Growing and staying local: Catering business focuses on hiring in its Dorchester neighborhood

BOSTON — Staying local—and hiring local.

As we’ve seen several companies laying off thousands of workers in the last few months, one catering business has made its mission to stay in the Boston neighborhood it started in—and employ people living right in the community.

“We have everything divided up into divisions,” said Vice President of Max Ultimate Food Bobby Perino as he walked through Max’s new facility.

At its massive 27,000 square foot facility in Dorchester, hundreds of workers make thousands of catered meals each day either for grab and go at the airport or for off-site large-scale events.

And the man that helps direct the show—Vice President of Max Ultimate Food Bobby Perino.

“When Max came together, it was the founders who wanted to create a brand that was a high-end fine dining experience no matter what we did,” said Perino.

“So whether that was a dinner for 10 or galas for thousands, we wanted to bring high-end fine dining excellence to everything we do.”

Manager Nancy Mathieu has been with the company from the beginning.

“We were a small group, there were probably about four or five of us in a small warehouse,” said Manager Nancy Mathieu.

As it continued to outgrow its space, Max Ultimate Food just moved to its fourth location, but through it all, stayed true to its roots by staying local.

“The fact that we are hiring more people and even local people,” said Mathieu.

“The camaraderie with all the new people coming in here. And there’s more people to come.”

“It is kind of nice to not have to travel 30 minutes and sit in traffic,” said Sheyla Veras, an employee at Max. “I’m like literally home.”

At 32 years old, Sheyla Veras made a career change stepping into the culinary world.

Her new job not only allows her to live within minutes of her work—but she also sees the possibility of growth.

“Different avenues where you can kind of dip your toes in all of them and learn a lot, especially someone from me who’s just completely new to like kitchen,” said Veras.

“It’s not easy to say like forget it, I’m just going to start over, but I couldn’t be happier.

As part of its lease agreement with Dorchester Bay, Max Ultimate Food must hire locally.

Since it recently doubled its footprint—it’s continuing to search for more employees to keep up with the growing demand.

“What we’ve learned even through the pandemic is that no matter what is going on in the world, people still need to eat and they still need to celebrate,” said Perino.

“Post-pandemic, we are larger than ever. Now that you know corporate offices are coming back, it’s you know we are we have been growing in size and scale massively. And we are hiring in every position.”

Max Ultimate Food was just named Boston Magazine’s Best All Around Caterer. They are the exclusive caterer for places like the Museum of Science and Boston Children’s Museum, and they also make it a point to give back to the arts and support a lot of nonprofits in Boston.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.

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