High School Graduation Party

watertowerbbq · May 12, 2010

A co-worker's daughter is having a party on Saturday. He is expecting 75 people at the party and asked how much food I thought he needed.

I explained that with 4oz sandwhichs (pulled pork), he was going to need about 20 lbs of cooked meat (actually 18.75 lbs).

He is also serving chips, cole slaw and potato salad.

I was thinking of helping him make the slaw and doctor up some Reser's Red Potato salad. I was thinking that you can buy 3 lbs bags of cole slaw cabbage at Sam's. I was thinking that 2 of those bags (6 lbs total) would fill a full pan. I was also thinking that 2 - 4 lb containers of potato salad would also fill a full pan.

Two full pans of cole slaw and and two full pans of potato salad sounds close but I was looking for some confirmation if he will have enough or if we need to make more.

I picked up a 3.25 oz ice cream scoop at Sam's and that looked like a good portion.

2 * 6 lbs of cole slaw * 16 oz per lb / 3.25 oz = 59 servings
2 * 8 lbs of potato salad * 16 oz per lb / 3.25 oz = 79 servings

Now I figure that not everyone will take that much of each. Could I get buy with 1.5 full pans?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

txschutte · May 12, 2010

Matt, with the cost difference between 1.5 pans to 2 being next to nil, I'd go with 2.

When in doubt......

watertowerbbq · May 12, 2010

txschutte said:
Matt, with the cost difference between 1.5 pans to 2 being next to nil, I'd go with 2.

When in doubt......

good point. do the quantities sound right to you?

PCDoctor_1979 · May 13, 2010

Don't confuse the fluid ounce that the spoon measures with the weight ounce that your product is measured by. A full sized, full depth steam table pan holds two gallons when filled to the very top. That's 256 fluid ounces. So if you divide that by the 3.25 ounces in the scoop, you have about 78 scoops of product per full pan. Generally you don't need the same amount of food per person at a grad party like you do at a sit down dinner. Guests are dropping in and sometimes have multiple parties to attend that day so they don't eat as much, if any. I've advised some of my customers to use slider sized buns and purchase about 1/2 the cooked meat in these cases.

BBQ_Mayor · May 13, 2010

Those are the numbers I come up with. Like Brian said, if there are multiple partys, he may want to cut back a little bit.
Also, my numbers didn't include the chips as a 3 side, which could be the case. That would reduce your coleslaw and potato salad by about a 1/3.
But it's better to be safe than sorry.

HBMTN · May 13, 2010

I have been making coles slaw for vending and using 5# bags fron Sysco, 2 5# bags will make 2 gallons of slaw in a Cambro container. That is about 64 4oz servings. That is using the large long cut cabbage. Not sure how the fine cut would turn out.

High School Graduation Party

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