Hamby Catering Honored as 2020 Small Business Champion

Community Champions Awards

The Charleston Metro Chamber Community Champions Awards, presented by BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina, honors those businesses and individuals who made an impact in 2020.

Hamby Catering is being awarded with our Small Business Champion award, which recognizes an outstanding small business who has overcome adversity by implementing creative and innovative strategies.

It was 1979 when the husband & wife team of Fran & Tom Hamby helped two close friends plan their daughter’s wedding reception. The classically elegant wedding menu was prepared in the Hamby family kitchen and received high marks and positive “buzz” from many of Charleston’s leading residents. Steve Hamby, son to Fran & Tom, joined Hamby Catering in 1987 as production manager and never looked back. Word of mouth helped grow Fran’s Lowcountry home cooking into a full-fledged catering business, and success mandated the move into her first storefront in Charleston in 1988.

In 2011, Mrs. Hamby’s great nephew Wes Ellison took on an ownership & leadership role with the family business, and immediately set out to reinforce Hamby’s reputation as the premier full-service catering outfit in the Lowcountry.

The family-oriented culture has been crucial to the company’s success and time-treasured recipes. In 2017, after seven years with the company, Candice Wigfield stepped in to oversee all operations of Hamby with her father, Wayne Culbertson. This duo marks the second, multi-generational ownership for Hamby Catering, making sure that heart and tradition stay at the root of our service.

Today, Hamby has added new culinary, design and customer relations talent to its team, ultimately resulting in a more full-service, customizable approach for clients. Hamby Catering & Events is only as successful as its last event. Keeping this in mind, Hamby serves up each event with particular focus on providing guests with an extraordinary experience.

When everything shut down, Hamby suffered a huge loss in catering business. Through creativity and perseverance, they looked forward and found ways to not just keep their business running but to serve our community. They provided a convenient way to feed families with the expansion of their Market and were a true community leader by raising nearly $6,000 for our frontline healthcare workers through their partnership with Feeding Our Heroes SC. We will be recognizing Hamby Catering and other Community Champion Award recipients at our Leadership Circle Social in the Chamber Courtyard on April 22 at 4:30.