Dry Hire or Full Service Catering: What Each Covers

What is the difference between dry hire and full service?

Full service means the caterer supplies the food, the staff to cook and serve it, the equipment and usually the crockery, and clears away afterwards. Dry hire means you hire the equipment or the space without the people or the consumables: a hog roast machine without a chef, a mobile bar without staff or stock, or a venue with nothing in it. Drop-off catering sits between them: the food is delivered ready to serve and the caterer leaves.

The price difference is mostly labour. The work difference is all of it.

When does drop-off catering make sense?

Office lunches, small parties, a wake at home, anything where guests serve themselves from a table and someone on your side can manage it. Drop-off food is usually cold or designed to be served at room temperature, arrives on platters or in disposable trays, and costs noticeably less than the same food served by staff. Ask who collects the platters and when, and whether anything needs keeping in a fridge.

What does dry hire mean for a hog roast or a bar?

Hog roast machine hire: you get the machine and gas, sometimes with a pig, and you cook, carve and serve it. It saves money and costs a day: a whole pig takes several hours to cook, and carving for 100 is a job. Our guide to hog roast machine hire sets out the trade-off.

Mobile bar dry hire: you get the bar structure, sometimes with bar staff but no stock. If drinks are sold rather than given away, someone needs a licence or a temporary event notice for the sale; free drinks at a private party do not.

What does a dry-hire venue mean for catering?

A dry-hire venue, such as a barn, a village hall or a marquee site, provides the space and little else. The caterer brings everything: kitchen or field kitchen, power if needed, water, crockery, tables, staff and waste removal. This is why catering at a dry-hire venue costs more per head than at a hotel, even when the room hire costs less. Ask the caterer what the site needs to have before you book it.

How do you choose?

Count the jobs, not the food: cooking, keeping hot, serving, topping up, clearing plates, washing up, taking the rubbish away. Full service takes all of them off you. Drop-off takes the cooking. Dry hire takes none of them, and suits people who have done it before and have hands to spare. For a wedding or anything over about 60 guests, full service is what most people end up choosing, for this reason.