Business still high on menu

Dining out for business has changed over the past couple of decades. While the three-martini lunch is a distant memory, the importance of lunches and dinners as a platform on which to do business is very much with us.

Two of the state’s business dining and catering leaders recently discussed the business of dining out.

Russell Morin is one of the name brands of business dining and especially catering in Rhode Island. He is president of Russell Morin Catering and Events. He is seeing at his eight exclusive catering venues located in three states, as he put it, “a lot more corporate-type work.”

Leading local companies are throwing parties and receptions to recognize company achievements and milestones or to entertain customers. Morin says corporate catering is coming back at a level similar to the pre-recession days. However, he observed that businesses for the most part “don’t want to be seen as splurging.”

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Russell Morin Catering hosts a large number of business gatherings at one exclusive venue, the restored Providence Public Library. The library has turned its reduced hours into a dramatic repurposing, opening its grand rooms and halls to social functions from weddings to business meetings and galas during evenings and weekends.

Morin noted that corporate outings are back for team-building and promoting a company culture. He and his staff are receiving requests from guests who want to return to family style dining.

Another “new” aspect to business catering as well as social functions is the increased awareness and knowledge of food and ingredients. He said, “People expect a lot more ingredient wise.” Just as at restaurant tables, sourcing has become critical with catering guests insisting on knowing suppliers, purveyors and even farmers. For the record, Morin uses Foley Fish out of New Bedford for seafood and top-tier grades of beef and poultry from leading suppliers. Recently the company catered a farm-to-table dinner utilizing growers who sell at the Bristol Farmers Market. Morin showed off with pride a recent addition to company headquarters in Attleboro – an herb garden.

“We have 30 to 40 different herbs and flowers,” he said. “Our customers want to see them!” And he says the garden has proven to be a lesson from the old school: When you grow your own, it is more cost effective.

Russell Morin Catering and Events recently opened its first restaurant in many years. CRU Café recently began operations in Newport next door to Morin’s catering and events office.

“What CRU does is to cement [our company] into the Newport economy,” he said. CRU is a full-service restaurant with a creative, contemporary menu for breakfast, lunch and recently added dinner items in a BYOB format. Morin knows his walk-in customer. “They want to splurge once in a while but especially our local retirees don’t want to overspend.” The price point for dinner is about $12 per person.

The response from Newporters has been positive but as Morin said, “We are taking it slow.” Menu items include the Swine on English breakfast sandwich with house-made pimento cheese, mortadella and a fried egg.

In Providence’s Knowledge District, the eclectic restaurant CAV has carved out a reputation as one of the city’s go-to spots for parties as well as dining. However, proprietor Sylvia Moubayed says that the artistic atmosphere that she created and that her regulars prize is conducive to business as well.

The post-industrial surroundings of CAV’s brick building become an urban terrace with hundreds of flowers adorning the patio, which can be reserved for business meetings as well as parties. As Moubayed told my radio listeners during a broadcast from the dining room, “[Some guests] prefer the dining room because it is so interesting and air conditioned, yet others prefer the patio with all the flowers!”

CAV has been open for 25 years under Moubayed’s nurturing management style. The CAV menu is varied and robust with signature dishes that have been served virtually since opening day. In addition to the full menu, Executive Chef David Firda creates specials that are on the leading culinary edge, such as minted Tuscan melon gazpacho with chili-dusted sweet potato chips, hominy-encrusted pan-seared catfish with preserved lemon rhubarb gastrique (a type of sweet-and-sour sauce) and double-thick pork loin chop grilled with coffee-porter braised Black Mission figs.

The business lunch or dinner is alive and well throughout the state with traditions meeting new demands and tastes. •
Bruce Newbury’s “Dining Out” talk radio show is heard on 920 WHJJ-AM, 1540 WADK-AM and on mobile applications. He can be reached by email at bruce@brucenewbury.com.

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