Try this: search for Indian catering anywhere in Westchester, click into a handful of sites, and count how many actually show you a number before asking you to call, email, or fill out a form. It's fewer than you'd think. A lot of catering pages around here amount to a menu of dish names and a phone number — no price attached to either. "Contact us for a custom quote" isn't a pricing page. It's a lead form wearing a pricing page's clothes.
Why quote-only pricing exists
To be fair to the restaurants doing it, there's a real reason: it lets them size the quote to the job, upsell add-ons in the conversation, and avoid publishing a number a competitor can undercut by a dollar. That's a legitimate business reason. It's just not a reason that benefits you. It means before you know whether a caterer fits your budget at all, you've already spent ten minutes on a call or a form, given up your contact info, and started a back-and-forth that ends whenever they get around to calling you back — not when you need the answer.
What it costs you specifically
- Time. You can't compare three caterers side by side if two of them require a phone call to get a number.
- Leverage. A quote built around your specific event, verbally, over the phone, is a lot easier to price high than a number sitting in public where anyone can see it and hold them to it.
- Certainty. "We'll follow up" is not the same as "here's your total." You're planning an event against an unknown.
What we do instead
Every catering package on our site shows real, current pricing — per person, calculated live as you set your guest count, no form and no phone call required to see a number. If you're planning something big enough that our set packages don't cover it, the custom-quote option is still there — but it's the exception, not the entire pricing model. See it for yourself: pick a package, type in a guest count, and the price is on screen in under thirty seconds. No callback required.
If a caterer won't show you a price until you talk to them, ask yourself why the price needs a conversation first.