Trying to convince skeptics that being a talented chef and operating sustainably were not mutually exclusive was fatiguing. So Steve Short, executive chef and co-owner of Atlasta Catering & Event Concepts, just gave up.“Sometimes, those two concepts compete with each other. ‘Can you do them both?’” Steve said of the environmentally-forward business model he and his wife and business partner Kristine Short put into motion about 14 years ago.
It also brought a new and welcome persona to the Phoenix catering company Steve’s father started in 1979. Steve, the COO, and Kristine, the CEO, purchased the business 25 years ago, the same year they got married. All post-use items from its four kitchens throughout the Valley and onsite event kitchens are taken to its headquarters where they are sorted, cleaned and prepared for delivery to their respective end locations that do not include a landfill. This includes Waste Not, which provides food that would otherwise have gone to waste to those in need.
Atlasta does seven or eight events a day, Steve said. Each week, a mere 300 pounds of trash, or as the Shorts call it “loss,” gets tossed. That's a fraction of what would happen without their system. “They are looking for something that is going to taste good, cooked at their location and served by highly trained staff,” Kristine said. “Many have high expectations they know only we can deliver.”
“I just have to have the house clean and they just make it perfect,” said Lewis, who owns Phoenix-based interior design firm Paige Lewis Designs. “When the party’s over, it’s like it never happened. Everything is cleaned up and perfect in every way. I’ll never switch.”
They lie?