Private Dining Operations Guide #9 — Choosing Insurance Coverage
A plain walk through every policy that stands between a burned countertop and a closed business.
When I started Vendador in 2021, formed the S corp, and registered the business, I bought a basic general liability policy and didn’t look much past it. For the first couple of years that was fine. I was cooking in people’s homes and in alternative spaces, building a reputation, and almost nobody asked me for proof of insurance. The work was good and the rooms were interesting, but they weren’t the kind of rooms that come with a requirements sheet.
That changes the moment you start working anywhere that costs real money for clients to get into. Legitimate venues, corporate offices, residential high-rises with loading docks and amenities spaces. They want a certificate of insurance before they’ll let you touch a freight elevator or pull a vehicle up to the building. Every new tier of space came with a new coverage requirement and a new bill, and the only way through was to add coverage as the work got bigger. This was tedious. When business started to grow quickly, I felt like I was on the phone with insurance every other week getting new COI or different coverage added.
This guide is the set of policies a private dining business needs so that one bad evening doesn’t undo everything else you’ve built. It’s also where I got it wrong along the way, so you can skip the parts I learned by accident. Since 2021, one near-miss is the only time we’ve come close to ever using our insurance, and I’ll tell you that story.
The point isn’t that disaster is waiting at every event. The point is that the one time it happens, the coverage is either in place or it isn’t, and you don’t get to buy it after the fact.
A Quick Glossary
Before the sections, here is some basic vocabulary I’ve had to learn, because the words get thrown around as if everyone already knows them. And I didn’t!
General liability: pays when your team accidentally injures someone who isn’t your staff, or damages property that isn’t yours.
Product liability: pays for claims tied to the food itself, such as illness or an allergic reaction.
Liquor liability, sometimes called dram shop: pays for alcohol-related claims when you are paid to serve. It is completely separate from general liability.
Workers compensation: pays medical costs and lost wages when someone working for you gets hurt on the job. Also separate.
Commercial auto: covers a vehicle, its driver, and its cargo while the vehicle is used for business.
Inland marine: covers your equipment while it is away from your kitchen or in transit.
Umbrella: extra coverage that sits on top of your other policies and raises their limits for one off cases.
Damage to premises rented, or care, custody and control: the part of a policy that addresses damage to a space you are working in but do not own
Certificate of insurance, or COI: a one-page document proving your policy exists and naming who is covered for a specific event, requested by the venue or client.
Additional insured: a party added to your policy so your coverage extends to them for an event.
Certificate holder: the party the COI is issued to, which is sometimes the building’s owner or management company rather than the venue itself.
Lets dive deeper into what each of these means so you can confidently talk to a broker, venue, or events coordinator at a big company in a big building in a big city.
General Liability
This is the policy everything else gets added to. If you carry one piece of insurance, carry this.
It covers third-party bodily injury and third-party property damage. A guest trips over your knife case in the hallway. A team member bumps a countertop and chips it. A platter slides off the counter and breaks a vase that turns out to have been a wedding gift from 1973. None of that has happened to us. It’s the list of things I can picture happening, which is the point of carrying the policy.
What general liability does not cover: anything inside your own building, alcohol-related claims, the food itself, and injuries to your own staff. Each of those is a separate policy, and we’ll get to them.