Sense check - venue hire for birthday party

[DisgruntledPelican]

Just after a bit of comparative chat as I’ve never looked for something like this before.

Looking for somewhere local to host a casual birthday gathering on a Sunday afternoon. I’d be happy with reserving some tables but one of my favourite places has a selection of smaller function spaces so I enquired about one that holds up to 30 guests.

They want £650, of which £100 is for the space and £550 is for pre-paid food and drinks.

This seems quite high for the food - anyone who has booked something similar recently want to judge? Happy to be told otherwise!

Venue is a brewery/beer garden on the outskirts of a large town.

Unless I've misread that's only about £20 per person for food and drink. That seems extremely reasonable to me.

Depends how much food and drink it covers. If say reasonable

It's around £20 per person which is very reasonable for food and drinks for peak time on a Sunday.
It sounds a lot to be paid in one go but when broken down, you'd easily meet that spend collectively.

That's very reasonable works out at just over £18 a head for food and drinks. You would pay that for a burger in a lot of places.

What does it cover? Will 30 people actually attend?

I think it would totally depend what's included. Is that a welcome drink and some crisps and olives on tables? Or 2 hours of drinks and a hot meal?

If it's a proper meal and alcohol for 30 then yes that's reasonable. A few crisps and sausage rolls no!

We've just been scouting locations for a big birthday, and for more people (approx 50-80), ruled out anywhere that had room hire, but minimum spend ranged between £750-£6k (this was for a Saturday evening). It's up to you how much of that you put up and how much you're expecting people to spend while you're there, surely?