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Outdoor Oven finds niche in event catering Article written by: Jean Henderson, Tribune Staff Writer
For Doug Moses and the Outdoor Oven Company in Bean Station it's a case of have food will travel. Moses, his partner David Drinnon and their staff are the answer to corporate event planners' worst nightmares: 400 employees? They've got it covered. A full, tasty meal rather than finger food? Not a problem. Outdoor Oven can bring a full course meal to events throughout the Lakeway Area. Moses said the company has worked several corporate events on site, plus family reunions, private celebrations and more at a variety of locations since it celebrated its opening in February of this year. "When we've worked some of the plants, that means we were there for all three shifts, so it's not unusual for us to be somewhere cooking around the clock" he said. The size of an event is not an issue for this group. "If you have a lunch event for 400 people, we can cook 100 at a time, which means we pretty much have to start cooking at about 3 a.m.," Moses said. The company is not all barbecue, though it may be its signature menu item. And the barbecue just isn't ribs, either. "We really do anything the customer wants. There's some corporate events they want a sit-down type of meal with linens, and plates, and we can do that. We can do something as simple as cheese layouts, pate, light things," Moses said. Event planning requires at least a one-week lead, Moses said, which allows time to procure the meats and side items, as well as preparing the meat, which often requires a full day of marinating in rubs, spices or glazes to get the full impact of flavor. It takes about three days to get the meat, then one day of prep time. Some of the sides can be prepped early, too," he said. All this begs the question: What Kind of food will be served? "It's all up to the customer. Basically, what we do is find out what kind of event it is, how many people will be there, what time of day this will be happening and the mix of people, like if there will be adults and children. Then we can prepare three to four menus for the to choose from." "Once we have that, we're on the ball," Moses said. "They tell us what they want. Sometimes they tell us what they don't want. Whatever it is, we make sure it's all to their liking." When it comes to the chin-dripping, paper-napkin destroying, and ultimately tummy-satisfying barbecue, just about any meat will do, Moses explained. "There's brisket, chicken, ribs, pulled pork, pork chops, shrimp, lobster. There's little we can't get," he said. Bringing all this good food to the public wasn't necessarily the game plan when Moses and Drinnon opened shop. At least, not directly. The two first opened Sun-Spark Fab and Welding, designing and manufacturing cookers, grills and smokers for sale to businesses and individuals. To showcase and promote what their products could do, it just made sense to barbecue a few ribs and serve some side items. The few ribs became a lot of ribs, brisket, chicken and more. That's when Outdoor Oven officially became a catering business. "This is really an unplanned offshoot of what we were doing," Moses said. Moses doesn't see any end to the possibilities for the company's future. "There's really no telling where this can go. We're planning on opening a storefront early next year where you can get call-ahead meats and side items for pickup, maybe vacuum-packed meats, pastries,and bread. "We're developing a plan to offer our rubs and spices, and the glaze sauce. We'd like to add Internet sales capabilities. I don't know when it'll stop," he said. For more information about the Outdoor Oven Co., call 865-993-0077
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