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First time catering help

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Countryboyswagger

Knows what a fatty is.
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So my friend and his fiance asked if I would cater their wedding reception/backyard party for them in a couple of weeks. They asked for pulled pork and grilled chicken. I'm not much worried about getting the food cooked-it's more that I'm not sure how much I should need.

I've read in here a few times about how to figure the amount of meat served vs how many meats and whatever. My question becomes how should I count the chicken? Should it be by the pound or by the piece? I was planning on just buying whole cut up chickens to lessen my workload and also because I am terrible at cutting up chicken. It'll give the all white vs all dark crowd some choice too. There's going be coleslaw, baked beans, mac and cheese and potato salad to go with it all.


They've got about 125 RSVP so far, and I think it'll stay about that. Mixed between old/young and maybe 15 - 20 kids.

I was planning on about 40 lbs of pork and maybe the equal amount of chicken if we go by pounds? I'm thinking each chicken might weigh 4 pounds or so so ten whole chickens would be equal the amount of pork, or about 80 pieces of chicken? Maybe toss in a few extra legs for the kids. Should be fair right? Am I doing this right?

Thanks guys. They really threw me a curve ball when they started changing it up. Making my first catering gig a challenge!
 
Your plan sounds good, I would maybe cut the breasts into two pieces maybe even thirds that way someone who has pork and wants a little white chicken meat won't take a whole breast plus it will raise your pc count. You might want go heavy on amounts I've seen people load it on a plate.
 
+1 ^what he said. The fact that they want grilled chicken will make it easier to roll with your plan of using cut up birds. I have been recommending to customers something like 1/2 lb. per head per meat.. plus sides and rolls etc.
 
I will definitely cut the breasts up. I didn't think of that so thanks for that advice. Make it look like a lot more chicken so that will help.

So, you're saying go heavy on the meat? How heavy are we talking? Count it as .5lbs of each meat per person? There will be alcohol probably also, if that makes much difference.

If I need to go up that much it looks like I'm building a third smoker for this.
 
I am not that precise. I know alot of folks are but I just figure .5 per person but I want to leave the amount of each up to the customer. I advise them to buy more than less. I sell 1/4 half and whole chickens by the lb. I have a digital scale and labels etc. you don't mention if your customer want equal amounts of each meat. The breast I get are approx 1/2 lb (sorry my last post was worded a bit wrong...not each meat.) so cut in half they might be .25 lb.
IF its half and half I think your probably pretty close with your amount. .5 lb for .125 people is 62.5 lbs plus ~20lbs more for those with big appetites/eyes and you end up with ~80lbs which is what you are planning. prob pretty good range I would think.
 
When you guys make sides, (I'll have 4 total) How many oz's do you give for that. Am I off by going with 3-4oz each?

Thanks so much guys. I was a little anxious about my quantities but I think I'll have it nailed down now thanks to yall.
 
Yeah it's basically going to be a buffet style free for all. I was planning on buying like a x-amount scooper so that people might feel bad about piling half a pound of mac and cheese on their plate. There will be 4 total sides though, and two meats.
 
if it was me, I would do 50 to 60 chicken 1/2 then qtr them...and about 25 to 30 pounds cooked pulled pork, get about 150 smaller rolls, this way used for samies or just a roll
 
Countryboyswagger said:
When you guys make sides, (I'll have 4 total) How many oz's do you give for that. Am I off by going with 3-4oz each?

Thanks so much guys. I was a little anxious about my quantities but I think I'll have it nailed down now thanks to yall.
Click to expand...

I figure 1 Gallon of (beans, slaw, pot sal) for 25-30 people---> 128 oz/27.5=4.6 oz. per head and yes I know that conversion is for liquid but its been close enough....thats how I do it anyway.
 
39lbs cooked pork, 16 whole chickens, 3 gallons cole slaw, 2 full pans of beans made from 4 10# cans doctored up w/onions+peppers etc, 3 full pans mac n cheese, 3.25 gallons potato salad, 1 gallon of bbq sauce and 12dz buns. I'd place the food on the buffet in the following order buns- pork - sauce - chicken - beans - potato salad - cole slaw - mac n cheese You want them to have a fairly full plate of food by the them they get to mac and cheese else I've seem them fill 3/4 of a plate with it. Other factors to consider - use small plates I like the 8 3/4" Chinette plates and small serving spoons. Large plates and large serving spoons will have hungry people filling huge plates with way more than they will ever eat. With the small plate most will find they are full after the first plate and much less will go in the trash. A few will come back for seconds but you will be good. If you are serving for more than two hours you may have to increase these amounts some. Oh and buns no larger than 4"
 
HBMTN said:
Large plates and large serving spoons will have hungry people filling huge plates with way more than they will ever eat."
Click to expand...

+1 on that...

HBMTN, just curious how you calculate your meats for the 125 head count...whats your formula?
 
tuPatrón said:
+1 on that...

HBMTN, just curious how you calculate your meats for the 125 head count...whats your formula?
Click to expand...

I figure 5oz pork per person and 1 pc of chicken. I usually do legs and thighs only, but I figured this example above people wise 2 legs, 2 thighs, 4 breasts (as I would cut each in half) and 1 on the wings so a chicken as a 2nd meat to pork will feed 9 people and 16 chickens will feed 144pc give or take. Now this is what I see from my experience of what I see. If you are in chicken country you may drop the pork numbers and raise the chicken. Or if I was doing chicken only those figures would be way off. With legs and thighs as a second meat if I'm feeding 100 people I'll do like 35 thighs and 50 legs and will always have a few left over.
 
I agree with HBMTN, the only thing that I would be concerned about is cutting the breasts in half - you gonna do that before cooking or after? after sucks, it's all hot, you loose a big part of your juices and you murder the skin, not to mention that if you're running behind on service time, it really screws things up if you have to cut up breasts - If it was me I'd consider parting out that breast before cooking...
 
KnucklHed BBQ said:
I agree with HBMTN, the only thing that I would be concerned about is cutting the breasts in half - you gonna do that before cooking or after? after sucks, it's all hot, you loose a big part of your juices and you murder the skin, not to mention that if you're running behind on service time, it really screws things up if you have to cut up breasts - If it was me I'd consider parting out that breast before cooking...
Click to expand...

Plus they are less forgiving if you slightly overcook and have to hot hold several hours, etc which is why I like doing legs and thighs.
 
I'd place the food on the buffet in the following order buns- pork - sauce - chicken - beans - potato salad - cole slaw - mac n cheese You want them to have a fairly full plate of food by the them they get to mac and cheese else I've seem them fill 3/4 of a plate with it. Other factors to consider - use small plates I like the 8 3/4" Chinette plates and small serving spoons. Large plates and large serving spoons will have hungry people filling huge plates with way more than they will ever eat
Click to expand...

I like your ideas. Good luck this year.
 
Guys sorry I haven't responded sooner. I've been pretty busy getting things ready for this weekend. This will be my first real gig as a caterer and yall have certainly helped me a ton. Thanks so much for the suggestions, especially for the order of food on the buffet and the small plates and the chicken portions and cutting the breasts and basically every single post here as been a huge help. Some of it is so simple and brilliant I'm a little miffed that it never even crossed my mind but I guess that kind of stuff comes with experience and I have zero of that. It's why I came here. I knew you guys could sort me out.

Thanks again guys.
 
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