The weather is dreamy, the days are long, that sporty guy in the office spends part of his time gazing longingly through the window – and you as Human Resources Manager have been given the task of planning a summer picnic for your company. We put together this article to bring you some fresh ideas and help you host a one-of-a-kind picnic that everyone will reminisce over for years to come.

1. Set goals for the picnic

What does everyone in the office need right now? Your colleagues could be looking for some time to unwind, or team-building opportunities, or just an occasion where they can reconnect and talk about current or future projects. Have a clear goal so that your activities hit the right spot.

2. Give the guest list the attention it deserves

You know all employees will be invited, but if they can also bring partners or children, this will affect your picnic entertainment, eats and activities a great deal. This should be one of the first things you discuss with your boss.

3. Have a plan of action for activities

To make sure your party is exactly what your colleagues need, goals should come first. Decor and fun are the icing on the cake, so to speak. Don’t get me wrong, a corporate picnic should be all about the good food, games, and entertainment, but your list of activities needs to support your objectives for the day. When putting together a games list, Google is your rod and staff. Here is a list of some simple, reliable ideas, and a Pinterest board full of fun games.

4. Choose a theme to get the party started

There’s just something unique about a themed event – everyone lets their hair down and kicks into “crazy fun” mode. Even the most distinguished, straight-faced employee can’t resist a giggle at the sight of Sue from behind the desk wearing a pair of curly mustaches and knocking everyone over with her giant sombrero. It creates lasting memories and gets colleagues excited and engaged beforehand as they plan their outfits. If you decide not to go with dress-up costumes as part of your picnic, having a theme still keeps your decor unique and unified, and helps to prompt ideas for food.

Brainstorm a theme based on your activities. If you’re going to be close to the ocean or a lake and have planned lots of water-based activities, pick a Hawaiian or pirate theme. If you’re going to have relaxing games like bowling or ring-toss, you could choose a Western or Carnival theme. Here’s a roundup of 30 excellent ideas to get you inspired.

Tip: If you’ve planned or attended a lot of themed do’s already and are tired of cycling through the same ideas, mix two themes to come up with something entirely unique – like “Robots in the West” or “1950’s Casino”.

5. The most important part of the picnic is the food and drink!

Because all those games are going to give everyone a roaring appetite! Having a theme could simplify planning the menu a lot, but you could also just include the theme in the way the food is presented. Ask about allergies and other preferences beforehand, and have a bit of something for everyone.

Everyone agrees that having amazing drinks available has a huge impact on the success of an event. If you want to have some alcoholic drinks on tap, we suggest you go with options that are refreshing and only lightly alcoholic, like rock shandies or gin and tonics.

Of course, here’s top recommendation – book one of our coffee and smoothies mobile bars! We have seven fruity smoothie options blended from the freshest ingredients, and a range of irresistible iced coffees. These drinks are delicious, filling and refreshing, and will kick your picnic atmosphere up a notch. For fun and energizing picnic drinks, book a Maui Wowi mobile bar.

You’ve planned an amazing corporate picnic – now go ahead and enjoy it!

No one can resist the smell of fresh coffee. It’s an evocative fragrance that inevitably reminds you of good times – hours spent with loved ones, fun outings, a peaceful rendezvous with an excellent book, or a memorable event. There’s just something about good coffee that speaks class, care, and everything pleasant and satisfying.

We’ve noticed something interesting about the business events and large corporate meetings where we’re asked to cater with a mobile coffee bar. The bar becomes a little oasis, an island of retreat and refreshment away from the focused bustle. People relax for a few minutes, catch their breath and reorder their thoughts, or colleagues catch up with friendly chatter and banter. They leave calmed, refueled and energized. This coffee catering experience is one that you can’t even begin to compare with filling up quickly at the office coffee machine, or rushing off around the block for a cheap disposable cuppa. We have absolutely no doubt that our mobile coffee bars add a tremendous amount of atmosphere to events, and make lasting memories.

Here’s three things you should know about our coffee bars:

1. Our coffees are incredible

We source and serve the highest quality coffees. They’re responsibly grown and ethically traded. Our grounds are deliciously, fragrantly fresh, blended and roasted to perfection by our partnering roaster Coda Coffee, and we brew up both traditional and flavored roasts. We also boast some entirely unique blends.

