Lorinne and Keith Birdwell stand with their catering trailer at their home in Toledo.
This is an example of one of the displays Lorinne Birdwell created.
Lorinne and Keith Birdwell run the catering service, “The Crowded Kitchen.”
The Crowded Kitchen Catering Co. is too busy cooking to bother with marketing.
The Toledo-based catering service books its clients entirely through Facebook and word of mouth — it doesn’t even have a website.
Lorinne and Keith Birdwell said they started catering about three years ago, when their niece had trouble finding a wedding coordinator and caterer she liked for her wedding.
“That’s how I started, wedding coordinating, party planning,” Lorinne said. “It’s always been something that has been a passion for me, and my family and friends just always came to us to host a party, to cook, to plan. It was just something that I always loved. (Now) I don’t do much total event planning, it’s basically just the food part of it anymore.”
Lorinne is the face of The Crowded Kitchen Catering Co. She works with customers, creates the displays and, of course, cooks. She said her husband, Keith, is the backbone of the operation, the “chef behind the scenes.” Keith has been a professional fishing guide since 1988.
“I’m a fisherman by trade,” Keith said. “I’ve been cooking fish my whole life and steaks and stuff over the barbecue and on the riverbank. So I’ve done a lot of cooking in my life and I’ve been around a lot of really good cooks.”
Keith said everyone in his family cooks.
“It’s kind of in our blood,” Keith said. “She started this thing about three years ago, party planning, just doing this for friends and family and now it’s evolved into where we had to basically go full time.”
The duo runs their business out of Toledo Market Fresh. In the last six months, the catering has evolved into a full-time job. The Crowded Kitchen is already beginning to book events for 2019. Most of the original clients were locals, but the business is beginning to expand its reach.
“Now we have clients from Seattle, Portland, Beaverton, all over,” Lorinne said. “A while back it was all just local, it seems like, but we do have a lot of local people that we work with as well (still). I’ve done a lot for my community. I’ve had a lot of clients that are in this local area in Toledo. All of our kids were raised here, all of our kids went to school here, our daughter is a junior in high school here.”
The two said this is their first time working together professionally, and so far they are enjoying it.
“We actually have a really good time,” Lorinne said. “We balance each other out, we really do. Whenever I feel like I’m not creating something amazing, he will step right in and show me what I need to do. So we really balance each other. I think that’s what makes us such a good team, is he is like the backbone of the cooking. I’m good, too, but he does most of all the cooking in the house for my daughter and I. And I have to say, I don’t think there is a restaurant that I could go to that (he) has not done it better.”
Lorinne said the catering was more her passion in the beginning than Keith’s, but that everything she has learned about cooking came from him.
“It’s a great life,” Keith said. “I get paid to fish and I get paid to barbecue for people who are having a party. It doesn’t get much funner than that.”
The Crowded Kitchen Catering Co. prepares all their food either onsite or the day of the event. They believe the reason their business has been so popular is their versatility.
“I’ve cooked fish and we do meals from salmon, cracked crab, lobster, oysters on the half shell, you name it, to seared ahi to barbecued chicken or deep fried chicken,” Keith said. “We don’t have one set thing that we do. We kind of cater to the customer, so I think that makes us different.”
Even in their home lives, quality food is important to Lorinne and Keith.
“We don’t eat out much,” Keith said. “I can’t go buy a steak or get fish at a restaurant. It’s just not going to happen, because I can make you a piece of fish that people who don’t even eat fish will eat.”
Neither Lorinne, nor Keith, could pinpoint when they decided to become a catering company, but are glad they did.
“I just love it,” Lorinne said. “I just enjoy it so much and it’s such a passion for me that I couldn’t see myself doing anything else. I love to make people happy with our food. There is nothing like bringing a bunch of people together and seeing them enjoy amazing food, and not only amazing food that we do, but our displays are amazing and beautiful. Our clients are just loving the fact that we have such a passion for it and we don’t just come in and put out some trays of barbecue food or dishes, but we display them and make them look beautiful.”
Lorinne said if she could give herself advice at the beginning of her catering journey, it would be to stay focused, keep her faith and not to sweat the small stuff.
“It’s just my passion,” Lorinne said. “It’s where my heart is. God has blessed me with just a drive for my clients and for the people that I’m working for. I love it.”
