What are ezCater’s Restaurant Onboarding Requirements?

To partner with ezCater or add additional locations to your existing account, please ensure that your restaurant meets our requirements.

In order to partner with ezCater, restaurant partners must:

  • Be open 4+ days per week with breakfast and/or lunch coverage 
  • Operate out of a brick & mortar storefront or commercial kitchen 
  • Have an established web presence with 6+ months of online reviews*
  • Have at least 3.5+ stars on Yelp and/or Google * 
  • Offer a catering menu that adheres to our equal price guarantee – we ensure that ezCater customers never pay more for something on ezCater than they would by ordering directly from  your restaurant
  • Offer prepared drop-off catering (no meal prep or frozen meals)
  • Must be signed up to receive payments through ACH

*We do not evaluate web presence or rating on other third party marketplaces

We have additional requirements for virtual brands

Virtual Brand Requirements

Virtual brands are required to meet all of the overall requirements including online presence requirements, and additionally must: 

  • Offer a menu with at least 50% differentiation from all other concepts at the same address - differentiation includes both items and cuisine type.
  • Partners cannot create duplicates of their presence in the form of additional virtual brands offering the same or similar cuisines or items.
  • Must offer at least 10 entrees and more than one food item type.
  • Existing ezCater partners must establish order volume and reliable performance before adding any virtual brands. 

If you meet these requirements, we would love to talk to you. Please provide us with a few quick details here to get started.

 What are virtual brands? 

  • Virtual brands refer to restaurants whose menu offerings are delivery-only and/or do not occupy a physical dine-in brick & mortar space. 
  • While the menus exist online, the food is prepared out of a separate restaurant, commissary, or production kitchen. 
  • They may also be referred to as ghost kitchens, pop-up kitchens, dark kitchens, or cloud kitchens. 
  • Virtual brands can provide a flexible & cost-effective way for restaurants to expand their footprint and attract new customers. 
  • Virtual brands are unique from traditional restaurants and provide unique sets of challenges, therefore ezCater has requirements specifically for this segment, which have been implemented to benefit both our customers and our restaurant partners.