Traditional coffees:

Some of the world’s most sought-after coffee is grown and harvested on the islands of Hawaii. Maui Wowi Hawaiian coffee lines consist of gourmet blends from the Hawaiian regions of Kona, Molokai and Kauai, where coffee beans are carefully handpicked from selected coffee plantations and family-owned farms that best represent the rugged and bold attributes, as well as the sheer beauty and elegance of Hawaii.

Flavored coffee:

This wonderful treat awakens the senses. Try our smooth Chocolate Macadamia, punchy toasted coconut or sweet, classic Vanilla.  

Featured roasts:

Maui Mountain Roast is a bold coffee that has a chocolate flavor, undertones of macadamia nut and a sweet cane sugar finish which makes it distinctly unique from other blends. With Brazilian beans from the Santo Antonio Estates in Minas Gerais, beans from the Bukonzo Joint Cooperative in Uganda, and beans from Maui, Maui Mountain Roast is described as a bold coffee with subtle hints of wild berry and an earthy finish that is distinctly unique from our other coffees.

Pacific Passion combines the best of the Pacific Islands with Hawaiian and Papua New Guinea beans. A coffee prized by connoisseurs, our Pacific Passion is naturally sweet with a fruity aroma, full-body finish and clean flavour.

2. We have enormous variety

• We do espresso catering with a unique Kona coffee blend.
• We serve up a deeply flavorful cold brew.
• We make smooth yet bold Hawaaian lattes and cappuccinos.
• We create unique and delightful mochas in three different flavors.
• We serve rich, satisfying hot chocolates using high-quality Ghiradelli sauces – we have four flavor variations.
• We do refreshing iced coffees too!

3. We can fit in with any décor theme

While our coffees are Hawaiian, the look of our bars is classically simple and will fit in anywhere.

For a truly memorable event, book a mobile coffee bar at coffeesandsmoothies.com.

About Us

Maui Wowi Coffee & Smoothie Catering has been serving the corporate event market on Long Island and NYC for more than 17 years.  We provide mobile espresso and coffee bars featuring our own custom coffees available exclusively through our catering service.

 Event Types

We work with human resource managers for event types including corporate meetings,  promotional events,  and client and employee appreciation events.

Our Menus

• Our Espresso and Coffee Bar service includes favorites like Cappuccino, Latte, Macchiato, and Americano (regular and decaf). We also offer Ghirardelli hot cocoa with a variety of toppings.
• We offer both hot and iced coffee/espresso/latte choices, cold-brew,  as well as frozen blended Cappuccino.
• We offer a choice of syrups (such as Caramel, Hazelnut, Vanilla, Peppermint, Pumpkin Spice and many others) and Ghirardelli chocolate and caramel sauces.
• Milk choices include regular, non-fat, almond and soy. We provide a choice of sugar and non-sugar sweeteners.
• We also offer fruit smoothies in a variety of flavors like Strawberry Banana, Pina Colada, Mango Orange, Black Raspberry, Kiwi Lemon Lime, Peach and frozen Lemonade.

 
Our Equipment, Servers and Other Details

• We use professional espresso machines and bean grinders to assure freshness and an ideal coffee extraction for our espresso drinks. Our servers are highly experienced and professional.
• Our attire is typically black shirts and pants, but we can dress in whatever way is appropriate for your event.
• We provide hot cups and other disposables for our beverages, however, we can use any china or glassware that you provide.
• We typically set up our service on folding tables with a linen cloth.
• We can accommodate any type of setup you require. We need a standard 110v/23 amp electrical service.
• We can provide a Certificate of Insurance with 48 hours notice.

 
Our Coffee
We use espresso beans from Kona, Hawaii for our espresso beverages. Why Hawaiian? Because we’ve tried espresso beans from all over the world and we find Kona beans offer the best balance and flavor. For our brewed coffees, we use beans from Maui, Molokai and Kona—each offering different flavor profiles.        
 
Our Clients
We have catered our espresso and coffee beverages from some of the leading companies and celebrities in metro New York. (We even catered an espresso bar for Billy Joel’s 4^th of July party.)
 
