Greater Baton Rouge Business Report: Feeding Hollywood: local caterers are finding that breaking int

A few weeks back, Wayne Benbow was prepping for a job that would have made him the envy of millions of American women: Serving lunch to Ty Pennington, the hunky carpenter/star of ABC's Extreme Home Makeover.

The show's organizers had a verbal agreement with the Baton Rouge caterer--he says they called it a "soft hold"--to serve meals to the cast and crew during a remake of a house in Belle Chasse. Six days before go time, a mix-up killed the deal that would have given Louisiana on Wheels LLC its first shot at profiting from the wave of film and TV projects that have swept across Louisiana in the past two years.

Benbow is philosophical about the near miss. He didn't lose any money and did gain insight into how Hollywood eats, information that could prove handy in the future.

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"They told me that if you serve fried fish, you've got to serve broiled fish, too, or if you serve eggs, you'll also have to offer the option of eggs without yolks," says Benbow, whose specialty is Cajun cuisine. "They are West Coast people.... They speak another language."

Caterer Jim Keller has fought hard for his taste of Hollywood and is hoping for more. So far, the payoff has been modest.

"It's been tough," says the owner of Cashio's Catering in Gonzales. "We keep hustling business, but it's almost like a dead end."

Keller's efforts haven't been without some reward. He has done a handful of music videos that each lasted a couple of days, including one for what he described as "a country singer from London." But the projects are small, with crews of about 25 people, he says.

He'd like to sign on for a large project eventually, and says he is equipped for the job. He owns four "rolling kitchens," has served 3,000 or more meals a day feeding Entergy emergency crews after storms and has the tents, white table cloths and cuisine to please a demanding clientele, he says.

Keller says he tracks who lands the big projects. Time and again, he sees the same name: Hanna Brothers Extreme Motion Picture Catering. Hanna Brothers "has the lock on it," he says.

A look at the firm's credits, posted on the state's film office Web site, confirms Keller's observation. Hanna Brothers was the caterer for a string of high-profile projects drawn to Louisiana by generous state tax credits, including The Dukes of Hazzard and All the King's Men, both shot in and around Baton Rouge. The other dominant caterer is Location Catering Service LLC of Jefferson, which served meals to the cast and crews of Ray, Runaway Jury and CBS's Elvis miniseries.

Jim Hanna understands how hard it is to break into the business. He and his brother, Joseph, spent a decade working for a New York caterer with a deep list of film credits to gain experience and clients before branching out on their own in 1996. Hanna Brothers is in the process of moving its main office from Florida to Slidell to tap into the spike of film activity that has resulted from Louisiana's three-year-old tax credit program.

Struggling for a first break into the business is standard because the industry is shy about gambling on a new guy, Hanna says. Industry insiders look for past movie credits in making decisions about whom to hire for every aspect of a project, catering included, because snags can be so costly in time and money.

"They are taking a big chance," he says. "You've got to put yourself in the shoes of the production company. Are they going to take a chance on a new guy who doesn't know what's expected, who doesn't know what a 'call sheet' is? The guys who don't have the experience don't get the nod."

He knows from first-hand experience: "We struggled for a long time when we first held out our hat."

It's a specialized niche that involves brutal hours and catering to picky clients. When they are working on location, the Hanna brothers' days typically begin about 2 a.m. and wrap at 5 p.m. The firm uses four to five people to prepare meals for crews of about 150 people. Hanna says he's hired about eight or nine people since his shift to Louisiana. The firm is also working on projects in Los Angeles and Miami, he says.

The day involves physical labor--setting up tables, chairs and tents--and spinning out a dizzying number of sometimes highly specialized items in kitchen trucks that cost about $150,000 a piece. The firm's standard continental breakfast includes familiar morning fare like muffins, granola and juices, but the Hannas also offer egg whites, rice and soymilk, buckwheat pancakes and tofu. For lunch, think pork medallions with Madeira sauce, shrimp scampi, vegetarian mixed beans and fried cauliflower.

During 13 weeks of five-day-per-week shooting for Dukes, the Hannas prepared two meals a day, translating into 130 different meals.

"One of the things that makes this industry so tough is that you have to be so mobile, yet you are dealing with clients that are particular about what they eat," he says. "The client is picky."

Volume is also an issue. Even $100 million movie projects "sometimes don't use a lot of people," Hanna says. The most profitable gigs are those with big numbers people to be fed--say sports-themed films with hundreds of extras in some scenes--but those are the exceptions.

"Most of the work is on a smaller scale," he says. And smaller projects come with slimmer profit margins.

Although it's been tough so far, both Benbow and Keller say they will continue to look for a way into the industry. Benbow says he's made most of his contacts through telephone calls. Keller found out about the work he's captured through the LaFourche Chamber of Commerce.

Benbow says he won't know for sure if it's worth pursuing until he's won a contract and can weigh whether it was worth the effort.

"I'm in business," says Benbow. "We'll continue to look at this until we get a shot."

SARA BONGIORNI covers economic development, banking and personal finance. Reach her at sbongiorni@businessreport.com.