That Feeling: The Catering Anxiety You've Learned to Live With

That Feeling: The Catering Anxiety You've Learned to Live With

You know the feeling.

You've just placed a catering order. The confirmation email arrives. Everything looks correct. But instead of relief, you feel it. That twist in your stomach. That little voice saying, "I hope they show up." That nagging doubt: "I hope it's decent."

You check your phone three times to screenshot the confirmation. You set a reminder to call them the day before. You're already mentally preparing backup plans. Gas station locations. Restaurant phone numbers. That emergency stash of Kind bars in the galley.

If you get that "feeling" when you place an order, that feeling of anxiety, apprehension, or a slight twinge of uncertainty, you know what's happening. Your gut is telling you something your mind doesn't want to accept: You can't trust your caterer.

Nobody on a $75 million aircraft should ever feel this way.

Yet here you are.

The Anxiety Ritual Every Flight Attendant Knows Too Well

You don't just place an order anymore. You perform an elaborate ritual that would seem insane in any other industry. First comes the order placement, then the waiting game for confirmation. But that's just the beginning. You call to verbally confirm because that email doesn't quite ease your mind. You send a follow up email "just to be sure" and add phrases like "as discussed" to create a paper trail.

The day before departure, you call again. The morning of? You're texting your contact, the personal cell number you had to beg for because the main line is so unreliable. You arrive at the FBO 45 minutes early, not because you're exceptionally punctual, but because you need buffer time for when things go wrong. And that breath you're holding? It doesn't release until you physically see the delivery van pull up.

This isn't ordering. This is a trauma response dressed up as professionalism.

As departure time approaches, that special pre flight dread builds. Three hours out, you're asking yourself if they really confirmed yesterday. Two hours out, your finger hovers over their number. Maybe just one more call? An hour before departure, you're checking the parking lot every thirty seconds. Thirty minutes out is when the real panic sets in. Fifteen minutes? You're already on Google Maps looking for the nearest grocery store while your passengers discuss quarterly projections, blissfully unaware that their flight attendant is calculating drive times to Whole Foods.

The Quality Lottery That Shouldn't Exist

Even when that van finally appears, the anxiety doesn't disappear. It just transforms into a new form of dread. Opening those catering boxes feels like scratching a lottery ticket, except you're gambling with your professional reputation instead of dollar bills.

Will the labels actually match what's inside? Experience has taught you to check every single container because last month's "chicken" turned out to be fish, discovered only when a passenger with a seafood allergy asked why their meal smelled "off." Will the special meals be there? That kosher meal you confirmed three times might have been forgotten again. The vegan option could be missing, or worse, it could be a sad salad when you specifically ordered the pasta.

Then there's the visual assessment. Will it look anything like those gorgeous photos on their website, or will it be the usual disappointing reality? Is this fresh food made this morning, or yesterday's leftovers they're hoping you won't notice? And the basics like napkins, utensils, condiments? Why do these seem to be treated as optional extras rather than essential components? Often, it's because restaurants have tried to play aviation caterer without understanding the fundamental differences.

How You Became a Hostage to Bad Service

The conditioning happened so slowly you didn't even notice.

Year One: Optimism. They were local, they specialized in aviation, their website looked professional. What could go wrong? When that first failure happened, you rationalized it away. Everyone has off days, right?

Year Two: Concern. Three failures in one month seemed excessive, but maybe you weren't communicating clearly enough? You started double confirming everything, creating detailed order sheets, sending photos of previous orders as references. The anxiety had taken root, but you called it "being thorough."

Year Three: Acceptance. You stopped expecting excellence and started hoping for adequate. The anxiety became constant, a low hum of worry that followed you through every trip. But you adapted. This was your new normal.

Year Four: Stockholm Syndrome. You found yourself defending them to others, saying things like "They're not that bad once you learn their quirks." Think about that for a moment. Their quirks. You're describing a professional catering service like it's an eccentric relative you have to tolerate at holidays. Those "quirks" were just failures you'd learned to predict and work around.

Now, years in, you don't even recognize the anxiety anymore. That knot in your stomach when you place an order? That's just "part of the job." The backup plans, the early arrivals, the constant checking have all become so normalized you've forgotten that this isn't how professional services are supposed to work.

The Psychology of Learned Helplessness

What's happened to you has a name: learned helplessness. You've been trained, order by order, failure by failure, to accept that this is just how catering works. Instead of demanding better, you've developed elaborate coping mechanisms.

Instead of expecting reliability, you've learned to arrive early "just in case." Rather than demanding quality, you bring backup snacks because you know whatever arrives might be inedible. You don't require professionalism anymore; you've got their personal cell numbers because the business line is useless. Consistency? You gave up on that years ago. Now you just pray to whatever aviation deity might be listening that today won't be a complete disaster.

