How Much Food do I Need to Order for my Party?
Contact us to begin planning your event: https://saddlebackbbq.tripleseat.com/party_request/16389
When hosting a party deciding how much food to order can be stressful. Operating two restaurants and catering thousands of weddings, graduation parties, and business events makes us fairly confident when it comes to estimating how much food a gathering will need.
We follow fairly simple rules of thumb:
For proteins: 1/3lb of meat per person
For sides: 1/2lb per person
If you would like to have multiple sides, aim to have have 1/2lb/person total, not of each side (for example, 100 person event would need 30lbs of Mac & Cheese and 20lbs of Baked Beans. NOT 50lbs of Mac & Cheese AND 50 lbs of Baked Beans).
Keep in mind how popular an item is, we always know to have more Mac & Cheese than any other side because it's so popular. We typically like to have about 60-70% of the total amounts of sides to be the most popular item.
When estimating how much food to order having a good idea of how many children will be attending is always smart. If they are a younger child (ie. 13 or younger), we estimate they will eat half as much.
Sauce - we plan on 1oz of sauce per person
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What it looks like when put all together!
Example order: 120 people attending, 20 of whom are children.
Meats
Pulled pork - 17lbs
Brisket - 18lbs
Sides
Mac & Cheese - 25lbs
Baked Beans - 18lbs
Potato Salad -10lbs
Sauce - 10 twelve oz. bottles
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Tips!
Plate Size - If you're terrified of running out of food, consider the size of the plate. The smaller the plate the less food people take, this helps ensure everyone will get at least one serving.
Order of the Items - Often times the most popular items will be taken in bulk, this means there's a chance not everyone gets to try the best items. To alleviate this, we have found that placing the most popular items last makes sure people load up on the other items first, meaning there isn't enough room on their plate to take copious amounts of the popular food.
Contact us to begin planning your event: https://saddlebackbbq.tripleseat.com/party_request/16389