A CRM for caterers
and event teams.
Don’t book, just cook.
Explore Pala- 203 enquiries qualified
- 308 replies sent
- 55 conversations of four or more turns
- 154 hours saved
What we build.
The system that turns enquiries into booked work, and the website that brings them in. Both built for caterers and event businesses, because it is the trade we know best and the one whose failure points we have already fixed.
Pala
Pala answers every enquiry in seconds, asks the questions you would have asked, and hands you a brief worth quoting from. On every channel your customers use. We built it and we run it.
Learn more →
Custom Software
The system your business actually runs on. Dashboards, booking and quoting, staff tools and the joins between them, built around how you work rather than how a product decided you should.
Learn more →
Websites
Fast websites written in code, designed to turn the visitors you already have into booked work. No page-builder bloat, and we move you off the old site cleanly.
Learn more →
SEO, GEO & Automated Marketing
Getting the work found, on Google and inside AI answers like ChatGPT. Technical search, local search, and content published on a schedule.
Learn more →How we build it.
Four steps, and a first version you can use early. We start with the piece that is costing you most, then grow the system around it at your pace.
We work out what is costing you
We follow the work from first enquiry to paid invoice and find the parts that are expensive to do by hand. Often it is not the part you expected.
We scope the first version tightly
One problem, solved properly, with the shape and the price agreed before anything gets built. No year-long project to sign off up front.
We build it in code
Built on your real data and shown to you working before it goes anywhere near live. The repository is in your name from the first commit.
We run it and keep building
It goes live, we watch it in production, and we add the next piece once the last one has earned its keep.
Pala, the product we built and run ourselves.
Enquiries arrive while you are with a customer, mid-job, or closed for the night. Few leave a voicemail, and almost nobody waits until morning when another business is a tap away. We built Pala to answer in seconds, ask the right questions and hand you a brief worth quoting from. You close it. It runs in production for our own clients, and you can put it on your site today.
Your website
A chat that answers questions and books, on every page.
Enquiries read, answered and filed, in your own inbox.
Conversations answered on the channel your customers already use.
Example of Pala at work: someone messages "hi do you do weddings? looking at june next yr for about 90" on WhatsApp at 21:40, typo and all. Pala understands, replies in four seconds, asks whether it is sit-down or buffet and whether the venue is booked, and captures the answers. You get a notification saying wedding, June, 90 guests, with the date, venue and service style already gathered, and a brief ready to quote from in the morning.
We set it up around how you sell, then run it for you.
Who we build for.
Catering and event businesses that win work on a quote, run by the people who also cook, drive and serve. If your next booking starts with a message and ends with a price, this is built for you.
Wedding caterers
Where four caterers get messaged on the same evening and the first useful reply is the one that gets to quote.
Corporate & private events
Repeat bookers, standing accounts, and briefs that arrive half-finished on a Friday afternoon.
Hog roast, BBQ & street food
Owner-operated and seasonal, busiest at exactly the moment nobody is free to answer the phone.
Mobile bars & drinks
Quote-led work where the package, the guest count and the licence all move the number.
Event planners & venues
Juggling suppliers and clients, where one dropped thread costs a whole booking.
Private chefs & small teams
One or two people doing the cooking, the quoting, the invoicing and the chasing.
Built, not templated.
Booking and quoting systems, client dashboards, staff timesheets, publishing engines and the websites around them, shipped for real businesses and still running. We judge the work on whether it holds up in production, not on a list of features.
Questions, answered.
What does Kilij actually do? +
We make Pala, a CRM for caterers and event teams. It answers your enquiries, asks the questions you would have asked, and hands you a brief worth quoting from. You close the job. Where Pala does not fit how you work, we build bespoke systems and the websites in front of them, shipped in code into a repository you own.
When is bespoke worth building? +
When the tools you can buy do not fit how you price, schedule or hand work over, and somebody on your team is bridging that gap by hand every week. If an off-the-shelf tool does fit, buy it. We will tell you when that is the honest answer.
Do you only work with catering businesses? +
It is most of what we do and where we are most useful, because we already know how a quote-led business runs. We build outside it too, and we will tell you if your problem is not one we have solved before.
How long does a build take? +
A first version that solves one problem is usually a matter of weeks. Larger systems grow from there a piece at a time, so you get something working early rather than waiting months for everything at once.
Who owns the code? +
You do. It ships into a repository in your name, documented well enough for another developer to pick it up. There is no licence to renew and nobody who can switch it off.
Do you build with AI? +
Where it earns its place. Pala, our own product, is built on it, and we use it inside client systems when reading messy human input is the job. Most of what we build is ordinary, careful software, and we do not add AI to something that does not need it.
Where are you based? +
Colchester, Essex. We work with clients across the UK and further afield, and we are glad to meet in person if you are nearby.
Tell us where the enquiries go.
A half-hour call is usually enough for us to say whether this is a build, a website, or a tool you should just go and buy.
Working with catering and event businesses across the UK.