Cranberry Creek Cafe & Catering

What Cranberry Creek Cafe & Catering does

Cranberry Creek Cafe & Catering is a locally owned and operated catering business headquartered at 1501 Lake Point Dr in Madison, Wisconsin, founded in 2005 by Madison native Jim Norton. The company provides full-service catering for weddings, business lunch buffets, celebrations of life, company picnics, and boxed lunch orders, serving both private consumers and corporate clients in the Madison metropolitan area and surrounding communities. It also holds catering contracts with Wisconsin State Department agencies, offering a dedicated State menu suite including Build-A-Buffet, Box Lunch, Premium Sandwich, and Deli Platter options.

The product portfolio spans more than a dozen catering formats across lunch, dinner, breakfast/brunch, boxed lunches, holiday, wedding, and outdoor BBQ categories, with order intake handled via a third-party online platform (restaurantcateringsystems.com), downloadable PDF order forms, phone, fax, and email. Following the closure of its cafe's in-house dining and take-out operations in March 2020, the company transitioned to a catering-only model and remodeled its former cafe space into a banquet and meeting venue accommodating up to 75-80 guests. There is no proprietary technology platform, no mobile application, and no disclosed AI/ML capabilities.

The revenue model is professional-services based, charging per event with quotes provided on inquiry; a strict minimum of 15 guests per catering order applies, with a $20 service fee added for groups under 20 guests. Banquet facility rental functions as an add-on revenue stream bundled with catering services. The company markets through its own website, Yelp, Facebook, and word-of-mouth referrals driven by its longstanding "Best of Madison caterer" reputation, with no disclosed outside equity, institutional funding, parent company, or partnerships.

Name

Cranberry Creek Cafe & Catering

Legal name

Cranberry Creek Cafe & Catering

Website

https://cranberrycreekcatering.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2005

Operating status

Operating

Short description

Cranberry Creek Cafe & Catering is a Madison, WI-based independent catering company founded in 2005 by Jim Norton, providing full-service catering for weddings, corporate events, Wisconsin State Department clients, and personal celebrations, alongside an in-house banquet facility for up to 80 guests.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

Madison

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Supply Chain, Operations, Infrastructure, Marketing or Sales

Revenue model

1. Catering Services: Full-service catering for events including weddings, business lunch buffets, celebrations, company picnics, boxed lunches, and state/government events. Operates with a minimum guest requirement of 15 people, with a $20 service fee for groups under 20.
2. Banquet/Hall Rental: Remodeled cafe space available for lunch meetings and banquets hosting up to 75-80 people. Revenue generated from venue rental combined with catering services.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels4 records

Core offering

Cranberry Creek Cafe & Catering provides full-service catering for weddings, business lunches, celebrations of life, company picnics, boxed lunches, and State of Wisconsin Department events in Madison, WI. The offering includes multiple buffet-style menus (hot lunch, hot dinner, wedding, holiday, build-a-buffet, cookout), boxed lunches, premium brunch, hors d'oeuvres, and deli platters, plus an on-site remodeled banquet space hosting up to 75-80 guests. Operations are catering-only following the March 2020 closure of in-house cafe dining.

Product overview

Cranberry Creek Cafe & Catering is a single-service catering company offering a comprehensive portfolio of catering products. The core offering is full-service catering for various events including weddings, business functions, and celebrations. The product portfolio includes multiple buffet-style catering options (Build-A-Buffet, Hot Lunch Buffet, Hot Dinner Buffet, Wedding Buffet, Holiday Buffets), boxed lunch solutions (Box Lunches, Executive Box Lunch, State Box Lunch menus), specialty services (Cranberry Creek Cookout, Premium Brunch, Hors d'oeuvres, Deli Platters), and a rentable cafe space for meetings and banquets. The company operates primarily as a catering-only service following the closure of its cafe dining in March 2020.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Full-Service Event Catering Full-service catering for weddings, business lunches, celebrations of life, company picnics, and boxed lunch events in the Madison, WI area, with buffet-style menu options including hot lunch, hot dinner, build-a-buffet, premium brunch, holiday buffets, wedding buffets, cookouts, hors d'oeuvres, and deli platters. A strict 15-guest minimum applies, with a $20 service fee for groups under 20.
• Boxed Lunch Catering Pre-packaged and executive boxed lunch catering for corporate meetings, business lunches, and event attendees in the Madison, WI area.

Named customers2 records

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Scale indicators4 records

Recent moves5 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• Meringue Catering: Madison, WI-based independent caterer focused on weddings and special events in the same local market, directly competing for the same Madison-area customers and event types as Cranberry Creek.
• Blue Plate Catering: Madison-area full-service event caterer offering comparable buffet, corporate, and wedding packages, serving the same Madison customer base with similar off-premise service delivery.

Broad incumbents

• Sodexo: Global food services and facilities management company with a large event catering and conference services division; competes in the broader catering space and represents the scaled-incumbent model against which independent operators benchmark.
• Aramark: Global food, facilities, and uniform services provider offering large-scale event and venue catering across sports, entertainment, and corporate clients; a broad incumbent serving overlapping catering end-markets.
• Compass Group: World's largest contract foodservice company with extensive corporate, institutional, and event catering operations; provides the scale benchmark for the catering category Cranberry Creek operates in.

Emerging players

• ezCater: Online catering marketplace connecting corporate buyers to local caterers, including in the Madison market; represents the digital/disintermediation risk to traditional phone-and-PDF ordering models like Cranberry Creek's.
• ZeroCater: Tech-enabled corporate catering platform serving recurring workplace meal programs; competes for the same Madison corporate catering budget as Cranberry Creek via a more digitized experience.
• Fooda: Workplace catering platform partnering with local restaurants and caterers to serve daily corporate meal programs; competes for Madison corporate lunch and event catering demand with a software-enabled model.

Others

• CaterTrax: Catering operations management software used by independent caterers for online ordering, CRM, and production planning; the category of technology Cranberry Creek currently outsources via restaurantcateringsystems.com.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat3 records

Key risks7 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Facebookfacebook.com/pages/Cranberry-Creek-Cafe-Grill/120284697989080
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/cranberry-creek

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Cranberry Creek Cafe & Catering