Villa dinners, private chefs, and event math.
The templates we hand engaged couples, arrival-day planners, and captains: menus by headcount, timelines by kitchen, and the questions we wish everyone asked us first.
10 min read · Updated July 2026 · Cruz Bay, St. John USVI
Sam & Jack's runs two closely-linked businesses: a chef-driven deli on the third floor of the Marketplace in Cruz Bay, and a full-service catering operation that delivers across St. John, St. Thomas, and — with enough notice — the BVI. This chapter is the catering side, written for the guest who has never planned a meal in a villa before.
Catering on St. John is a logistics problem before it's a menu problem. Solve the kitchen, the headcount, and the timing first. The food is the easy part.
The four things we ask on every call
- How many people, and how many are kids? (Kid plates are half-portioned and half-priced.)
- What's the kitchen? Villa oven, no oven, boat, beach, tent, restaurant?
- What time do you want to eat, and when do guests arrive?
- Any allergies or hard vegetarians? We flex the menu, we don't ask you to.
Packages, roughly
Drop-off catering (8–40 guests)
Trays, platters, and sides delivered to the villa ready to eat or heat. This covers arrival dinners, welcome lunches, and mid-week group meals. We deliver, set out, and label everything with reheat instructions. You handle the rest.
Full-service catering (20–120 guests)
Delivery plus staff — servers, a chef on-site if you want plated courses, rentals (plates, glassware, linens), and full breakdown. This is the wedding rehearsal dinner tier, the welcome party tier, the corporate retreat tier.
Private chef nights (2–14 guests)
A single chef arrives at your villa with the mise en place done, cooks, plates, serves, and cleans the kitchen. A three- or four-course dinner, matched to your villa's kitchen and your table. Book two weeks out in season.
Event catering (weddings, milestones)
Full-service, with a real timeline. Site visit, tasting where possible, a proposal that itemizes food, labor, rentals, delivery, and gratuity. We work alongside every wedding planner on-island and can walk in cold if you're planning it yourself.
Timelines that don't stress everyone
- Drop-off dinner for eight: 72 hours' notice minimum. A week is comfortable.
- Private chef night: 10–14 days in season. Confirm the villa kitchen with a photo.
- Wedding or event over 40 guests: 60–120 days. We'll put a deposit on the calendar and finalize menu 21 days out.
- Arrival-day meal: order when you book the flights. The catering inbox will thank you.
Menus by kitchen
A working oven and a stovetop opens the whole menu — pastas, roasts, whole fish, casseroles. No oven (or a "villa oven" that isn't reliable) narrows us to grain bowls, room-temp platters, and cold seafood. Beach or boat catering strips it further, to what holds unrefrigerated for two hours and doesn't need a plate. We've done all three; the trick is knowing which one you have before we plan the menu.
How this connects to the deli
Everything on the deli menu scales to a platter. Half the catering menu started as a Grab & Go dinner — see Grab & Go for the ready-to-heat side. If you're a house of six on a mid-week night, you probably want Grab & Go. If you're a house of twenty on Saturday, you want catering.