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How far will you drive? Put it on the website
Two questions are in every enquiry before any food is discussed: can you do the date, and will you come to this address. Both are answerable instantly, and most catering websites answer neither.
The address question is the more annoying of the two, because it is the one where a "no" arrives late. Somebody spends twenty minutes choosing a menu, sends an enquiry, and finds out the following morning that you do not go that far. Nobody enjoys that exchange and it happens constantly.
Two ways to draw the boundary
Zones. Named areas with their own delivery charge and their own minimum. "Downtown, $45, minimum $300. North county, $85, minimum $600." Easy to explain, easy to price, and it matches how you actually think about your city.
A radius with a per-mile charge beyond it. Free or fixed within twenty-five miles, then a rate per mile after that. Suits mobile operations, where the miles genuinely are the cost.
Most kitchens use one or the other. A few use both — zones close in, per-mile for the long jobs — and there is nothing wrong with that as long as only one of them applies to any given address.
The minimum rises with the distance, and it should
An hour on the road each way is worth it for a two-thousand-dollar job and not for a three-hundred-dollar one. Setting a single minimum for the whole map means it is either too high for your own neighbourhood or too low for the far edge of it. Per-zone minimums are the fix, and they are the reason zones tend to beat a single radius once a business grows.
Say no clearly, and say it early
An address outside every zone should produce a plain sentence on the spot: we do not deliver there. Not a silent failure, not an enquiry that goes unanswered for a day. If you are willing to consider it for a large enough job, say that instead — "outside our usual area; get in touch for events over $2,000" is a much better answer than either yes or no, and it costs you nothing.
The pickup option people forget
A surprising share of enquiries would happily collect, particularly for trays and desserts, and are never offered the chance because the site assumes delivery. It costs nothing to offer and it converts the orders that fall below your delivery minimum.
What this means for your website
Zones with their own charge and their own minimum, or a per-mile rate past a radius you set, or both. An address outside every zone is told so immediately, in a sentence you write.
Pickup is a separate option with its own rules, because it is not delivery with the fee removed.