Southern comfort foods and a traditional Italian menu is what three local men are looking forward to bring to Rockland County.
NoCo Catering, or Northern Comfort Catering, was started by Joe Agnello, Kevin Berry and Paul Brauer.
“We started our business back in 2011 and have seen considerable success and hope to forge forward with that same success,” said Agnello.
Their newest feature is Friday night takeout dinners, NoCo ToGo, where they offer a few entrée choices with sides and a vegetable for $10 for an individual meal and $40 for a family of five.
About the Owners
Blauvelt resident Brauer graduated from Tappan Zee High School. He is the financial officer for the business.
“Paul and I grew up together with Kevin's wife Kim. We were all really close friends throughout our childhood and high school years,” said Agnello, adding that their paths crossed when Berry started dating Kim six years ago.
Berry and Agnello are both Chefs for NoCo.
“I grew up in the Orangeburg area and graduated from Tappan Zee High School but currently live in Nanuet,” said Agnello. “I was a general contractor in a family Business (Agnello & Sons General Contracting Inc.) with a passion for food and cooking.”
Berry lives in Valley Cottage and is also a chef for the Salvation Army in West Nyack. Berry graduated from The Institute of Culinary Education where he was classically trained as a chef while Agnello gained his cooking skills through working many summers and nights at family-owned restaurants.
“We started NoCo because of our combined passion for foods and cooking but mostly because Kevin and I were always responsible for the cooking at our tailgate parties or backyard bbq’s with friends,” said Agnello. “We always got rave reviews from not only friends but also strangers that would approach and ask if they could buy some of our food. It was after about a year or so of doing this that we said ‘why don’t we do this for a living.’ People really loved our stuff and we thought we would take a shot at opening a business.” Thus NoCo began.
About NoCo
“We are a full service catering company that specializes in Comfort style food, those rib sticking, feel good meals that put a smile on your face,” said Agnello.
“Collectively we came up with Northern Comfort Catering (NoCo for short) because it directly represented the style of cooking that we do, ‘comfort foods,’” he added. “We also liked the play on words because most often you hear Southern Comfort and being that we are from New York thought it was neat to kind of change it up a little.”
They currently work out of The Greenbush Presbyterian Church’s Recreation Building at 620 Western Highway in Blauvelt.
Their menu features some of their “signature” dishes which are traditional southern comfort style foods like pulled pork, mac & cheese and other southern style BBQ items. They also a “traditional Italian style menu because when we were starting up we didn’t want to just fall into a small niche; we wanted to let everyone know that we could cater to all of their needs,” said Agnello
They’re versatile and do everything from Drop off catering and backyard bbq’s to weddings, tailgates and pig roasts.
As mentioned earlier, they’re now offering Friday night takeout dinners where they offer a few entrée choices with sides and a vegetable for $10 for an individual meal and $40 for a family of five.
They also have a very adaptable menu.
“We intend to change the menu weekly to showcase our foods and also create menus based upon customer feedback,” said Agnello. “We have been generating orders from our email marketing and phone calls but first and foremost from our Facebook following.”
Those following them on their Facbeook page can Call/Text or Comment on the event page to place their order. They are open from 3-6:30 p.m. for pickup.
“Our future plans are to expand the business into a deli/catering operation where we could showcase some of our hot foods on a daily basis and still do the catering as well,” said Agnello. “Right now we are just taking the baby steps to get there and we have started the Friday night NoCo ToGo to help us in showcasing our foods to people in hopes that the foods will interest them enough to order for their next party.”
- www.Nococatering.com
- (845)-445-7332
- joe@nococatering.com
