another food question... catering/ 1st bday party

Inviting 50 adults, 20 kids range .5-16 yo.

can adjust quantities later but we are thinking heros, some hot food, snacky stuff

party 1-4 PM on a sunday. not at our house, room to cook.

thoughts?

Meals:
Pasta ABCs OR mac & cheese
Meatballs (homemade)
chicken fingers (sams club)
Fries (sams club)
Chicken poblano firecrackers (sams club)
Mozzarella sticks (sams club)
Buffalo chicken rolls (sams club)
Pizza rolls (sams club)
Boneless wings (sams)
Hero +salads- 10ft approx
Regular salad (homemade)

Snacks:
Cheerios/ cereal station?
Fruit tray, veg tray (this will be themed colors)
Cheese cubes , crackers
Pretzels , cheese balls, chips

Drinks
Water
Whole milk
Sodas
Iced tea
Beer?
juice boxes

Re: another food question... catering/ 1st bday party

are you near a fairway? youre better off catering it through them. a lot of these items add up, especially for frozen stuff that u have to throw in the oven.


the heroes @ fairway also come wit a HUGE salad and 2 HUGE bowls of macaroni salad/ potato salad. . they have kid friendly stuff as well.

Re: another food question... catering/ 1st bday party

Re: another food question... catering/ 1st bday party

45 min is worth it. u place order over the phone and when u pick up, everything is already boxed up. 1000% better than going to costco and theres no labor involved lol

Re: another food question... catering/ 1st bday party

it may be easier to even do cold stuff like a hero and pasta salads and maybe just like chicken nuggets for the kids. unless there are a lot of ovens you are going to spend a ton of time in the kitchen heating everything up and its not all going to be hot at the same time.

Re: another food question... catering/ 1st bday party

another food question... catering/ 1st bday party

Yeah, that's a lot to heat. I'm in the minority but I'm not a fan of heroes. There is always something someone doesn't like on it. I usually do a sandwich/wrap platter so people can choose.

Re: another food question... catering/ 1st bday party

Agree that is a lot to heat up since you have so many people. I don't know how many ovens you will have at the location but it sounds like a nightmare. I would just cater everything, especially if you are not even having it at your house.

I am having a small bday party with 10 kids and plan to have a similar type menu. We have 2 ovens and can have 4 trays going at once. everything is at home and I can heat everything up at once in 30 min. Would not do it for more people.

Re: another food question... catering/ 1st bday party

we just had a party for 35 adults, 20 kids

we did 3 3-ft heros (american, italian, veggie)
2 BIG bowls of italian pasta salad
mini spinach pies

then we ordered pizza from a local place that delivered about 15 minutes before we were ready to eat
ordered 4 pies (cut into 16s - but both kids and adults had some)
4 dozen garlic knots

also purchased some pouches for the little kids in case they didnt want any food

we had tons of leftovers and we didnt need to worry about having anythign heated or with sternos (concern i had with toddlers running around)

another food question... catering/ 1st bday party

I had my son's first birthday with about 60 adults and 17 kids. I highly recommend getting it catered, because if I was trying to prepare food in addition to greeting people, clean up after people, keeping track of my son, helping everyone else's kids, ect., I think I would have lost my mind. As it was, the party flew by and my parents and in-laws did a ton of the work to make it happen.

At a minimum, I would recommend simplifying your menu. If you're buying enough of all those hot foods for everyone at the party of have at least a few, then you'll have to get a billion things. You don't want to run out of something, so it's better to have a lot of a few things than a few of a bunch of different things.

At our party, we did for snacks pretzels and chips when people arrived. Then for the meal, we did chicken wings from Costco, made the salad, and then ordered 2 trays of eggplant parm, 2 trays of meatballs, 2 trays of penne ala vodka, 2 trays of chicken francese, and 4 pizzas cut in 16ths for the kids. I'd says we could have done 2 less trays, but I'd rather have too much than run out (and we got a few dinners out of the leftovers).

For drinks, you know your crowd, but I was pretty shocked how much beer and wine we went through for a kids birthday party. I thought I was safe with 4 double bottles of wine, but my mother-in-law had to run out in the middle of the party to get another case of wine, and I think we only had two bottles left of that after the party. Admittedly, our party was on a Saturday, and our friends and family are drinkers.