This year saw the return of the Narooma Oyster Festival after one year hiatus, and the organizers really brought it back with a bang! We were one of the lucky few food vendors chosen to welcome guests on Friday night and we really loved every second of it.

It was our official public debut, and not having ever catered for a festival like this before we were nervous but quietly confident. We spent the weeks in preparation covering all of our bases - we flexed our organisational prowess by writing and rewriting infinite lists, testing and perfecting every single element, and even put on a dress rehearsal to make sure we were under control. By the time the day arrived and we were serving up food, we had nothing to worry about except enjoying ourselves.

Our dish was unsurprisingly a huge hit - we used Immy’s hibachi and served up skewers with octopus and chicken, paired with her own delicious kimchi and miso vegetables. We were such a well oiled machine and ran a super smooth service. The hibachi was a huge drawcard for people - the smell and interactive nature of it created lots of interest.

We spent the 24 hours before the festival prepping with the expectation that we were going to serve 300 people, but it turned out to be about half that. We took it as a good lesson learned and were not worried about it! We didn’t want to run out, and now we have delicious octopus and chicken sticks frozen for us to keep reliving the flavours for many home BBQs to come. We were told the “magic formula” for catering expectations at festivals is [total tickets sold] divided by [number of stallholders] and that is about right for what we saw, so we know for next time!

All in all, it was a huge success. We dipped our toes into service and are super inspired and excited to keep up the momentum. We are brainstorming different dishes and on the hunt for events and pop ups in the near future. Watch this space!