Houstons Trail's End, Inc.

Houstons Trail's End, Inc., doing business as Houston's Catering, Inc., operates as a prime contractor delivering mobile food service and catering support to the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service for wildland fire suppression, all-hazard incident response, and emergency operations across the western United States. The company is a small business Subchapter S corporation based in Kanab, Utah, competing on Total Small Business set-asides and full-and-open delivery orders, with 100% of recent awards held as prime contracts.

The vendor's federal footprint concentrates almost entirely on the Department of Agriculture. The National Interagency Fire Center anchors the customer base with 18 awards carrying $59 million in combined potential value, while the broader Forest Service organization accounts for 11 additional awards worth $18.6 million. The Forest Service R6 Pacific Northwest Region, R4 Intermountain Region, and R3 Southwestern Region collectively bring 25 awards totaling $8.6 million. These five customer entities account for 98% of the combined potential value across all awards. The vendor has touched ten distinct agencies; the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission appears in the award count (11 awards) but carries no stated dollar values in the source.

Houstons Trail's End holds two active parent vehicles. The Forest Service National Mobile Food Service Unit 2025–2029 Indefinite Delivery Contract, awarded July 1, 2025, carries a $15 million ceiling with a Total Small Business set-aside and runs through December 31, 2029 with four one-year renewal options. As of late August 2025, six task orders totaling $4.9 million in combined potential value had been issued under this vehicle, with performance locations spanning Cedar City and Monroe, Utah; Taos, New Mexico; Worland, Wyoming; and Grand Canyon Village, Arizona. The predecessor vehicle, Indefinite Delivery Contract 12024B20T2510, generated 28 task orders worth $12.8 million in combined potential value. Representative delivery orders include a $1.66 million fixed-price order with economic price adjustment issued August 31, 2025, for Grand Canyon Village food service support; a $1.28 million order issued July 17, 2025, for Intermountain Region operations; and a $426 thousand order issued August 17, 2025, for Worland, Wyoming incident support. The vendor also operates under Blanket Purchase Agreement INP12PA65013 and other regional Forest Service IDIQs with smaller award streams.

Activity trajectory shows moderate volatility rather than sustained growth: the vendor received 3 awards in 2022, jumped to 12 in 2023, dropped to 7 in 2024, remained flat at 7 in 2025, and has received 2 awards through mid-2026. Combined potential value across all 97 awards (prime only) stands at $88.1 million, with $61 million obligated to date. The primary exposure window involves the original mobile food service IDIQ (12024B20T2510) and multiple regional task orders completing through December 31, 2024 and beyond; recompete timing is not explicitly stated in the source, but task orders under the 2025–2029 vehicle extend performance through 2025 or later.

On Service Contract Inventory-reportable prime contracts, the vendor invoiced $12 million across FY2022–FY2024, delivering approximately 6.6 to 7.9 FTEs per fiscal year. SCI-reported government-paid hourly rates ran a median of $278.11/hr, with the 10th percentile at $231.82/hr and the 90th percentile at $314.81/hr. The vendor performs 100% of its SCI-reportable contract hours in-house with no named subcontractor engagement. Capability framing across the award portfolio centers on mobile catering operations (55 awards under Food Service Contractors NAICS), mobile food services (9 awards), and support activities for forestry (7 awards), with PSC classification dominated by Natural Resources/Conservation–Forest-Range Fire Suppression/Presuppression (56 awards) and Housekeeping–Food (18 awards). Concrete service scope includes hot and cold meal preparation, sack lunches, supplemental food items, and full mobile food service unit deployment at incident command sites in both urban and remote primitive locations, with price structures using fixed-price pricing with economic price adjustment provisions.

Capable of feeding large groups in remote locations for extended periods of time.