In Reply to: Catering question posted by Shake on September 18, 1997 at
12:45:19:

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.



