Event Specialists has operated in Southern California since 1989.

Ed Chan on site, clipboard in hand, beside staged road cases and equipment

Ed Chan started here in his late teens.

He worked the carts and the lines, the load-ins and the long days, and came up through the ranks. In 2015 he bought the company from the owner who hired him.

Those early years taught him the industry from the inside, and then, as he puts it, from an executive operator's lens. Not just how service runs, but why it holds: the staffing ratio at 4pm, the holding temperature across a four-hour window, the permit that should have been filed three weeks ago, the load-in slot that moved.

From the early years

Crew in red polos and event credentials posed in front of a Rose Parade float before the route opens
Rose Parade staging, before the route opens.
Two crew members pressing lemons at a fresh lemonade stand under a canopy
Fresh lemonade, pressed to order. Rose Bowl, day one.
A crew member with a Rose Parade credential at the back of a box truck during load-in
Credentialed and loading in.
Crew unloading stacked product and equipment from a box truck under work lights at night
Load-in, somewhere after midnight.

The work has not changed much. The footprint has.

That is why this company is built the way it is. Event Specialists does not simply cater events; it runs the food and beverage operation underneath them. Culinary and staffing, temporary bars, refrigeration and storage, inventory and purchasing, cashless point-of-sale, permitting, load-in, load-out, and settlement.

The scale changes. The operation does not.

The Team

The Event Specialists team in the yard at golden hour
The team, 2025. Most of them come back the following year.

“I started on the carts because I loved watching strangers become friends over a shared bite. Now I do weddings, brand events, and every festival in between, but the job never changed: put good food in someone's hands and give them a reason to linger.”

Ed Chan, President

Since 1989, across festivals, tournaments, air shows, productions, and private events throughout Southern California.

Wherever people gather, we feed them.

Ed Chan's signature

Ed Chan

President

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