Brownstein: Wiped out by pandemic, longtime caterer makes comeback

“We’ve been doing just about two events a day, seven days a week. But I love it. This is what I was meant to be doing,” Ron Mofford says.

Ron Mofford is peeling potatoes in a former restaurant-turned-kitchen facility on the north end of Parc Ave. Soon he’ll be cutting carrots, before wrangling all the clippings and cleaning up.

“I may look like hell, since I was up 21 hours the day before,” he jokes. “But I couldn’t be more thrilled.”

Why? 

Because Mofford is back in the business he had been doing for nearly 45 years: food catering. His twin brother Don helps on occasion, but he has moved away from the hugely successful company the two had founded and owned, Java U Catering (not to be confused with the coffee shops of the same name).

It didn’t take long for Ron’s loyal customers to learn that he was catering again, and he has since been booked to orchestrate everything from small Christmas parties to big corporate events, bar mitzvahs to weddings. He recently oversaw his largest event yet in his new catering incarnation, a wedding for 560 people. 

“It’s just been so crazy,” Ron says. “We’ve been doing just about two events a day, seven days a week. But I love it. This is what I was meant to be doing.” 

As was the case with so many in the food-service industry, COVID-19 really exacted a toll on the Moffords. With lockdowns in effect, their business completely dried up. Events were cancelled.

Even worse, just prior to the pandemic, the brothers decided to take the bold step in buying the state-of-the-art building on Paré St. from which they had been operating for years. That turned out to be the death knell, and in the summer of 2021, they went out of business. 

“We just got hammered,” Ron says. “Had we just continued to rent, instead of owning a building, we would have received government subsidies and we could have probably gotten by. But that really did us in.” 

With families to support, though, the brothers had to take on new jobs. Ron went to work as a service manager at a car-leasing company, while Don took to snow removal and to operating backhoes and steamrollers for a landscaping firm.

These are hardly silver-spoon kids. Their father had worked as a cook on the national train circuit. The brothers were only 18 when they started out in the business by acquiring a Cantor’s bakery franchise and quickly went from making specialty sandwiches to assembling elaborate events for 10 to 1,000 guests under the Java U Catering banner.

The key to their success was due equally to delivering dinner offerings ranging from down-home comfort food to exotic munchies as much as it was to their unassuming professionalism. Their ever-present smiles were as infectious as their culinary creations were addictive. 

Ron’s new venture doesn’t even have a name yet, but he does have a partner, John Doig, the veteran owner of Wolfe Montcalm Traiteur Catering to whom this Parc Ave. facility belongs. “But, really, no battling here,” Ron quips in reference to the name of Doig’s company. “We get along great.” 

But whereas Ron once had 10 chefs on staff and up to 60 servers at functions, there are now but three full-time cooks, himself included, and a diminished number of wait and bartending staff, him also included, on the road. 

“Actually, we’re two and a half cooks,” he says. “I’m the half cook along with being the partial administrator, the partial salesman, the partial bartender, the partial dishwasher, the partial janitor and, of course, the full-time potato peeler. But I still think of myself as a baby at 63.” 

“I will never complain about too much work. You never realize how much you miss something until you no longer have it. And let’s just say that working as a service manager for a car-leasing company just wasn’t for me. As nice as my employers were, I just couldn’t find the same kind of joy I had always known.” 

Don has been working on remodelling a small farm of late, and, with his passion for fine cheese, helps out Ron on some of the bigger catering jobs. 

“The really encouraging news is that the business we lost is coming back now,” Ron says. “We may not be doing as many jobs as we used to do, but we manage to keep ourselves as busy as we ever were, slowly building up again. I’ve always had the greatest customers in the world, and they had kept in touch with me throughout the rougher parts of the pandemic. 

“But — fingers crossed that it never happens again — even if we had to undergo another series of pandemic-related lockdowns, this time I think I would be able to navigate my way through and survive. I’ve learned a lot in the last few years, especially what never to do again.” 

To get in touch with Ron Mofford’s no-name catering service, call 514-979-6679. 

bbrownstein@postmedia.com

twitter.com/billbrownstein 

1. 

   Brownstein: Pandemic takes down leading Montreal catering company

2. 

   Grief, loss, change: Montreal-area business owner struggles to cope with pandemic