More than a century after its beginnings as a California root beer stand, A&W is testing its first national catering program, with a nationwide rollout planned for February 2027.
The Kentucky-based root beer and burger brand launched a 10-restaurant pilot program in August, with online ordering using Olo and ezCater as a third-party platform partner.
Amanda Potts is A&W’s vice president of marketing and innovation.
“We’re early into the launch and test of the program, but we saw it as an opportunity to extend the brand,” Amanda Potts, A&W’s vice president of marketing and innovation, told Food On Demand. “Of course, we want as many people to know and love A&W as possible, so we saw that as an opportunity in addition to the incremental revenue that we saw.”
The pilot locations, Potts said, span Kentucky, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. Potts noted several of the test locations were chosen because operators had already created catering offerings independently.
“That was another reason why we went down this path; we had franchisees that made up their own program,” Potts said. “They saw the opportunity, and so we offered it up to them, which made the most sense. … We learned a lot from them [operators]. At least in our system, they were happy to have the support from corporate in terms of packaging procedures, integration and technology.”
Potts said the brand plans to kick off a nationwide rollout after an annual franchisee meeting in February.
The catering menu in testing centers on staples like burgers and root beer floats, and Potts said the brand’s fried chicken sandwich, a relative newcomer to the standard menu, is expected to join the national catering slate.
While launching a successful catering program nationwide is no simple task, Potts described the channel as low-hanging fruit for the brand, with opportunities to increase revenue.
Potts said A&W leadership had seriously considered a national catering program throughout her year and a half with the brand, and executives had entertained the idea well before she joined.
“Now is the right time when you look at the opportunity,” Potts said. “I’ve worked for other brands that have launched catering, and the opportunity is between 5 and 10 percent incremental [revenue] for the business. When you watch our competitors, when you see what else is happening in the space, it’s just like, yes, we should be doing this.”
Adding the new catering program didn’t require many changes at the restaurant level. Chips were the only new menu item required for the pilot, and existing technology partners could support the program.
“Olo catering was crucial for us,” Potts said. “We were already integrated with them; it was an easy next step. [With] the way that consumers order and us being new to the field, we are partnering with ezCater as well, just to kind of help us get our name out there.”
As for realistic goals for A&W, Potts said she’d like catering to account for 3 percent of national sales after a year. Reaching that goal will depend on generating excitement among franchisees and building momentum at individual restaurants.
“We’ve got a lot of legacy operators, a lot of people that have been in the business, and the grandparents started it, then their parents, and now it’s them,” Potts said. “So getting them just to think outside the box in terms of catering and what the opportunity is, what it can open up for their business, that is probably just the little hump that I hope that we can get over pretty quickly.”
A&W continues a trend of well-established restaurant brands launching or expanding catering programs in 2026.
Shipley introduced its first dedicated digital catering platform in July, Denny’s launched its first national catering program in August, and Church’s Texas Chicken announced a new nationwide catering program in June.
“It’s not easy. You don’t just turn it on, and then people start ordering,” Potts said. “You’ve got to tell people about it. You’ve got to do local store marketing. You might have to actually do something like take catering somewhere and say, ‘Hey, we’re A&W, and we do catering now.’”
