Catering for 330-sides question need help

Here is what we do with our large events.

1) Give the customer our menu (w/qty & prices). If they ask for "suggestions/advice", on qty, we freely give it to them. Then we ask, "How much of each would you like to order?"

2) If you normally get 20 - 4 oz servings from a full size pan, and a 4 oz size is what they ordered, then your number of pans calculation is close (it is actually 16.5 pans of each). (unless you choose to use Common Core math for your calculations :mrgreen 330 is a lot of people to feed. We would "suggest/advise" the 4 oz serving size to the customer since that is a very nice helping of each. Of course we would also inform them that this does not allow for some people "loading up" so they might want to buffer their order up some to allow for that. Be sure to have the customer make the decision on "how much" they are ordering and be sure it is plainly laid out in your contract. (you do use contracts don't you? :wink

3) If you do not have, or have access to, the required equipment to transport and deliver the food at food-safe temps then the cost of you renting the proper equipment is an extra fee that you will pass on to the customer for this event. We usually add such items in along with our vehicle fuel, etc as "delivery costs". This cost is NOT an overhead cost figured into the "costs x 3" formula if you are using it. This is an actual separate cost specific to this event.

Hdhillin said:

I doctor up the beans and usually get 20 servings per full size aluminum pan. That would be 16 pans of baked beans and 16 pans of slaw! That in this case seems like a lot. I need help on figuring the amount of sides please. I am running into how to transport so many pans of food and keep it all warm/cold.

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You mean half pans? Your numbers are way off for full size pans. As you can get 50 servings of beans easy in a full foil pan (Sam's Club) and fit 4 pans in a front load hot box. By my figures you would need a little shy of 7 pans of slaw and beans each not 16 pans of each.

No problem, if you are still running short on hot box room maybe you can leave the butts whole and keep them in a cooler and hand pull them into pans on site. Just a thought if you are tight on room still. You can get a lot of butts in a few big coolers if you have to that is.