like I've always I buy them a lot of gifts for chefs. Come and go.
00:15:08:12 - 00:15:37:12
Beth
Oh, like an experience. Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. So, yeah, it is a lot of fun. Yeah. Yeah, it really is. I mean, just some people say, like, I'd rather have you gift me an experience than have, like, something tangible that, you know. Absolutely. Yeah. That you could lose in a fire, you know, so. Right. Yeah. So the reason my business is called Local Mama Catering Company is I love I love sourcing locally.
00:15:35:03 - 00:16:04:20
Beth
I have a lot of friends in the industry, like the farmers that, you know, from my mushroom guy to, you know, even sourcing, you know, local beer for recipes and stuff like that. So yeah.
00:15:47:05 - 00:16:04:20
Tim
Very cool.
00:15:47:20 - 00:16:04:20
Beth
Yeah. Yeah. But I used to sing every weekend an open mic night, and that's how they would call me up to the stage. They'd say like, Let's get our local mama up here. So that's how that's happening. That's awesome.
00:15:59:22 - 00:16:04:20
Tim
What was your favorite song to sing?
00:16:01:13 - 00:16:27:22
Beth
Oh, gosh, no pressure.
00:16:05:08 - 00:16:27:22
Jacoby
From you, Crusher. Can you sing it right now?
00:16:08:00 - 00:16:48:21
Beth
Yeah. Yeah. No. Somewhere Over the Rainbow when I do it in This Is Style, this woman named Joanna Steel. So I'm a white woman like through and through. And you look at me, I'm like, pretty pale. Like, why haven't I gotten any tan yet? I don't know. But, you know, especially if I've been like, you know, at an open might and I've been thrown back a few drinks and I'm more relaxed, I can I have pretty good pipes, I like to say like, go I have I'm like, so on social media, I'm singing local mama.
00:16:45:03 - 00:17:09:23
Beth
And you could see these like ridiculous home videos, but I make and that's as far as I've ever gone. Nice. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:16:54:06 - 00:17:29:19
Jacoby
So do you have any favorites that you've catered? Well, say, favorite venues or people you've catered was like a good time in like, have you ever had a terrible one? Was like the worst thing you've ever catered out.
00:17:12:11 - 00:17:52:04
Beth
There are some clients that have over Ely tried to destroy me. They don't want anybody to hire me again. They just blasts bad reviews like and it happens. It happens to everybody. You know, you're going to have there are people that you cannot you can't make them happy. Absolutely. No matter like no matter who you are or what you do, you cannot make them happy.
00:17:35:14 - 00:18:12:08
Beth
And that's okay. You know, that's who they are. Yeah. And and so after that, I started interviewing clients. So I have like, I have questions. I ask people to see if we're a good fit for each other because, you know, one, you have to be able to financially handle the investment of hiring a caterer. Yeah. And second, like, how do you handle stress?
00:17:56:13 - 00:18:35:04
Beth
Who's going to be my contact art? What are your dynamics in your family? You know what I mean? So I need to know if your family members are reasonable people are they going to try to make my life harder also? So, you know, because. Yeah, yeah. We're catering for you know, it's not just one person that's hiring us sometime.
00:18:17:15 - 00:18:57:08
Beth
It's all the other people that are involved in the planning. Like I grew up in a helicopter kind of environment, you know, as that's more of a modern term. But when I was getting married, I wanted to have like a you know, when I was younger, I wanted to have a bonfire, like a pagan bonfire in the middle of a field with like a potluck.
00:18:37:11 - 00:19:01:12
Beth
It's kind of cool. I was going to be barefoot and like, just like music and like, right, I'm going to say, right? And my grandma, my grandmother and my mom were like, We've been planning how you were born. So like, you have and they're Italian. Like you have no choice. And like, so I did what everybody else wanted me to do, you know, in some regard.
00:18:59:20 - 00:19:19:12
Beth
So like, there's, there's that, there's those dynamics of planning. But for a part, like I have clients that I've been catering for for the last five or six years. Yeah. And I'm their go to and they trust me completely and I know their home by heart. I know their dietary preferences by heart, and I know that they have the budget to hire me again and again.
00:19:20:00 - 00:19:42:20
Beth
And so planning with them, which is, you know, not everybody lives that way. Not everybody has their go to cater for all of their swanky parties. But some people do. And you know, those clients, I have a very strong relationship with their families because, you know, like I see I get to see reunite with their families every time we have a celebration.
00:19:42:20 - 00:20:04:12
Beth
And I get, you know, I'm a hugger. So I'm like, really, you know, being that I'm a female business owner, I am definitely like a nurturing matriarch in a lot of respects. MM That's awesome. Yeah. I'm so grateful to be here. And this is really nice talking to you guys. And I really tried to keep it PR as clear as possible.
00:20:05:00 - 00:20:09:01
Beth
Yes. It's been an honor to talk with you guys. Thank you very much for having me here.
00:20:09:04 - 00:20:11:23
Tim
Well, thank you for coming on. Yeah. And it's been an honor having you.
00:20:12:01 - 00:20:12:17
Beth
Thank you.
00:20:12:20 - 00:20:18:08
Tim
It sounds like you love what you do. Yes. And it sounds like everything's delicious.