If Cinco de Mayo is on your calendar this year, now's a good time to plan for it. Here are three decisions that can make your Cinco de Mayo lunch memorable.
The biggest miss on a holiday-adjacent corporate lunch is the timing of the order itself. Most office managers wait until the week before, and by then the menu options you actually want are already committed to other offices.
For a May 5 lunch, the order should go in by the third week of April — two weeks out, not one. That gives you room to confirm headcount, flag dietary notes, and adjust if someone invites a second team. It also gives the caterer room to do the menu properly.
A taco bar looks good on paper. In a smaller office, it's a bottleneck. Twenty people line up, the first five build elaborate plates, the rest rush through, and the tortillas are lukewarm by the time the last person is served.
A build-your-own format works when your office has the space: a real serving counter, room for people to spread out, and enough time in the lunch window that a line isn't a problem. Metro's Create Your Own Taco Bar ($29.95 per person, 12-guest minimum) is designed for that kind of setup — adobo chicken, carnitas, Mexican-seasoned ground beef, cilantro lime rice, refried black beans, Mexican street corn, and the full set of salsas, tortillas, and toppings.
For a tighter Midtown office lunch, a pre-composed format is the better call: platters that are ready to eat when they arrive, grouped by type, with minimal assembly on site. Guests grab what they want and sit down. The line stays short, the food stays hot, and people actually eat. Metro's Mini Taco Display and Cinco de Mayo Hors D'oeuvre Display are built this way — birria beef tacos, chicken tinga, carnitas with salsa verde, pork al pastor skewers, jicama enchiladas — all arriving ready to serve.
"Something Mexican for 20 people" is how office lunches become forgettable. The kitchen defaults to the most broadly appealing options, and the menu ends up looking like every other Cinco de Mayo lunch your team has had.
The fix is specificity. Tell the caterer what your team actually likes. If three people don't eat meat, say so early — it shapes the whole menu, not just one tray. Metro's menu has real dietary range built in: jicama enchiladas with crushed frijoles and avocado (vegan, gluten-free), morita pepper shrimp on crushed black bean tostadas (gluten-free), braised beefless ribs with citrus slaw on a flour taco (vegetarian), chicken milanese sliders, pork al pastor skewers with grilled pineapple. A good corporate caterer uses dietary information to shape the whole menu, not drop in one vegetarian tray as an afterthought.
Drinks that match the day. Catered office lunches default to sodas and bottled water. For a holiday lunch where the team isn't heading back to deep work, ask about classic or strawberry margaritas ($130 serves 10) and a mixed case of cervezas — Corona, Dos Equis, Modelo, Tecate — served ice cold with lime wedges. Tajín-rimmed glasses and lime wedges at the setup tell your team that someone planned the day instead of just the headcount. For a working lunch where afternoon productivity matters, skip the alcohol and keep the Tajín, lime wedges, and non-alcoholic options for the same effect.
Dessert that's not an afterthought. Metro's homemade churros dusted in cinnamon sugar, served with chocolate and dulce de leche dipping sauces, or the tres leches cake (half sheet, 48 hours' notice required). Either takes the lunch from "catered" to "planned." The cost difference is small. The perception difference is large.
The setup matters more than the menu.
A memorable Cinco de Mayo lunch isn't the one with the most ambitious food. It's the one where the food is ready when people walk into the conference room, where there are enough plates and napkins so nobody has to ask, and where the lunch starts on time because the caterer showed up fifteen minutes before the meeting broke, not fifteen minutes after.
That's the invisible part of corporate catering. You don't notice it when it's right. You notice when it isn't.
Metro's Cinco de Mayo menu launches April 30. You can see the full menu at View Menu and the ordering team can walk you through options for headcount, setup, and dietary notes.
For a larger event — a client lunch, an all-hands, anything that runs past the normal hour — our corporate events team can scope it with you directly.
Cinco de Mayo is two weeks out. The lunch that gets remembered is the one that got ordered this week.
Author
Chris Zamfotis
Managing Partner, Metro Catering
Chris Zamfotis is the Managing Partner at Metro Catering, a New York City catering company serving corporate offices, private events, and businesses across Manhattan. With a focus on reliable service, thoughtful menu planning, and polished presentation, Chris helps lead Metro Catering’s approach to modern corporate catering, from daily office lunches to executive meetings, happy hours, and large-scale events.
Metro Catering has been NYC’s trusted corporate catering provider since 1981, offering fresh, high-quality meals for office lunches, corporate events, and workplace dining—delivered on time, every time.
