Niamh Ó Súilleabháin
Trained in Dublin and Toulouse, ran hotel banquets for eleven years before setting up the company. Writes every wedding menu herself and still works the pass on big events.
About Getbonuswinner
Eighteen years of cooking for the people of Tropical North Queensland
We are a Cairns catering business built by chefs, run by chefs and kept honest by the clients who keep coming back. What started as two friends grumbling about lukewarm banquet food has turned into a permanent brigade of twelve, a kitchen on the Esplanade and a stack of weddings, conferences and long-table dinners we are genuinely proud of.
A few quick facts
Our story
It started with a bowl of cold soup in a hotel ballroom
In 2007 two hotel chefs, both working the banquet circuit in Cairns, got handed a tray of lukewarm pumpkin soup at a function for two hundred people. They looked at it, looked at each other, and decided they were done watching good events get ruined by food that had been cooked four hours earlier and held under a lamp. Three months later they rented a small commercial kitchen in Westcourt and started taking bookings from friends.
The early jobs were not glamorous. Twenty-person birthdays, a few office lunches, one memorable anniversary dinner where the venue lost power and everything had to be finished on a borrowed barbecue. But word travelled, and the thing clients kept mentioning was not the fancy garnish. It was that the food actually tasted like it was made by people who cared, and that it turned up when it said it would.
By 2014 we had enough bookings to move into a proper kitchen and hire a permanent crew. By 2019 we were working the Esplanade full time. Today we are still a small business by choice, because the moment we start scaling past the point where a chef knows every client's name, we stop being the company we set out to be.
What we stand for
Philosophy, in four parts
The things we will not compromise on, no matter how big the event is or how generous the budget.
Produce before technique
A great chef can turn good produce into something memorable. Nobody can turn tired produce into anything worth eating. We buy from growers we know and cook around the calendar, not the other way round.
Honest quotes, always
Every quote is a single number on a single page, itemised line by line. If we cannot do something you have asked for, we say so on the day of the enquiry rather than two days before the event.
Service nobody notices
Front of house should be felt, not seen. Plates land without clatter, glasses refill without being chased and the room feels looked after rather than interfered with.
Leave the place better
We compost and recycle what we can, avoid single-use plastics where practical, and clear every tray, bag and offcut before we drive away. Venues notice, and so do the people who clean up after us.
Our kitchen
A commercial kitchen built for events, not restaurants
Our Esplanade kitchen was designed for catering, which sounds obvious until you have watched a restaurant kitchen try to produce four hundred identical plates at once. Everything is laid out for batches, temperature holds, platter assembly and cold-chain transport.
We run two cold rooms, a dedicated pastry bench, a charcoal grill for the shared-table feasts and a small tasting room where clients sit down and eat before they commit to anything. Thematic week, we probably cook more individual meals than any restaurant in Cairns.
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Maximum guests we can serve in a single seated service
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Earliest morning our prep kitchen switches on
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Average round trip for a Cairns-area delivery
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Of produce sourced within two hundred kilometres
The team
Who you will actually meet
No call centre, no outsourced sales team. Every enquiry is answered by someone who works in this kitchen.
Tobias Renshaw-Kelly
Former logistics manager for a freight company, which explains why our delivery windows are so tight. Handles every recurring office account and drinks too much coffee for one man.
Marisol Veracruz
Ran her own patisserie in Valencia for eight years before moving to Cairns. Responsible for every dessert table, wedding cake alternative and petit four that leaves this kitchen.
Winton Barraclough
Grew up on a cattle station near Mareeba and knows every cut of beef in the region. Runs the charcoal grill at long-table feasts and will happily talk to you for hours about fat rendering.
Milestones
Small steps, taken consistently
We have never chased a big exit or a franchise deal. What we have done is keep our heads down, cook properly and let the work accumulate. Here are the moments that actually mattered.
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2007 — the first kitchen
Two chefs, one rent-free commercial space in Westcourt and a promise to never serve anything they would not happily eat themselves.
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2011 — first full-time hire
A pastry chef who is still with us today, and the start of a crew that has grown slowly and deliberately since.
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2014 — Cairns Esplanade kitchen
Moving into a purpose-built catering kitchen let us take on larger events without cutting any corners on the food.
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2019 — first regional catering award
Recognition from the Tropical North Queensland hospitality industry, followed by three more awards since.
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2022 — corporate division launch
A dedicated account team and early-morning kitchen shift to serve the offices, councils and conferences of Cairns CBD.
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2024 — tasting room opened
A proper sit-down space next to the kitchen where couples and clients can taste before they commit to anything.
Portfolio
Some of the events we are proudest of
A cross-section of jobs from the last few years, chosen because they were tricky in one way or another and came out the other side.
Why clients stay
The unglamorous reasons people keep booking us back
It is rarely the food alone that keeps someone loyal to a caterer. It is the boring stuff: remembering that a director is coeliac, sending the invoice on time, not making the client chase anything. We have built our reputation on that, more than on any particular dish.
- Every client gets a named contact, not a shared inbox
- Dietary requirements handled as first-class, not as an inconvenience
- Quotes itemised so you can trim without guesswork
- Clear-down done properly, every single time
We have used Getbonuswinner for four annual awards dinners. Every year, no fuss. The venue manager now asks for their name specifically.
Regional business chamber
They remembered our youngest is allergic to sesame. That is the kind of thing you do not forget when a caterer cares about their work.
Private anniversary dinner
What we do
Two specialities, both taken seriously
We deliberately focus on weddings and corporate events, because a business that tries to do everything ends up doing nothing properly.
Wedding Catering
Beach ceremonies, long-table feasts, formal dinners. Menus written to order, free tasting in our kitchen and service that lets your day run without you ever thinking about us.
Learn about wedding catering
Corporate Event Catering
Board lunches, conference days, product launches and staff parties with fixed quotes, early-morning delivery slots and dietary coverage as standard across Cairns CBD and beyond.
Learn about corporate catering
From our journal
Things we have written down so you do not have to figure them out yourself
How to Choose a Caterer in Cairns Without Losing Your Mind
What to ask, what to taste and what to ignore when you are shopping around for a catering team. Written by someone who has seen all the mistakes.
Read the article
Tropical Event Menus That Actually Work in Far North Queensland
Why heavy European menus struggle in Cairns humidity, and what to serve instead without losing any sense of occasion.
Read the article
Get in touch
Come and see the kitchen, meet the team, taste the food
We are not a faceless operation. Ring us, email us or drop in and we will happily talk through your event over an espresso. If we are not the right fit for what you have in mind, we will say so, straight up.