Cooking for a fundraiser...any idea on how much?

So the guys at the firehouse nominated me to do the cooking for a fundraiser they are running end of January.

The theme is that it'll be $30/person and you get to eat and drink all you want. Cocktail waitresses, televised sporting events, card games, etc. Basically it's a giant guys night out.

Anyway, they know I dabble in BBQ and even compete sometimes so they chose me. I want to live up to the expectations but I've never cooked for a large crowd before.

Brisket or pulle dpork seems like a no brainer. Ribs are my specialty so I'd like to have that in the mix. My buddy and I have been dying to try a beef clod but never could justify the expense because we never had enough mouths to feed. This might be a good chance to try that.
Factor in assorted sides and I really have no idea how much I need to buy. The guy running it asked if $300 would cover the costs. I said I thought it might but I really have no idea.

Can anyone give me an idea on how much I should be buying, what it would cost, and what I might be forgetting about?

Oh yeah...50 people was what we were thinking.

The beer is all being donated.

The food and the waitresses are the only real costs we're banking on at the moment.

BBQ Grail said:

How many people?

All you can eat and drink for $30.00. Unless EVERYTHING is donated and I mean EVERYTHING right down to the plastic silverware I can't see how you can make any money.

I don't drink alcohol and I could eat enough BBQ and drink enough soda to make you loose money on my $30.00 Is there another money making aspect to this?

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maybe we shouldn't bill it as "all you can eat" ?

We were just going to put food out and let people have at it. In case of emergency we could order pizzas later in the night but I guess I'd like to avoid that. We aren't looking to challenge anyone's eating capacity so words like all you can eat are probably best avoided! ;-)

BBQ Grail said:

If you have to order pizza you will lose money.

And the first thing you need to do is look at liability insurance for an "all you can drink" event...

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hopefully as a result of this thread I'll have a good idea of what kind/amount of food I'll need to buy/cook so we won't need to resort to the pizza.

Regarding the insurance...I'll let someone else worry about that. I'm just trying to focus on cooking. I know they have events all the time where they serve beer so they may already have something in place for that for all I know.

As much fun as this sounds, you need to be careful. Liability insurance is a must and a special event liquor license may also be in order. You may want to change the format to be something like you get three drink tickets included in the $30 and additional tickets are available for $X each. If ribs are in the mix, there needs to be a limit on them, as well. 50 racks of ribs will exceed your budget right there. I think you should be thinking about a bare minimum of one pound of finished product per person. A hundred or so pounds of raw butts and brisket, rubs, charcoal and other supplies will likely put you well past the budget as well. Proceed with extreme caution and best of luck!