You're not a flight attendant anymore. You're a crisis manager whose specialty is mitigating catering disasters. You're a professional apologizer, a master of making excuses for services you didn't fail to provide. You're a magician, making edible meals appear from nothing when your caterer vanishes.

The Million Dollar Question Nobody Asks

Your aircraft costs $75 million. Your passengers are worth billions collectively. Your reputation, built over years of flawless service, is priceless. So why have you accepted anxiety as a standard part of the catering process?

Think about it. Would you accept a pilot who made you nervous? Of course not. Maintenance that required constant double checking would be replaced immediately. If fuel service might not show up, heads would roll. Ground handling that needed backup plans would be fired before the day was out.

But somehow, with catering, you've learned to live with that feeling. You've accepted that ordering food for your aircraft should come with a side of existential dread. You've normalized the abnormal and called it professional experience.

The Hidden Performance You Give Every Day

While you're drowning in catering anxiety, your passengers remain blissfully unaware of the performance you're giving. They see professional service and seamless execution. You feel barely controlled panic until that van arrives. They expect excellence as a baseline standard. You expect disappointment as the probable outcome. They assume everything is under control. You know you're one no show away from absolute disaster. Meanwhile, your high-profile passengers chose private aviation specifically for the discretion and seamless service they expect, not to witness your catering struggles.

That gap between their expectations and your reality? That's where your anxiety lives. It's the space where you perform miracles they'll never know about, save situations they'll never hear about, and solve problems they never knew existed.

The Backup Plan Infrastructure

You've become so good at this hidden performance that you know where every grocery store is in any given city. Not the tourist attractions, not the best restaurants, but the grocery stores. Your mental map of every destination isn't marked by landmarks but by Whole Foods locations and their hours of operation.

Your DoorDash account isn't just platinum level; it's your secret weapon, your emergency parachute, your professional lifeline when the caterer inevitably fails.

Every FBO you visit, you ask the same questions to the line crew, the CSRs, anyone who will listen: "Do you have any good caterers? Are there any new ones? Any recommendations?" You're not making conversation. You're desperately gathering intelligence, building a network of backup plans for the inevitable failures. You collect caterer business cards like they're insurance policies, knowing that most of them will disappoint you too, but hoping maybe, just maybe, one will be different.

The problem is, most restaurants entering aviation catering fail quickly because what works on the ground doesn't translate to 35,000 feet.

When You've Given Up

The inflight catering PTSD has gotten so bad that you've essentially given up on actual catering. Now you just have them provide the basics: plates, maybe some bread, possibly a salad if you're feeling optimistic. Then you do the rest yourself. You've become a galley chef by necessity, not choice. You're shopping at grocery stores, prepping food in hotel rooms, turning that aircraft galley into a mobile kitchen because it's easier than dealing with another catering failure.

"Why can't they just get it done?" This question haunts you as you stand in the grocery store at 6 AM, selecting produce for lunch service. "Why is it so hard?" you wonder while checking expiration dates on cheese plates. "How is it that difficult?" echoes in your mind as you calculate how much dry ice you need to keep everything fresh until departure. You're doing their job and yours, and somehow that's become normal.

What you need is a true concierge service that makes the impossible possible, not a caterer who can't even handle the basics.

The Physical Toll Nobody Discusses

This isn't just mental stress we're talking about. That catering anxiety is literally making you sick.

The tension headaches start when you place an order and don't stop until the food is served. The stomach issues from chronic stress are real. Is it any wonder your digestive system is a mess when you're constantly in fight or flight mode over sandwich deliveries?

Then there's the sleep you lose thinking about tomorrow's order. Did you specify the right arrival time? Did you account for the FBO's receiving hours? Will they remember the nut allergy this time? Your mind races through scenarios and contingencies when you should be resting.

The exhaustion from being perpetually on high alert is real. Your body isn't meant to maintain this level of vigilance over catering. You're literally making yourself sick worrying whether lunch will show up. This isn't a career anymore. It's a cortisol factory with wings.

Breaking the Cycle: What Normal Actually Looks Like

Here's a revolutionary concept that shouldn't be revolutionary at all: When you place a catering order, you should feel... nothing. Not relief that they answered. Not anxiety about whether they'll deliver. Not hope that it might be decent. Nothing.

Because ordering catering should be like turning on a light switch. You flip it, the light comes on. You don't hope the electricity works. You don't pray the bulb isn't burned out. You don't have backup candles just in case. It just works.

That's what normal looks like. That's what you deserve. And that's what's been stolen from you by caterers who've trained you to expect failure.

