Mellow Mushroom Explores Catering Opportunity | Nick Panos - Panos Restaurant Group |

In this episode of DeliveringMore, host Ben Alkire sits down with Nick Panos of Panos Restaurant Group, a seven-location Mellow Mushroom franchisee in Atlanta, to break down how his team has built catering into a growing part of its restaurant business. Nick shares why he believes the catering opportunity is still widely underestimated, how separating sales from execution has helped his team grow, and why every interaction—from personally texting customers to setting up an order—is designed to make the person ordering catering “look like the hero.” Nick also explains why his team has built its delivery operation in-house, how weddings have emerged as an unexpected growth opportunity for pizza catering, and why technology has become foundational to scaling the business. He takes Ben inside the custom operations platform his team built to track drivers, deliveries, and customer communication, and shares two pieces of advice for other restaurant operators looking to grow catering: build more personal relationships with customers and use technology to let people focus on what they do best. 01:18 – 05:28 Growing Up in the Restaurant Business 05:29 – 11:39 Building a Catering Growth Machine 11:40 – 18:12 Turning Pizza Into an Elevated Catering Experience 18:13 – 25:35 Creating Loyalty & Owning the Delivery Experience 25:36 – 30:18 The Untapped Opportunity in Wedding Catering 30:19 – 36:13 Using Technology to Scale Catering 36:14 – 38:00 Nick's Mellow Mushroom Order