Catering & Kitchen Equipment Rentals in Houston, TX

It varies by caterer, so ask them directly. Some bring china, glassware and chafers; many bring only food and staff. Confirm exactly what is on their truck, then rent the gap – it takes two minutes and prevents both paying twice and running short.

One per hot dish on the menu, not per guest. Three hot items means three chafers whether you are feeding forty people or four hundred. Guest count changes how often pans are refilled, not the number of chafers. If you are running two buffet lines, you need two sets.

Count courses, not just guests. A three-course plated dinner needs a plate per course per guest unless your caterer is clearing and re-using between courses. Add side plates, dessert plates and cups and saucers if coffee is served at the table.

Food warmers hold already-cooked food at temperature – that covers most catered events. Cooking equipment is for food made on site, like a barbecue, a crawfish boil or breakfast to order. On-site cooking also needs fuel, prep space, ventilation and often permits.

Rinsed clean, dry, and in the containers they arrived in. Items needing extra cleaning attract additional charges. Assign someone to scrape and stack at breakdown – it is the step most often forgotten at the end of a night.

Yes. ACME has served Houston since 1997 and delivers across Greater Houston and the Gulf Coast, including Katy, Sugar Land, The Woodlands and Galveston. Items arrive with the rest of your order and are placed where your service is set up.

The usual planning figure is two to three glasses per guest for a reception with a bar, and more if you are serving multiple beverage types — water, wine and a signature cocktail each want their own glass, and guests abandon glasses long before they finish them. For a seated dinner with wine service, budget by course rather than by head. Ordering thin on glassware is the most common catering-rental mistake we see.

Yes. Gas grills, barbecue equipment and outdoor cooking setups are a regular part of what we supply for company picnics, crawfish boils, tailgates and festival concessions. Cooking equipment needs to be discussed rather than ordered off a list, because fuel, ventilation, clearances and fire-code requirements all depend on where the equipment will actually stand.

Crawfish boil tables are one of our signature items and one of the things Houston customers come to us for specifically — including aluminum tables and configurations with integrated waste bins. If you are planning a boil, ask about tables, boiling equipment and drainage together, because the three have to work as a set.

In this climate that question deserves planning, not improvisation. Hot holding usually means chafing dishes and food warmers with enough fuel for the full service window. Cold holding means coolers and ice in quantities that surprise people the first time — Gulf Coast heat roughly doubles the ice most planners first estimate. Shade over the service line, from a tent or canopy, does more for food safety than any single piece of equipment.

Yes. Catering, kitchen and service equipment can be rented on its own for indoor venues, restaurant overflow, church halls and home events. That said, if your event is outdoors in a Houston summer, ordering the shade at the same time is usually the right call for the food as well as the guests.

Tell us as early as you can. Adjustments in the week before an event are normal and we will always try, but availability on a peak-season Saturday is finite. It is far easier to trim a generous order a few days out than to conjure another sixty place settings on a Friday afternoon.