Party for 100

The friendliest place on the web for anyone that enjoys cooking.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

LarryWolfe

Chef Extraordinaire
Joined
Jan 4, 2005
Messages
15,035
Location
Bealeton
I gotta Graduation Party for 100 people, I'm catering for a friend on the 10th of June. It's just pulled pork, slaw, macaroni salad and BBQ beans. I wanna make enough to serve GOOD sized sandwiches or plates per person. I've called around to alot of places around here to get ideas for amounts but they all seem waaaaay too small. The pork amount per sandwich was between 3-6oz with only one of them being 6oz. Their sides were 3oz. I know some people will eat more and some people will eat less. I'm guessing if I got a case of butts (8butts total) and they average 8lbs that's around 64lbs, I should end up with around 35-40lbs of finished product. So that would be enough for an 8oz serving for between 70-80 people. I realize that's a big serving, but I'd rather have too much than not enough. Everyone won't eat 8oz, so one case should be more than enough, right?

I need some help on the sides as well!!
 
I usually figure 1/2 lb raw per person.. which means 1/4 lb cooked per person. I would think a case would do ya.. unless maybe you are serving the football team.

I also always encourage 2 meats.. one being chicken.

Gary
 
an aluminum pan like you get at costco or sams is good for around 25 servings of sides. The big cans of Bush's beans about fills a pan and says its 24 servings.


Most important is the crowd? Is it all graduating kids, or are there
parents and smaller kids around? 18 years will eat like horses.

Also, you may find a lot of people not eating buns anymore. Atkins Diet, I guess. I always have way more buns, even hot dog buns, left over. You can freeze em, I'm sure you'll use em.
 
brian j said:
sorry. can't help you with the quanities you need to cook, but i can offer help when you cook it all up. i got 2 wsm's i can bring down. i can also try to get you the case of butts from my friend in woodstock. last time they were $1.10 per lb and they'll prob be about that this time. pm me if you're interested.

Brian I really appreciate the offer but I have two WSM's now and only need a lid and I'll have three. The two should be enough for the eight butts, plus I have a buddy that lives around the corner that has one as well that I could borrow if I need one. I got the case price from BJ's and they're $1.14lb, so we're pretty close in price. But if you wanna come over and cook up some grub and drink a few cold ones sometime we can do that too. I'm sure Bill and Gary would be up for another Wolfe Stock sometime too!

Gary in VA said:
I usually figure 1/2 lb raw per person.. which means 1/4 lb cooked per person. I would think a case would do ya.. unless maybe you are serving the football team.

I also always encourage 2 meats.. one being chicken.

Gary

I mentioned that to her Gary but she wanted to keep it simple. I'm only charging her $5 per person. Plus she's having a band and she said I can help myself to the kegs.
 
Larry: I figure 5 people per pound finished pulled pork and 4 people per pint on the mac. Never have run short. (yet) Id go with 6 people per pint on the slaw, and 5 people per pint on the beans. More folk will take beans and the mac. salad then slaw. That's the way it works around here any ways. Good Luck.
 
Cappy: It's the norm for me. All ya got to do at a cater is ask if they want sauce or slaw on a Sammy. Most of the time they will try the slaw and go nuts over it. Sauce is always on the side with me. Val makes a teriyaki sauce she mixes up with pulled pork and they go goofy for that. But that's okay, I get more yield per pound that way. :D
 
Larry, I think you are way too low for that. I dont even do a drop and go for less than $8 per person. Let me know if you want Petunia to cook the butts on.
 
Bill: I agree, That's way too low. I figured it out and with prices around here I would be at a loss. Pulled pork and 3 sides adds up to $ 9.50 to $ 9.75 per person. And I feel that's a damn good price. It's worthy of $ 10.00 to $ 10.75 a plate. But lets cut Larry some slack, After all he's trying to get it done. This may be a catering call he may never forget. I'm not trying to give you a hard time Larry, We all have short changed ourselves at one time or another. Just NEVER AGAIN! :eek:
 
I think you're close with the food amounts. I think around 6oz cooked per person is about right. That's 1.5 sandwiches per person, your price is low so I would keep the portions small. The sides amount to about 1 cup total per person. I'll search on The BBQ Forum for a great link on catering portions.

For me I would cook 12 butts with 7 packages of buns and a gallon of sauce. ( 16 per package, with the Atkins diet not everyone eats buns)

5 cans of beans #10 size cans
7 pounds each of mack and slaw

My price would probably be around $8 for this meal dropped off but I only added a little more meat and buns.

