As deejays and music providers, Chris Laich Music Services is in the enviable position of managing an integral part of a wedding day while being able to observe the event from start to finish. This is not the case for caterers! From setting up hours before guests even arrive to working and cleaning up long after the event is over, caterers are on the front lines the whole time.
Having catered over 40,000 events, Avalon Caterers, owned by Anita Ellis and Horacio Zamora, is no stranger to wrangling all the moving parts of the day into a flawless event. We’ve had the opportunity to work with Anita and her team at multiple weddings, and we are always impressed with her professionalism, customer service, and creativity.
image via Wish Special Events, cuisine by Avalon Caterers
We were able to catch Anita in between events to ask her a few questions about Avalon and what it’s like to own a catering company heralded by Washingtonian magazine as one of the best of the best.
We had assumed that Anita always wanted to be in catering, but it turns out it was something that chose her instead.“I fell backwards into the industry as an outgrowth of something else I was doing. I was young, it seemed appealing as something to do for ‘awhile’ and I’m still here, 25 years later!”
She’s still here because catering and event planning became one of her passions. Anita loves the “variety of experience. Working with people during some of the most important moments of their lives. We cater weddings all the time, but we also cater graduations, funerals, job promotions, campaigns, and any other occasion you can imagine where food is an important part of the event. Maybe it’s odd to say, but I like funeral receptions very much because the focus of the day seems properly placed. The gathering is all because of love for the person gone. There’s a lot of sweetness mixed with the sadness. And it’s especially great to hear people laughing at a funeral. The great stories about the loved one often make me wish I could have met them.”
Now, Anita can’t imagine doing anything else than being a part of Avalon Caterers.“I really like our piece of the day. Catering isn’t just about food to me. The beauty of the presentation, the design of the room, the smoothness of the choreography of our staff makes me very proud. The pieces, when put together skillfully, make for a memorable day for the host. They may not be able to put their fingers on exactly why it was so special but I know it’s the combination of many things that fall within our responsibilities and talents. We’re very good at putting all the pieces together into a beautiful whole.”
image via Wish Special Events, cuisine by Avalon Caterers
Anita, Horacio, and Avalon Caterers’ commitment to ensuring all the cogs of an event fit beautifully together and perform perfectly is a point of pride. We can personally attest to the fact that Avalon Caterers will stop at nothing to deliver the best experience possible.“We catered the AHS Gala on the heels of Hurricane Isabel. We dodged fallen trees, ran the kitchen without power or water, and cleaned up after hundreds of guests by the light from our trucks’ headlights. We catered several weddings during this winter’s blizzard without skipping a beat and were trapped on a highway in New Jersey with 25 staff for two days when coming home from another event in New York as the fury of the second blizzard kicked in on our commute home. There are times I feel more like we run the Red Cross than a catering company. We just don’t like to let anyone down under any circumstances.”
In fact, Anita thrives on those kinds of challenges! When we asked her what type of event she’s dying to plan, she had this to say: “We’ve been lucky enough to cater for celebrities, royalty, and presidents. They’ve been exciting events to be a part of. What I’d like to tackle is an event on a grand scale with tens of thousands of guests with hundreds of moving parts. You can’t call yourself a proper juggler if there’s only one ball in the air at a time. I’d love to see the smooth blend of thousands of details merging all at once with Avalon at the helm. Our largest event was for 70,000 guests but the details were fairly simple. What I mean is details that require the granddaddy of all spreadsheets…and it must be beautiful, too!!”
After seeing Anita and Avalon in action, we can attest to their attentiveness to not only every little detail but also to their clients. From excellent cuisine to thoughtful details that elevate a wedding or event into a gracious, memorable affair, Anita, Horacio and their staff at Avalon Caterers are among the best in DC!
