Where do restuarant owners or caterers buy their wholesale produce in Orange County Ca.?

I am starting a catering business and wanted to know where I could buy my produce at the best price. I would also like to know where to get fish, meat and dry goods.Where do restuarant owners or caterers buy their wholesale produce in Orange County Ca.?
For produce, even though it is a drive, go to the LA Wholesale Produce Market in Los Angeles. It's kind of hit and miss at first when you up there from the OC. There are many many wholesalers there. It's pretty spread out off of Olympic and west of Alameda. Everything is by the case or box and there's negotiating for anything less. Best time to go is in the early morning around 4:00 AM but you can be there a bit later. No matter what type of produce you are looking for it can be found here. Helps if you can speak a little Spanish but most everyone understands English.



I used to go there as a kid with my dad who owned three restaurants in the San Fernando Valley and we would buy probably 20 boxes of veggies each time. What you'll find is that depending on who you are dealing with there are wholesale prices to bigger buyers and smaller buyers even though they tout themselves as wholesale. So volume matters and so does return business. After a while you cut through the bullshit and get to the bottom-line price. Also you don't get stuck with some of the older produce that they are trying to move.



For seafood there are also several places down Alameda that my dad used to buy from but I think over the years that may have changed but most of the seafood we bought was delivered and business was done over the phone. I know there is a lot of dominance anymore and competitive pricing from the Chinese, Vietnamese and Asian seafood wholesalers these days.



For meats we went down to Vernon where there used to be quite a few meat packers. I really don't know what that's like now. But after we established some relationships with various meat packers/wholesalers for chicken, pork and beef most of the business was handled over the phone as well. There were also Halal and Kosher meat packers there as well - we used to buy lamb from the Halal guys because lamb is a staple in the Middle East diet and it was the best quality and the pricing was the best too.Where do restuarant owners or caterers buy their wholesale produce in Orange County Ca.?
All produce is cali is run by one outfit so it really makes no difference where you go.