The staff at Patricia Catering and Cocktails typically would be gearing up for a season of holiday parties and feasts.

This year, however, extenuating circumstances have forced families to reexamine what their family gatherings look like as they find new ways of coming together despite a pandemic.

“It’s a little bit funny, sad and heartwarming at the same time,” said office administrator Sarah Norman. “What has really kept me here is that you get to see the most important parts of peoples’ lives because they always involve food. At weddings, birthday parties, anniversaries, and even celebrations of life, we see how people incorporate food into those special moments and it being so important to them.”

While the namesake of Patricia has since retired, she still visits her team out of habit and because of their close-knit bond.

“We’re a family and we view our customers that way, too,” said Norman, who was referred to the business herself by her younger sister. Starting out as a banquet server in college and assisting Patricia with advertising materials, Norman has worked her way up from office assistant to administrator over the course of three years.

Patricia Catering is making its name by being the only zero-waste caterer in the Bellevue area. Utilizing a five-bin system, Patricia works with Hillside Solutions to recycle most of their trash and send only 10% of their waste to the landfill – allowing it to meet the needs of environmentally conscious party planners.

Patricia Catering can facilitate virtually any event, from the most intimate gathering to a festival of five thousand because of their consistent growth over the years. They offer menus for cocktail parties, sit down dinners, to social events and picnics.

“We have a smoker and a pizza oven, or we can do sandwich trays as well,” Norman said. “We just put together a seasonal menu with Christmas in mind.”

That seasonal menu features sliced ham with a honey maple glaze paired with mashed potatoes, braised carrots and gravy – “so it’s hearty for the Christmas season,” Norman said. Dessert is the company’s signature apple cream cheese bars, a crowd favorite.

Patricia also offers a multitude of bar packages, and their in-house liquor license allows them to serve alcohol to up to 25 guests in their intimate tasting room. Norman recommends trying the house-made sangria.

“It’s always different,” she said. “It never tastes quite the same depending on the season and fruit.”

When Norman learned the company won the Greater Omaha Chamber’s Small Business of the Month Award for December, the team felt both ecstatic and validated for all their hard work.

“It was really exciting because the chamber of commerce is so big and there’s so many people in our community doing great things,” Norman said.

In a community with so many talented caterers and delicious eateries, Norman and the team at Patricia Catering and Cocktails feels it is important to stand out.

“It’s great competition to be around,” she said. “The great thing about competition is it really forces you to be better.”

Despite being in a time of such uncertainty, the award has solidified the feeling that Patricia Catering is doing the right thing by staying true to their values system – including transparency about prices and the way they do business.

Serving the Bellevue area since 1986, Patricia Catering has grown from a one-woman operation to a company with four bays and multiple trucks. They continue to operate with a family mindset and have blossomed from a little catering-company-that-could.

For more information, visit patriciacatering.com or follow Patrica’s Facebook page for updates, daily menus as well as cocktail lists at facebook.com/patriciacateringandcocktails.