New Kensington couple launches catering business, helping people celebrate 'any way they can'

After years working for others in the restaurant industry, Philip Call says frustration drove him to start his own catering business.

Trained in French culinary techniques, Call, 35, of New Kensington says there is a proper and correct way to do things, “and then there’s everything else.”

“I’ve always been frustrated with people not having the same standards I do,” he said. “When I’m cooking, everything is done exactly how I want it to be done.”

Call launched his business, Call for Catering, in December 2019 with his girlfriend, Jillian Ludwiczak, 28. He’s the cook, and she’s the event planner.

Call was born in Germany to a military family, the son of an Air Force veteran whose parents are from New Castle. Ludwiczak is a New Kensington native.

Call served in the Navy in the construction battalion known as the Seabees.

A 2009 graduate of the now-defunct Pittsburgh Culinary Institute, Call spent most of his career as a sous chef at multiple restaurants in Pittsburgh. He most recently was a front-of-the-house manager at Allegheny Country Club in Sewickley Heights. Ludwiczak is a registered nurse at Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh and has been a restaurant server.

They work out of the kitchen at Stella’s Restaurant in the Parnassus area of the city, where they met just over four years ago. She was a server, while he was working in the kitchen after Stella’s appeared on the Food Network reality show “Restaurant: Impossible” in 2015.

As a full-service caterer able to serve from two up to 250, “We can produce whatever kind of experience you’re looking for,” Call said.

There’s no set menu.

“I like to develop the menu with the client,” he said. “I do all of the cooking. I like to make everything from scratch.”

In addition to catering on location, Call and Ludwiczak have hosted events at Stella’s. Before the covid pandemic first forced them to stop, they included a sold-out, three-course Valentine’s Day dinner and fish fries during Lent.

A five-course lamb tasting was scheduled for April but was canceled. A pasta dinner also was planned.

They hosted monthly Sunday brunches in September and October but had to cancel for November and December. The menu included drinks such as mimosas and bloody Marys and main dishes such as fried chicken and waffles, grilled French toast casserole, and huevos rancheros.

They were getting ready to do more events when the pandemic flared up again.

“We knew the pandemic was going to get bad again before it got better,” Call said.

Covid has made 2020 a difficult and sometimes disastrous year for the restaurant industry. Ludwiczak said April was a “scary month” for them with no income as they stayed home together. Seeing their bookings and events cancel was heartbreaking and discouraging.

Yet Call says it may have been the perfect year to start a catering business because people are looking to do things at home.

As the first shutdown waned, “We started getting phone calls, ‘Come and cook for us,’ ” Ludwiczak said. “That kind of gave us a second wind.”

Summer was good with outdoor events, including graduation parties and baby and wedding showers. They catered an outdoor wedding at the AK Research Park in October.

With authorities advising against large gatherings this holiday season and indoor dining, Call said they had some smaller catered events coming up, with as few as six or eight people.

While the pandemic has made things challenging, “We’ve had a lot of fun this first year, despite everything,” Call said.

“It has been fun,” Ludwiczak said. “People have been so excited to celebrate any way they can.”

Hoping the covid vaccines work and things can return to normal, Call and Ludwiczak want to hold events at Stella’s again and start running a food truck in the future. Call would like eventually to have a brick-and-mortar location of his own, with his own kitchen.

“If there’s a complete return to normalcy, I’d love to have my own restaurant,” Call said. “If not, the catering business might be the way to go, with sporadic events.”

Ludwiczak said she hopes people discover what she and Call are doing, think of them for events and come in and try their food.

“We just want our chance to feed New Ken,” she said.