Power lunches are taking over the client dinner

Budget changes and remote work have proliferated in the post-Covid era, and sales teams are finding new ways to meaningfully connect with prospects. One avenue that has emerged is the so-called “power lunch,” a notable veering away from traditional sit-down client dinner.

“The modern day power lunch combines connection and collaboration with productivity, whether that’s inside an organization or the power lunch surrounding a salesperson being in touch with a prospective client,” said Cindy Klein Roche, chief growth officer of workplace food technology platform ezCater. “Food is obviously the glue. Food adds an emotional element. It adds that connection element, but it unmistakably establishes productivity surrounding the eating.”

According to ezCater, sales teams using the platform say they land seven more sales meetings and close four more deals each month when they offer clients food. Additionally, 91% of organizations said they will spend the same or more on food in 2026, up from 82% in 2024, according to ezCater data. The platform offers users the ability to connect a workplace with a desired restaurant, while adjusting for size, budget and specific dietary requirements.

Covid convenience

Klein Roche said that while power lunches have been a sales tactic for decades, they have grown post-Covid as more people prefer to optimize their workdays rather than schedule events after hours.

“I’d cite the movement toward the workday as the anchor, as opposed to the after-workday,” she said. “That was massively accelerated with the pandemic and after the pandemic, but that notion of productivity during the workday and being able to release from the workday has been in the air for a long time.”

Klein Roche said that using a catering platform like ezCater allows for sales teams to give their prospects “the illusion of choice” where they have a plethora of cuisines to choose from and can have their dietary restrictions accommodated, while also making it easier for sales teams to provide this type of perk.

“Food is complex,” she said. “Food for large groups is an anxiety category so they need to know that it’s going to be reliable, it’s going to get there on time, it’s going to be as ordered and they’re not going to have to worry about it because they’re usually on the road on the way to the meeting. They can’t be negotiating and calling and orchestrating.”

Friction be gone

From agentic AI support to objection handling and clear pricing options, sales enablement is, to a large extent, the job of reducing friction for prospective buyers. Salespeople are often spending time preempting invisible barriers—such as not getting the right consensus at the early stages of the buyer journey—which can create a backlog later on in the process.

Much of the sales enablement process also demands meeting prospects where they are: their specific needs, their stage in the buying cycle, and even where the economy is heading at this current time. Power lunches have given this a literal twist: tuning up at your prospect’s front door with lunch taken care of. It’s not the first time we’ve discussed the benefits of in-person encounters to create new sales pipeline.

Caitlin Agnew-Francis, commercial sales manager at Desky, an ergonomic office furniture company, explained a recent power lunch resulted in a higher deal than previously expected.

“Holding a power lunch inside a client’s office gives you a chance to meet someone you did not plan to meet that might turn an ordinary event into something big,” Agnew-Francis said. “In our case, we created a business opportunity. This cannot happen during a restaurant lunch because you only interact with the people you’ve invited.”