Pintler View Catering

By Paula J. McGarvey for The Montana Standard - 04/01/2007

Pintler View Catering Retail Manager Leslee Amos, left, and Director Lynn Daily show an example of one of their culinary specialties, citrus shrimp salad — exhibition cooked to order, recently in the St. James Healthcare Café. Exhibition cooking is available through the catering service and offered three times a week in the café. Paula J. McGarvey for The Montana Standard.

Pintler View Catering 400 South Clark St. in Butte Phone: 723.2432 Business history: The idea for Pintler View Catering was cooked up in the St. James Healthcare hospital kitchen six years ago. The original thought was to provide a convenient catering service with take-home meals for St. James Healthcare employees and their families, said Lynn Daily, director.

As time went on, the catering service slowly began adding hors d’oeuvres and meat trays to its culinary repertoire.

“The first couple of years it was very gradual,” Daily said.

Then, business began to pick up through word of mouth.

“The turning point was when we started doing fancier stuff in-house,” said Leslee Amos, retail manager. Amos added that St. James customers were impressed enough to start booking the service for their private parties.

One unique aspect of Pintler View Catering is that the service is owned and operated by St. James Healthcare.

“We found ingenuity in thinking outside the box that enabled us to assist in offsetting the ever-increasing costs of providing health care with revenues that we received in off-site catering,” Daily said. She added that 100 percent of all catering revenues are reinvested back into St. James Healthcare with the ultimate goal of continually improving patient care and service.

Pintler View Catering is staffed by the facility’s 35 food service employees who are trained in food preparation and also Serv Safe Certified through the National Restaurant Association. The business currently serves Butte and surrounding communities, supplying menu items for everything from a business luncheon to a formal wedding.

Products, services and specialties: Pintler View Catering provides take-home meals for employees at St. James Healthcare, along with a range of catered options from deli-style meals to sitdown dinners. Specialty items available include a variety of hors d’oeuvres and appetizers, personalized wedding cakes, three-tiered chocolate fountain rental, homemade bakery items, cocktail pasties, gourmet cheese breads and Java City coffee.

Business philosophy: “We operate off the basic principles of service, excellence and quality,” Daily said.

Advice for others wanting to start a business: “Our advice would be to love what you do and believe in your purpose,” said Daily, who also shared several things learned doing business. She said it was important to plan, but also be adaptable and willing to change. She advised people to concentrate on their business strong points and to measure successes. Daily told one success story about a business risk that the catering service had taken with an upcoming trend.

“We invested in a chocolate fountain when the popularity was in its infancy, which resulted in increased inquiries and rentals in the area,” she said. Amos had seen one of the units at a bridal fair. She did some market research and discovered that people were going out of town to rent the units and spending upward of $800 a day. The Catering Service purchased a fountain and took over the local business.

“It kept a lot of business in Butte,” Amos said.

What makes doing business in southwest Montana unique? Daily said that doing business in southwest Montana is a positive experience.

“The business community tends to be very supportive of each other. I believe that we, as a community, recognize that we all work toward a common goal — and that is the success and growth of the area in which we live,” she said.

Rewards and challenges: “Serving others is our business and there is nothing more rewarding than that,” Daily said. Serving quality meals to patients and other clients and contributing to patient care at St. James was the best part of being in the business of food service, Daily said. “Serving food is fun,” Amos added.

“One of the biggest challenges was to overcome the stigma of traditional hospital food,” Daily said.

Future plans: “We’re going to be adding to our catering menu,” said Amos, who talked about adding some regionally based menus to add both flavor and flare.

Contact Montana Standard Correspondent Paula J. McGarvey at 782-6510 or e-mail at pjmcgarvey@in-tch.com.