A catering company can serve amazing food and still lose the room if the operations fall apart. We sit down with Nicole Jordan-Reed, founder of Nicole Jordan Catering in Chicago, to talk about what actually makes events feel seamless: leadership, systems, and the kind of customer service that guests remember long after the last plate is cleared. Nicole brings nearly a decade of catering growth plus a deep corporate background in consulting, HR tech, and product work, and she shows how those skills translate directly into her business.

We get into the real mechanics of corporate event catering and high-touch service: proposals, timelines, staffing, logistics, and why Nicole treats every event like a project with a start, middle, and finish. She then shares a teachable moment from a 7 AM breakfast delivery. If you’ve ever wondered what operational excellence looks like behind the scenes, that moment tells it all.

We also go deep into practical ways to use AI in a food business to improve speed, clarity, and scalability, from SOPs and workflow documentation to recipe scaling and menu development. Finally, we zoom out to the bigger mission: why Black-owned businesses matter, how Black businesses function as local economic engines, and what it takes to build companies that create good jobs, stronger benefits, and more freedom for our communities.

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