Conference catering for San Francisco events where every detail matters.
Conference week catering for San Francisco’s most important side events, sponsor activations, and corporate receptions. Lena Zakharova personally oversees every event.
What We Handle
Conference catering formats we do well.
These are the formats High Touch is built to support — grounded in real hospitality experience and proven most recently at Human Tech Week 2026 at The Hibernia in San Francisco.
Sponsor Activations & Brand Events
Full-service catering for sponsor booths, brand suites, and activation spaces during conference week. Designed to hold guests longer and create real hospitality moments.
Networking Receptions & Mixers
Passed bites, grazing boards, and stations for 50–500 guests. The food appears before people notice they need it. That is the standard we hold ourselves to.
Speaker Lounges & VIP Suites
Curated all-day refreshment and small plates for speaker holding rooms, VIP areas, and executive suites. Dietary complexity handled without fanfare.
Breakfast Sessions & Morning Recharge
Bagel stations, seasonal fruit, yogurt parfaits, coffee service. The kind of morning setup that makes 8 AM talks actually work.
Side Events During Conference Weeks
The dinner, the rooftop reception, the intimate founder gathering running parallel to a 40,000-person conference. We specialize in the events that happen around the main event.
Why High Touch
Built for conference-week pressure. Proven at The Hibernia.
High Touch is led by two founders with 30 combined years of hospitality and food-service experience across Ukraine, Russia, and San Francisco. Founder Lena Zakharova brings deep Bay Area event experience from her prior hospitality career, including managing 45 events across a single six-day conference week before building High Touch.
High Touch's most recent major conference event: Human Tech Week 2026 at The Hibernia, serving 800+ guests on the first day across grazing stations, passed bites, and full-day recharge moments — in a historic venue with no standard kitchen. Every format, every venue constraint, every last-minute change — we plan for them before the event, not during it.
No-kitchen venue readiness
We ran a full reception out of a laundry closet when the venue had no prep space. We plan for it before the event, not during it.
Dietary complexity at scale
200 guests, 40 dietary requirements, labeled and separated. We build this into the plan — not as an afterthought.
Timeline discipline
When hour seven arrives and energy is flagging, food appears before you knew you needed it. This is what “going the extra mile when no one is watching” looks like in practice.
San Francisco Calendar
When these conferences come to SF,
the ecosystem needs us.
The most valuable networking in San Francisco happens in the rooms next door to these conferences — private dinners, sponsor lounges, team offsites, and founder gatherings. That’s where we work. Book early: venues and logistics fill fast city-wide during peak weeks.
Ready to talk about your event? Lena responds personally — usually within the hour.
How It Works
Conference catering with High Touch — four steps.
Most clients receive a tailored conference proposal within the hour. Here is exactly what happens after you reach out.
Send your brief
Date, conference name, venue, guest count, and event format. Three minutes to send. Lena acknowledges every submission personally, usually within 15–20 minutes.
Receive a curated conference proposal
Menu options, staffing plan, timeline, and equipment list built specifically for your conference format. Not a template — a proposal for your event.
Venue walk-through
Lena confirms load-in logistics, kitchen access, floor plan, and dietary flow at your venue. This is where we solve problems before they are problems.
Event day
Team on-site from setup through service and cleanup. You focus on your guests. We handle everything else, quietly and thoroughly.
Lena responds personally, usually within the hour
Where We Serve
We serve the whole Bay Area — wherever your conference side event is.
We work at office venues, historic spaces, hotel ballrooms, and locations with no kitchen at all. Tell us your venue — Lena will confirm logistics personally.
High Touch carries full liability insurance and COI documentation for every event. We handle venue insurance requirements directly.
“I’ve worked with Lena for 2.5 years across multiple events for different clients, and I keep coming back to her for a reason. What sets Lena apart isn’t just her execution, it’s her instinct for what a production actually needs — including things you didn’t know to ask for. Seven hours into a long event, she’ll appear with a plate of food and a knowing smile. When a venue had no prep kitchen, she made it work out of a laundry closet. When a hot day caught us without enough water to drink, she had canned beverages in people’s hands before I’d even finished flagging the problem. She finds the way, every time. I’ve recommended Lena to others in my field without hesitation, and every single one of them has come back grateful.”
Danielle Cleaver — Production Partner & Repeat Client
Common Questions
Conference catering questions answered.
Still have questions? Lena responds personally within the hour.
Ready to Start?
Tell us about your conference event.
For major SF conference week side events, book 3–6 weeks ahead — peak weeks fill fast across all SF vendors. Lena responds personally, usually within the hour.