Team Dinner

Boys in that age group EAT! And eat a lot. What ever you plan, double it. There is a bit of “tongue in cheek “ in my response, but a lot of truth.

Much of this depends on portion control, and it's sometimes helpful to think about these servings in terms of ounces (that translates to how much raw meat you'll need).

If you're serving 4oz servings of pulled pork for 60 servings, that's 240oz of meat.. divided by 16oz/lb is 15lb of cooked meat. One usually can count on about 50% yield of cooked meat for pork shoulder/picnic cooks. That means you'll need about 30lb of uncooked pork.

Sometimes I get closer to 60%, but I'd rather have some buffer "for mom and the kids."

I've not served ribs on a large scale, but I guarantee there's someone around who has.

For 30 people

20lbs of raw pork
6 slabs of ribs (tell them 2 bone max first passthrough buffet)
1 full hotel pan of mac n cheese (double if no other sides)
4-5lbs of cut up fruit (double if so other sides will be served)

When I first started catering I would have thought a young group of guys like this would eat way more food than other groups. 13 years of catering has actually taught me this isn't true. I've fed everything from high school football teams to college basketball teams where everyone eating was 6'8" and 20 ish years old and they do not eat any more overall than any other group. I'm sure there may be exceptions, but this has been my experience. If you are worried, throw an extra butt and a rack or two of ribs on the cooker.