Catering Marketplace 'Disco' Signals Market Shift
A premium catering marketplace named Disco is expanding in major US cities, curating offerings from top independent restaurants for events. The platform's model, which focuses on a fun, discovery-oriented user experience, is seen as a potential threat to traditional caterers. Its rise underscores a growing client demand for unique, restaurant-driven catering experiences over conventional services.
- Disco currently operates in New York City, Los Angeles, and New Jersey, with Chicago listed as a "coming soon" city on its website, along with Denver, Austin, Washington, D.C., and Tampa. - The platform functions as an invitation-only marketplace for restaurants, aiming to curate a selection of high-quality, drop-off catering options for events, meetings, and parties. - In its active markets, Disco partners with a range of popular and high-end independent restaurants, from names like Alta Calidad and Fish Cheeks in New York to concepts like Local Smoke BBQ in New Jersey. - The service is powered by FamilyMeal, a technology company that provides a multi-menu ordering platform specifically for restaurants. - The business model taps into a significant market shift, as corporate catering was the fastest-growing segment in the industry in 2024, with office events and staffed gatherings showing increased demand. - This marketplace approach competes with established online catering platforms like ezCater, which partners with over 60,000 restaurants and has raised over $320 million in funding to expand its own software and marketplace globally. - The broader U.S. catering market reached $72 billion in 2023 and is projected to grow to $124 billion by 2032, indicating a substantial and expanding sector for new models like Disco. - The rise of such platforms aligns with industry data showing 75% of catering orders are now placed online, highlighting the critical role of technology and digital-first user experiences in the catering sector.
