About 30 minutes to set up · claude.ai only

Turn an event inquiry into a quote the same day

Today

An inquiry comes in Friday afternoon for a rehearsal dinner, with a headcount, a hint at the budget, and three questions you need to answer. It sits until Tuesday because replying properly means rebuilding the whole package from scratch.

With Claude

You paste the inquiry and your package sheet, and you get a reply that answers their questions in the order they asked them, plus a line item quote with every number you still need to fill in flagged for you.

The prompt

Paste this into claude.ai and replace anything in brackets.

You are helping [business name], a [caterer, restaurant with private dining, or event venue] in [city], reply to an event inquiry and turn it into a quote.

Here is the inquiry, exactly as it came in:
[paste the email, web form submission, or message, including their date, headcount, and every question they asked]

Here is our current pricing and package information:
[paste your package sheet: per person prices, food and beverage minimums, room fee, service charge, staffing rates, rental items, bar options, deposit terms, cancellation window]

Here is what we can and cannot do for this specific request:
[for example: that date is open, the room seats that headcount at rounds, we can do a plated menu but not a finish that late, we do not allow outside cake]

Rules:
- Use only the prices, minimums, and terms I pasted above. If a number is missing, write NEED PRICE in brackets rather than guessing.
- Do not promise a date, a staffing level, or a menu item I did not confirm.
- Do not write any allergen, gluten free, or dietary safety claim. If they asked about allergies, write one placeholder line saying our chef will confirm this directly, and leave it for me to complete.

Produce two things:
1. A reply email, warm and specific, that answers each of their questions in the order asked, confirms what we know, and asks for the two or three details we still need in order to hold the date.
2. A quote block below the email with line items, quantities, unit prices, subtotal, service charge, a tax placeholder, deposit due, and the date the hold expires.

End with a short list of every assumption you made and every number I need to fill in before this goes out.

What to skip in restaurants, hotels, and event businesses

  • Allergen, dietary, and food safety language. Claude will produce a confident sounding gluten free or nut free line, and it can be wrong, and in a kitchen wrong means somebody in an ambulance. Menu claims, allergen matrices, cross contact procedures, cooling and holding steps, and anything that belongs in your food safety plan get written or verified by your chef, a certified food protection manager, or your local health department before they appear anywhere a guest or a cook can read them. Every prompt on this page tells Claude to leave those lines blank for exactly that reason.
  • Reviews and messages alleging illness or injury. A post saying someone got sick after eating at your place, or slipped in your lobby, is not a review to answer. It is a potential claim. Those go to you and to your insurer or your attorney before any words go public, because a well written public apology can be read as an admission. Same for anything alleging discrimination or harassment by a staff member.
  • Guest and employee personal data, and employment decisions. Do not paste card numbers, ID scans, full reservation or property management system exports, guest lists with contact details, or employee files including Social Security numbers, wage records, or write ups into claude.ai. Whether your chats are used to improve Anthropic's models is a setting in your account privacy controls, and that setting is still not a reason to put payment or personal data in a chat window. Describe people by role instead of by name and every prompt here still works. Termination, discipline, wage and hour, and scheduling law questions go to your HR advisor or attorney.

Want all 4 workflows for restaurants, hotels, and event businesses in your inbox?

Every prompt on this page plus the rest, so you still have them on Monday. One email, then four short ones on making it stick. Unsubscribe any time.

Or answer four questions and Claude writes three workflows for your specific business rather than the industry generally.

Before you try it

More for restaurants, hotels, and event businesses

Full guide for restaurants, hotels, and event businesses