Feeding anywhere from 100 to 3,000 people is all in a week’s work for Caryn and Jason Roland of Heirloom Cuisine.
As Business Report details in its new Entrepreneur feature, the couple met in 1998 while both working at the Windsor Court Hotel in New Orleans. Jason was a classically trained chef from the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York, and Caryn was a former catering and wedding manager for four- and five-star hotels.
After traveling the country managing catering and cooking at upscale hotels and resorts together, they decided to plant their roots in St. Francisville in 2003 to begin raising their family. To put their skills to use, the couple began a modest catering operation, selling soups and box lunches, which slowly evolved into an offsite catering business. Word of mouth from catering small, in-home parties grew into a full-time business in 2007. Since then, Heirloom Cuisine has doubled its annual revenues.
“We were different from most other entrepreneurs,” Caryn recalls.
When the couple started dabbling in catering in 2003, they didn’t necessarily set out to be one of the top caterers in Baton Rouge.
“We didn’t know where this was going to lead us,” she says.
While it has taken a few years to work out the kinks of juggling business and their family life with three small children, Caryn believes they have finally achieved that balance.
“Our profession is our passion,” she explains. “We’ve made our job what we love to do, and it works out great because Jason handles all the aspects of the food, and I handle the booking, the marketing, client relations.”
With the help of about 40 employees each week, six of which are full time, Heirloom Cuisine loads up its mobile kitchen to cater events in Baton Rouge, New Orleans, north Louisiana and even Mississippi.
Read the full Entrepreneur feature. Send you comments to editors@businessreport.com.