Our Service Area
We provide our mobile espresso and coffee catering service in the five boroughs of New York City, as well as Long Island, New Jersey, Connecticut, greater Philadelphia and southern New England.
 
Pricing and Contact Information
Our pricing is based on the number of guests and the hours of service you need.  Please call us at 866-448-7792 or complete the form for a quote. You can also email us at 

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The week of May 6-12 is national Nurse Appreciation Week and it’s one of the busiest weeks of the year for our mobile smoothie catering business at Maui Wowi. We have been serving hospitals for over a decade that recognize the contribution of their nurses and medical support staff.

Here’s an idea: have a smoothie bar for your nursing staff (we can serve many hundreds an hour) and incorporate some fun promotional product gifts as well. A great company to contact is Positive Promotions. They’ve come up with a number of ideas to accompany a refreshing Maui Wowi smoothie at your event. We love the themes they’ve developed, like Living the Scrub Life. A great logo and positive message on a pair of cushioned ankle socks, a tote bag, a lunch cooler bag, a coffee-to-go mug set (and no reason we can’t pour a smoothie into those cups!) and many other employee appreciation and recognition ideas can be found on their website.

Maui Wowi can provide our mobile smoothie catering service for any size group. One of the larger groups we work with is Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan. The last annual employee appreciation event we catered for them with our smoothie bar involved 2000+ attendees over three shifts from 11am to 1am. (That’s AM with an A.) The hospital’s HR team came up with a great theme – Superheros, to make the staff feel like the superheroes they truly are. The leadership provided novelties, signage and apparel to support the theme. The Maui Wowi staff even wore Superman t-shirts (although we told people the “S” stood for “Smoothie-Man)!

And for all of you trivia and crossword fans out there who may be wondering about the timing of national nurses week, which ends on May 12, there is something special about that date. It’s the birthday of Florence Nightingale. As anyone in the medical profession knows, Florence was an English social reformer and statistician, and the founder of modern nursing. Nightingale came to prominence while serving as a manager and trainer of nurses during the Crimean War, in which she organized care for wounded soldiers. (OK, so you didn’t know that, but now you do and you can impress your friends over a Maui Wowi smoothie at your next employee appreciation event.)

Why would any corporate HR manager or event planner hire a catering company to cater an espresso bar for an event when they already have coffee in their break room or they can get a Joe to Go in a gallon jug from lots of places?

Great question. Here’s the answer.

A catered espresso bar (like what you can order from us here at Maui Wowi) means your staff will spend some actual time together at our bar. One day we should video the interactions of people who work for the same company when they get their lattes from us. Do they make a bee line right back to their desks? They do not. They socialize. We’ve seen some laugh, smile, joke, engage, collaborate—really! And we’ve never seen them argue, fight, be sarcastic or rude while sipping a cappuccino. It just doesn’t happen.

A catered espresso bar for your event—whether a corporate meeting, employee appreciation event, trade show promotion, client appreciation event or other reason — results in more human behavior. It’s amazing how much more people like each other they stop with the damn email, texting (often from distances of less than three feet) and….just…slow….down. You don’t chug an espresso or latte. You take your time and that gives you time to relate to another human being. (Don’t be frightened. Yes, your co-workers are human but they rarely bite.)

We get that catered espresso bar engagement going a bit more by personalizing choices. You want a mocha latte, she’s having a caramel macchiato, and those two are having Americanos. Someone else has a cold brew coffee and another person a steamed almond milk with hazelnut syrup. We don’t judge! It’s all about individuality. We can commune and combine while we maintain our individuality.

So yes, you could have that lukewarm coffee container you lugged from Dunkin’. You could even have one of those soulless automaton espresso robot vending machines installed in your office. Or God forbid a K-cup machine to further clog the landfill with those horrid unrecyclable plastic pods. Wow, I can barely stand the excitement of your so-called “employee benefit!”

Skip all that frou-frou. For your everyday coffee, go simple with the good old-fashioned drip brewer. When you want something special, call Maui Wowi for our mobile espresso and coffee service, as well as our all-natural fruit smoothies, and we’ll make your folks feel special. Isn’t that the point?

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