MULTI-UNIT FOOD & HOSPITALITYCATERING WAS STUCK AT 2%. NOBODY HAD TIME TO SELL IT.
A New York bagel group with lines out the door and a cult following 9 locations with 10 more opening. Retail runs the business: stores, limited-time drops, and a brand people cross boroughs for.
Catering was the proven-but-parked opportunity. Offices wanted it, Google was already an account, and nobody had time to sell it while the team opened stores.
GOAL
The goal was to grow catering without hiring, turning proven demand into a real revenue line with no sales team. With 10 stores already in flight, nothing new could pull focus from that, so the team needed to stay on store openings. On top of that, Apollo Bagels wanted to prove the channel before staffing it, if catering worked, they'd hire behind the revenue instead of ahead of it.
We spent months talking about catering as an opportunity. Six weeks after launch, it was already a real line of revenue, without adding a single hire.”
Paras Jain
Founder
Every office
in New York reachable by the outbound engine
grow10
new stores the team stayed focused on opening
growbusiness map
- SALESbottleneck
Catering demand was proven and nobody was selling it. No sales team, no outbound function, and the third-party tools weren’t working.
- OPERATIONSCONSTRAINT
The team was fully focused on opening 10 stores. No capacity for a manual catering operation.
- HIRINGCONSTRAINT
With 10 store openings in motion, no sales hires were planned.
- FINANCEOPPORTUNITY
Store-level economics come together at month-end. As the group doubles its store count, per-store visibility becomes a daily need.
- OPTIMIZE WHAT EXISTS
- GROW NEW REVENUE
THE OPPORTUNITY SHORTLIST
- 1
catering outbound eNgine
Finds every office in New York, contacts them follows up, and hands warm orders to the store team.
- 2
store-level p&l dashboard
One daily view per store: sales, labor, food cost. Managers act the same day instead of waiting for month-end.
- 3
new store prioritization
Rank the next sites using existing store sales, foot traffic, and demographics.
- 4
drop & collab identification
Apollo runs limited-time drops. Pick the next drops and collab partners from social and sales data.
- 5
social listening
Mine mentions to find what drives demand spikes. Parked until it has number attached.
the result
revenue
Catering went from a side channel to a real line of business.
team
No sales function was added. The engine does the outreach.
focus
The team kept opening stores while catering grew.
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