A Tale of Two Orders

Your Current Reality

Ordering from your current caterer starts with the order placement and the immediate onset of anxiety. You confirm, then reconfirm, each confirmation somehow making you more nervous rather than less. The anxiety intensifies as the day approaches. You arrive early, prepared for failure with backup plans A through Z. The result? Maybe adequate, probably not. Either way, you're left with exhausted relief that it's over or confirmed disappointment that it happened again.

The Délicieux France Experience

Now imagine ordering from Délicieux France. You place the order and immediately receive dashboard access with real time tracking. Whenever curiosity strikes (not anxiety, just curiosity), you check the app. There are photos of your food being prepared. You watch it move from billing to production to quality check to transport, each step documented with images. GPS tracking shows exactly where your delivery is, down to the minute.

This is what happens when you work with a flight kitchen that understands concierge-level service and absolute discretion aren't extras—they're the baseline.

But here's the thing: after the first few orders, you stop checking. Not because the technology isn't there, but because you don't need it. Trust has replaced anxiety. You get on with your life, arrive normally on the day of delivery, and receive exactly what you ordered, exactly as you saw in the photos. Your feeling? Nothing special. This is just how it should be.

The difference between these two scenarios isn't just service quality. One relationship is built on hope: hoping they show up, hoping it's decent, hoping nothing goes wrong. The other is built on trust, verified by technology but ultimately not dependent on it because the trust is earned and proven.

To Every Flight Attendant Living with That Feeling

You're not crazy. You're not too demanding. You're not expecting too much. You've just been conditioned to accept too little for so long that normal service seems like an impossible luxury.

That anxiety you feel? That's not weakness or inexperience. That's your professional instincts screaming that this isn't right. Those instincts that keep passengers safe, that catch potential problems before they become disasters, that maintain excellence at 41,000 feet? Those same instincts are telling you that your catering situation is unacceptable. Listen to them.

You manage service on aircraft worth tens of millions of dollars. You coordinate international itineraries that would make a chess master's head spin. You handle VIP passengers with grace under pressure that would break most people. You navigate weather delays, medical emergencies, and demanding clients with professionalism that defines the industry standard.

You shouldn't have to also manage anxiety about whether lunch will show up.

The Test That Tells You Everything

Next time you place an order, pay attention to your body. It knows the truth even when your mind makes excuses.

Do your shoulders immediately tense up? That's your body preparing for battle. Does your stomach knot? That's your gut telling you this isn't trustworthy. Do you immediately start planning backups? That's your experience overriding optimism. Feel the need to call and confirm? That's learned behavior from being let down. Screenshot the confirmation "just in case"? That's preparing evidence for the inevitable failure.

If you feel anything other than confident calm, you don't have a caterer. You have an anxiety provider that occasionally delivers food.

Your Next Order, Your Next Choice

You face two choices with your next order, and they lead to vastly different destinations.

You can place another order with anxiety attached, hope for the best while preparing for the worst, and accept that feeling as normal. You can continue the cycle, add another layer to your coping mechanisms, develop new workarounds for their failures. You can keep telling yourself this is just how it is.

Or you can place an order with confidence. Expect excellence and receive it. Feel nothing but calm because anxiety isn't part of professional service.

The choice seems obvious when laid out like this. But here's the thing about conditioning: even when someone shows you the cage door is open, sometimes we choose to stay inside because it's familiar. That anxiety has become your companion, as twisted as that sounds. The dysfunction has become comfortable in its predictability.

That feeling isn't familiar. It's failure. And you don't have to live with it anymore.

The Promise That Changes Everything

At Délicieux France, we don't just promise food delivery. Anyone with a van and a cooler can deliver food. We promise the absence of anxiety. The elimination of that feeling. The return to what normal should be: placing an order and knowing, with absolute certainty, that it will be perfect.

No feeling. No anxiety. No hope needed. Just certainty.

Because when you're managing a multi million dollar aircraft operation, the last thing you should worry about is whether the sandwiches will show up.

We don't do crazy here. We do calm, consistent, reliable service that lets you focus on what actually matters: your passengers, not your contingency plans.

Remember That Feeling?

Remember that feeling you had at the beginning of this article? When you place your next order, pay attention. If it's there, you already know what to do.

You deserve better. Your passengers deserve better. And deep down, you know it's time.

Délicieux France Flight Kitchens. Because ordering catering shouldn't require a Xanax.

Délicieux France Flight Kitchens

We deliver more than food. We deliver peace of mind.

TRUST | PRECISION | EXCELLENCE

Contact Us

24/7 Dispatch: +1 (866) 328-7905

Email: orders@dfinflight.com