ABOUT US

Leah Sherer created Celebrations Catering in 1997 with partner Mike Case.

Leah had been running the Light Brown Bag Lunch Company, a healthy lunch caterer for High Springs businesses that wanted something other than fast food delivered to their offices.

As the business grew, Leah needed additional space. Mike was running Celebrations Café on Main Street in Gainesville and had extra space in his building.

Viola! A partnership was born.

The two kept Mike's café open in the front and Leah's catering business in the back. The name Celebrations was already printed on the building, so the two businesses merged and kept the name Celebrations.

With Mike's help and big personality, the catering business grew even faster. Soon the Main Street building had to be remodeled to fit the required equipment and staff. When the café became a challenge to run in conjunction with catering, Leah and Mike decided (reluctantly) to close the café and focus on catering. After a year, customers convinced them to reopen the café.

With both the café and the catering businesses flourishing, there was no rest for Leah and Mike. The catering business was now making deliveries to all of the surrounding cities, including Lake City and Ocala, and to many small towns outside Gainesville that had no caterers: Live Oak, Perry, and Chiefland, even as far as Lady Lake and Starke.

Once again, space became an issue. Mike decided to relocate the café down the street, to an old Hardees building, renovating it and increasing seating capacity from 33 to nearly 100. The customers kept coming, as Celebrations Café once again became a local lunch hangout for downtown employees. The waiting line for lunch, never lulled.

Meanwhile, the catering business expanded, filling up the entire space the café had previously occupied, as well as an off-site warehouse full of tables, chairs, dishes and catering decorations. Within six years, annual catering income reached more than $1 million.

With the café and catering business now as two separate entities, Mike and Leah split the partnership in 2007.

Mike has since become a partner with I Love New York Pizza, opened a second pizza location on University Avenue and a Martini Bar at Haile Plantation.

Mike still stops by to check on things and has a deep commitment to the success of Celebrations Catering. Mike and Leah remain good friends.

Celebrations has earned an impressive reputation in Gainesville due to a solid commitment to customer service and an ever-evolving menu based on customer requests and comments.

Innovation. Style. Fun. Thanks to all our customers and staff for allowing us to do be a small part of your life celebrations!