Office catering · Ottawa
A working lunch for 20 comes to $885 at the starting price with delivery and set-up, and a meeting of 12 is quoted at the $600 minimum, $645 with delivery; both plus applicable taxes. The published rates
Daytime workplace catering in Ottawa: meetings, working lunches, workshops, training days and breakfast sessions. The planning problem here is the agenda — when people eat relative to what is happening in front of them — which is a different job from a client reception at seven in the evening. This page covers the formats, the timing, the pre-order checklist and what a daytime booking costs.
AI-generated illustration.
The OH! approach
A working lunch for 20, in numbers
| What | The figure |
|---|---|
| Twenty people, at the starting price | $840 |
| With delivery within 25 km | $885, plus applicable taxes |
| Twelve people | $600 event minimum; $645 with delivery |
| Food per person, lunch as the meal | 300–400 g, so 6–8 kg for twenty |
| Pieces for twenty, over two hours | 200–280 |
| On-site build | 45 to 90 minutes |
| Planning window | Two to four weeks is comfortable; short-notice weekdays are worth asking about |
| Final head count | 7 days before the session |
| Reply to an enquiry | within one business day |
Does the food get eaten in one clear break, or stay available while the session continues? A break means a table that lands at a fixed time, gets hit hard for fifteen minutes and clears quickly, so quantity matters more than staying power. Continuous means a share-style surface that still looks deliberate ninety minutes after it went out, which changes both the menu and the amount held back. Everything else follows from that one answer.
Clean, substantial food that can be eaten beside an open laptop with one hand on a trackpad. Nothing that needs a knife, nothing that drips onto a keyboard, and dietary markers legible at a glance so nobody stops a discussion to ask what is in something. Sandwiches or tartlets, a grain or leaf salad with the dressing separate, cut vegetables, cheeses, savoury bites and a small sweet close covers a working lunch that people remember afterwards.
Anything starting before 9 a.m. reshapes the day. Bakery is collected the same morning to arrive fresh, which sets our own start. Coffee is usually the building’s arrangement, and we plan around whatever urn or machine exists on the floor. Buildings that unlock at seven give a narrow setup window, so we confirm the access before quoting an early start.
A workshop breaks when it breaks, and the schedule on the invite is optimistic by lunchtime. A share-style surface absorbs that flexibility, and anything running past ninety minutes is quoted with a replenishment plan so the afternoon does not run on a display that has been standing since nine. For a full-day session we plan the morning and afternoon as two separate moments with different weight.
Boardroom credenzas, kitchen islands and meeting-room side tables all have different footprints, and most are shorter than a host expects. Send the length and depth and the composition is planned to it, including which end stays clear of the door and whether people can reach both sides. Where the surface is genuinely small, the answer is individual portions or graze cups, which also solve a seated session where nobody wants to stand up mid-discussion. A credenza takes a short grazing table rather than a long one, and our grazing tables page gives the length each guest count needs.
These answers make a daytime quote accurate the first time, and every one of them changes the build.
Ottawa office towers and managed buildings ask a supplier for documentation more often than a private home ever will, and it is better raised in your first message than in the last week. If the building manager asks for a certificate of insurance, the answer today is that OH! holds no policy in its own name and cannot provide one, and the premises permit for the kitchen we rent belongs to the facility.
Each booking is quoted and built as its own event, and the $600 minimum and the per-event build follow from that. Client visits, leadership sessions, training days, staff appreciation lunches, all-hands afternoons and team milestones are the natural fit. Repeat dates are welcome and each one is planned around its own agenda, and a standing weekly lunch subscription sits outside what OH! runs today.
At the starting price, twenty people come to $840 before delivery and taxes, and twelve are quoted at the $600 minimum. A working lunch is the meal, so it plans at 300 to 400 g per person — 6–8 kg for twenty — built on the boardroom surface in 45 to 90 minutes and cleared afterwards with the leftovers boxed. The table above carries the same figures with delivery, and our pricing page works the totals at 12, 20, 30 and 50.
The office holiday table runs on the same format and the same figures, and the calendar is the only thing December changes: the Fridays and Saturdays between the first and the twentieth go first, and weekday evenings stay open longest. For thirty staff the arithmetic, the food weight and the booking window are worked through on our Christmas party catering page, and the workplace evening in full — the two formats, the invoicing and the building access — is on our office Christmas party catering page.
A meeting is exactly where a guest who is unsure of a dish stays quiet to avoid interrupting, so the cards carry the whole load. Ask for dietary needs in the calendar invitation, send them with the final head count, and every card names the item first and its markers second.
A daytime table is quoted per event, against the agenda it belongs to: the head count, the length of the break, whether the food stays out while the session carries on, and how much setup time the building gives us before the room is wanted. Those four answers land the quote accurately the first time. The published figures, the event minimum and the terms behind them are on our pricing page, and the parts of Ottawa we deliver into are on our locations page.
Where this table goes
The terms, in brief
Questions, answered
Twenty guests at the starting price of $42 per guest come to $840 for the food and the styled build, or $885 with the $45 delivery and on-site styling within 25 km, plus applicable taxes. Twelve people are quoted at the $600 event minimum — $645 with delivery — because $504 at the per-guest rate sits under it. Each booking is quoted and built as its own event, composed on the boardroom surface you name, labelled, and cleared with the leftovers boxed and left with you.
A working lunch is the meal, so plan on 300 to 400 g and ten to fourteen pieces per guest — 6–8 kg and 200–280 pieces for twenty people. Everything is chosen to be eaten beside an open laptop with one hand, dietary markers are legible at a glance, and a session running past ninety minutes is quoted with a replenishment plan.
Two to four weeks suits most meetings, and a weekday session at shorter notice is always worth asking about. We answer within one business day, a 30% deposit and a signed quote hold the date, and the final head count is due 7 days before; early starts turn on building access, so send the setup window with the enquiry.
Share dietary preferences and allergy information when you enquire. We plan suitable choices and label the table clearly. For severe or life-threatening allergies we talk through cross-contact before you book, and we cannot guarantee allergen-free preparation on a shared table.
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