Today we’d like to introduce you to Aireanne Meador.
Aireanne, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
Refined Catering began with a simple idea: we wanted to create food and experiences that felt personal, thoughtful, and genuinely memorable.
After years of working in the catering industry, we decided it was time to build something of our own. A little over a year after leaving our previous company, we took a leap of faith and started Refined Personal Chef and Catering.
Starting a business as a husband-and-wife team has come with plenty of challenges. We’re still very much in the early days, and most of the time, it’s just the two of us doing it all—from developing menus and sourcing ingredients to cooking, serving, cleaning, answering emails, and handling all of the behind-the-scenes work that goes into making an event come together.
That’s something we’re actually proud of. We get to be personally involved in every part of what we do, and our clients aren’t just handing their event off to a large catering company. They’re working directly with the people who are cooking their food and bringing their vision to life.
For us, catering has always been about more than simply preparing good food. It’s about getting to know our clients, understanding what makes their celebration meaningful, and creating a menu and experience that feels like it was made specifically for them.
We don’t believe in a one-size-fits-all approach. Whether we’re preparing an intimate private dinner, a wedding, a corporate gathering, or a large celebration, we take the time to understand what our clients want and build the experience around them.
We’re incredibly grateful for every client, venue, vendor, and person who has trusted us along the way. Refined Catering is still growing, and we’re excited about where we’re headed—but we’re even more grateful that we’re getting to build it together, one event at a time.
At the heart of it, we’re simply two people who love food, love creating memorable experiences, and decided to take a chance on ourselves.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Starting Refined Catering has been one of the most rewarding things we’ve ever done, but it hasn’t been easy.
The financial side has probably been one of our biggest challenges. During our first six months, there were times when we were trying to figure out how to pay our personal bills while also keeping the business moving forward. Even now, we’re intentionally putting much of what we earn back into Refined—investing in equipment, supplies, ingredients, marketing, and the things we need to build the company we envision. It’s not always easy to watch money go back into the business when there are plenty of things we’d like to spend it on personally, but we know that building something takes time and investment.
We’ve also learned that running a business requires knowing when to ask for help. There are a lot of things outside of our areas of expertise, and finding the right people to handle those pieces has been a learning experience. One of our earliest lessons came from hiring a CPA who unfortunately made some significant mistakes with our business. Correcting those mistakes meant bringing in another company and spending a considerable amount of money to get everything straightened out. It was frustrating and expensive, but it taught us how important it is to surround ourselves with people we can genuinely trust.
And then there’s time.
Time has probably been our biggest challenge of all.
When you’re a small catering company, the event itself is only one part of the job. There are the initial inquiries and customer calls, menu development, sourcing products, building estimates, invoices and contracts, ordering, prep, packing, loading, driving, setting up, cooking, serving, breaking everything down, cleaning up after the event, and then bringing everything back to clean and put away in our storage unit.
And somehow, somewhere in all of that, we’re supposed to find time to rest, spend time with our family, maintain our relationship, and have a life outside of the business.
We’re still learning how to balance all of it.
There are days when it feels like we’re doing ten different jobs at once, because in many ways, we are. But there’s also something incredibly rewarding about knowing that every part of Refined exists because we built it ourselves.
We’re still in the early stages. We don’t have a huge staff or a large corporate structure behind us. It’s still primarily the two of us, figuring things out as we go, learning from our mistakes, reinvesting in the business, and trying to build something that will hopefully continue to grow for many years to come.
It’s not always glamorous, but it’s ours. And that’s what makes it worth it.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
Refined Catering is a husband-and-wife owned private chef and catering company here in Colorado. We do everything from intimate private dinners and celebrations to weddings, corporate events, and larger gatherings.
What we really love about what we do is that no two events are exactly the same. We don’t want to just hand someone a standard catering menu and say, “Pick a few things.” We like getting to know our clients, hearing what they’re envisioning, and then creating something that feels like it was made specifically for them.
Food is obviously a huge part of that. We love taking great seasonal ingredients and turning them into dishes that people might not necessarily make for themselves at home. We’re always playing around with different flavors, techniques, and combinations, but we also don’t want food to feel overly complicated just for the sake of being different. At the end of the day, it still has to be delicious.
We’re also pretty particular about where our ingredients come from. We love working with local purveyors whenever we can and spending the extra time finding really good products. We think you can taste the difference when you’re starting with quality ingredients.
I think what we’re most proud of is that Refined is truly something we built together. We’re still a very small company, and it’s still primarily the two of us doing just about everything. We talk to the clients, build the menus, source the food, prep and cook, load the car, show up and execute the event, clean everything up, and then go back and clean the dishes and put everything away.
Sometimes it’s exhausting. But there’s also something really special about looking around at an event and knowing that we had a hand in every part of it.
That’s probably what sets us apart the most. When someone hires Refined, they’re not just hiring a catering company and getting passed from one department to another. They’re getting us. We genuinely care about the people we’re cooking for, and because we’re involved from the first conversation all the way through the end of the event, we get to know our clients and understand what matters to them.
We’re still figuring things out and growing as we go. We don’t have everything perfectly figured out, and we’re okay with that. We’re learning how to build a business while also trying to have a life and enjoy the reason we started it in the first place.
But we’re really proud of what we’ve built so far. It’s ours, we care deeply about it, and we’re excited to see where we can take it.
Alright so before we go can you talk to us a bit about how people can work with you, collaborate with you or support you?
One of our favorite parts of building Refined has been the relationships we’ve made with other small businesses.
One of those relationships is with Slupik Mini Farm, a beautiful flower farm in Niwot. It’s owned by another couple who are working toward their own dream, and we’ve really enjoyed building a relationship where we can support each other and help each other’s businesses grow. It’s more than just a business relationship—it feels like we’re rooting for each other.
That’s the kind of collaboration we’d love to find more of.
We’re always interested in connecting with other small businesses, makers, farmers, venues, photographers, event professionals, and really anyone who is passionate about what they do and is trying to build something of their own. We think there’s something really special about small businesses supporting small businesses. When you understand how much work, risk, and heart goes into building something from the ground up, you naturally want to see other people succeed too.
For us, collaboration doesn’t have to be complicated. It could be referring clients to one another, creating something together, sharing each other’s work, or simply making an introduction and helping someone get their name out there.
And of course, the simplest way people can support us is by hiring us, recommending us to someone planning an event, following along with what we’re doing, or sharing our work with someone who might be a good fit.
We’re still building Refined, and we’re always excited to meet people who are doing the same. We love the idea of creating a little community of small businesses that genuinely want to see each other grow.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.refinedcateringco.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/refinedcateringco/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61573647653445