Rich Decker
 
Larry probably isn't doing this for a profit motive, but regardless, people never think about the fuel costs, the spices and sauces, the plates and napkins...all they say is 8 bucks a person? For a sandwich and beans?

I just lost a gig for 120 folks cause I charged 6 bucks a head. They said it was too much!!
 
Pigs On The Wing BBQ said:
$5.00 a head? Are you nuts? Your going to loose your ass. Guess your going to learn the hard way. :)

I'm not loosing anything, this is for a friend. Geez, everyones out just to make a buck! [-X I'm doing her a favor and I'll still make a couple bucks and drink free beer!
 
I think this is the best post I have ever read about catering quantities and pricing. This was posted on The BBQ Forum by Elizabeth Lumpkin of the Boss Hog"s fame.

Re: Catering question (9/18/1997 4:48:55 PM by Elizabeth)

Hi Shake, I've fed groups of 100-300 for a couple of years. Been doing it for money for a year now. Figure on 1/2 cup of beans and 1/2 cup of your second side per person. If you're doing 3 sides, figure on 1/3 cup per person per side. In other words, a total of 1 cup per person of sides. Figure one gallon of bbq sauce per hundred people. On meat, figure 3 oz. and one bun per person for a light meal, 4 oz. and 1 1/2 buns per person for a regular meal, 5 oz. and 2 buns per person for a heavy meal. If you're feeding just ribs for the meat, figure 1/3 to 1/2 slab per person (that's for REALLY meaty ribs, like a top quality 1.75-2.0 lb. babyback, more if you're using a less meaty rib). If it's ribs in combo with other meats, figure 1/4 slab per person and 3 oz. sliced meats and one bun per person. The size of the plates you use will definitely affect how much people will eat. We use a 7 1/2 inch plate for light meals, a 9 inch plate for medium meals, and a 10 1/4 inch plate for heavy meals. Put your side dishes at the beginning of the buffet line, your buns and sliced meats in the middle. Put your ribs at the end of the buffet line. This keeps those retired football player types from coming through the line and taking a whole slab of ribs which would cause you to run out before everyone gets a chance to eat. We have our servers say "Brisket ma'am?" and "Baked Beans sir?" to make sure we don't load up someone with something they don't like. With ribs we say "Do you care for ribs?" Depending on the enthusiasm expressed for ribs, we will put 1 or 2 on the plate. If they are wildly enthusiastic about ribs, we put 3 on their plate. We always say "come back for more, there's plenty!" To figure out how much to charge, take your raw food costs and multiply by 4. That will cover your labor, your overhead, your utilities, your wood, your charcoal, your insurance, soap for the dishes, etc., and leave you with a 10-18% profit margin, depending on how carefully you manage your labor force and your other resources. Best advice for feeding the public is to never ever reduce the quality of your product. Let some other guy try to be the cheapest caterer in town: your reputation should be for the best food. I believe all of us who make honest traditional REAL barbeque cooked over wood/charcoal have a duty to be barbeque evangelists and spread the word about what barbeque SHOULD taste like. I hope it changes consumer expectations so that fake barbeque goes the way of the Edsel. But don't kill yourself trying to do competition level barbeque in volume either...it isn't possible. Just make it delicious and wonderful and know the limitations of volume Q. And have fun with it...if you're not enjoying yourself it's not worth doing.
 
Captain Morgan said:
I charge 6 just for hot dogs and hamburgers.

Bill The Grill Guy said:
Larry, I think you are way too low for that. I dont even do a drop and go for less than $8 per person. Let me know if you want Petunia to cook the butts on.

Pigs On The Wing BBQ said:
$5.00 a head? Are you nuts? Your going to loose your ass. Guess your going to learn the hard way. :)

Did you guys read the "friend" part? I'm not trying to make money but I'm helping a friend and I'll still make more than enough to cover my cost and time for this job to satisfy me.

I gotta Graduation Party for 100 people, I'm catering for a friend on the 10th of June. It's just pulled pork, slaw, macaroni salad and BBQ beans. I wanna make enough to serve GOOD sized sandwiches or plates per person. I've called around to alot of places around here to get ideas for amounts but they all seem waaaaay too small. The pork amount per sandwich was between 3-6oz with only one of them being 6oz. Their sides were 3oz. I know some people will eat more and some people will eat less. I'm guessing if I got a case of butts (8butts total) and they average 8lbs that's around 64lbs, I should end up with around 35-40lbs of finished product. So that would be enough for an 8oz serving for between 70-80 people. I realize that's a big serving, but I'd rather have too much than not enough. Everyone won't eat 8oz, so one case should be more than enough, right?

I need some help on the sides as well!!
 

Latest posts

Back
Top Bottom