Down Home builds foundation for success

Down Home Delivery & Catering in Dorchester is not your typical food business. Started by a former government department official and an ex-Wall Street managing director, the business goals go beyond just building a loyal local following — the target is widespread catering business throughout Boston.

Specializing in southern cooking, Down Home has grown since its start in 2009 so that the vision its co-owners, the husband and wife pair of Gary Webster and Gale Scott, started with is now coming to fruition.

“We didn’t try to do this to be a little soul food place on the corner that was not what we were interested in doing. We understood that there was a void in the city of Boston for Southern cuisine. We had the talent, the ability, the will to do it, so we wanted to take on the challenge,” said Webster, who prior to starting Down Home worked as director of public affairs for the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority.

With few other options for Southern cuisine in the city, Down Home has been able to cement itself firmly in a market that has showcased strong demand.

“We are the biggest operation around, at this point,” Webster added. “We have done a tremendous amount as far as catering and becoming the known entity for purveyors of Southern cuisine.”

(l-r) Gary Webster, Michael Webster, Daren Payne and Willie Webster of Down Home Delivery & Catering.

The daily and catering menus vary, but the gist of what Down Home does is offer a variety of popular dishes from different Southern regions, everything from fried chicken to macaroni and cheese to gumbo to barbeque brisket.

Daily popular entrees include jumbo chicken wings, country pot roast, savory bbq baby back ribs, with traditional sides such as candied yams and collard greens.

For the catering business, the Southern theme prevails but anything from Creole to Cajun to Texas BBQ is a go.

“We will make anything you ask,” said Scott, who spent most of her prior career on Wall Street, most recently working as a managing director at Standard & Poor’s.

Model for success

Down Home’s headquarters in Four Corners is in a building that Webster and Scott bought and now own. The company has a small fleet of trucks and drivers for delivery and catering and a handful of employees that operate the kitchen and a small storefront takeout operation.

In addition to the owners, the family business extends to Webster’s brothers Willie, a principal chef, and Michael, head of delivery operations, as well as son-in-law Daren Payne, a head chef. Several other family members also pitch in.

With the profit margins higher in catering than in small delivery and takeout orders, Down Home has succeeded by finding catering work with community organizations such as nonprofit groups and churches, as well some of the anchor institutions in the city including Boston Public Schools, University of Massachusetts Boston and MIT.

Currently, Down Home’s business is about 30 percent catering, 30 percent delivery and the rest is storefront takeout.

But the next big move is more corporate-based business. Both Webster and Scott say Down Home can tap into the market for catered corporate events to fuel further growth. They have some corporate clients now, but they want more. And they’re ready.

“To cater to corporate clients to satisfy their demands and their needs we have to have enough staff and reliable vehicles,” Scott said. “That is the thing about corporate clients — they want what they want when they want it, so you have to be able to make it for them and deliver it to them, and it could be on a day’s notice. We had to actually have the capacity to be able to deliver to that type of client, so we wanted to make sure we built up to that.”

Down Home Delivery & Catering Head Chef Daren Payne works in the company’s Four Corners main kitchen facility.

Plans are also on tap to expand the Dorchester store front to include sit-down eating space in the range of 50 seats.

Taking advantage of assistance such as certification as a disadvantaged business enterprise — that can lead to city, state and federal contracts — a recent loan from the Massachusetts Snow Storm Fund and impending financing for expansion from the Massachusetts Growth Capital Corporation, Webster and Scott are leaving no stone unturned to expand business on all fronts.

In many ways, the couple showcases a new breed of entrepreneur that has emerged in this country. For one, they are entrepreneurs of necessity since they were both laid off during the recession in 2008 and needed another job option, which got them thinking about the business opportunity that became Down Home Delivery & Catering. For another, they are Dorchester residents looking to be part of the economic growth of their community.

“This isn’t about surviving. We don’t want to survive — we want to thrive,” Webster said. “To often small businesses, particularly local, small minority businesses get into business to survive, just to have enough to pay their bills, but that is not what we got into this for and we wouldn’t stay in it if we didn’t see the projected path to growth.”

It’s a mindset and model they hope their business can help set for the local business community and other Dorchester entrepreneurs.

“As long as there is an opportunity for success there, I can continue to lend myself to being one of those who are blazing the trail for establishing solid businesses within the minority community. That is what I want to be committed to,” Webster added. “It is about establishing a base of wealth.”