Does this sound like an okay party spread?

[bdaypartyfood]

Currently planning a surprise 30th birthday for my partner and catering it ourselves. It’s a family party so a mix of ages and some children there! Probably about 60-70 people coming.

I’ve never really done a buffet before but my current plan is this:

Ham sandwiches (1x platter)
Cheese sandwiches (1x platter)
Egg mayo sandwiches (1/2 platter)
Tuna sandwiches (1/2 platter)

Cherry Tomatoes (500g bag)
Celery
Carrots (1kg bag cut into sticks)
Cucumber (2 whole cucumbers)
Pepper (1 pack of 3 peppers)
All served with various dips

Mini sausage rolls (50)
Cocktail sausages (50)
Vegetable spring rolls (24)
quorn cocktail sausages (1 pack, only one vegetarian that I know of!)

Cheese & onion crisps
Sweet chilli crisps
Salted crisps
Tortilla chips
Onion ring crisps
(All one big share bag per flavour)

Chicken bites (72 pack)
Cheese pizza (x2)

Breadsticks (2 packs)
Coleslaw (1 pack)

Strawberries (2 packs)
Grapes (2 packs)
Watermelon (1)

Fairy cakes (24)
Mini flapjack (20)
Mini brownies (20)
Mini rolls (20)

Also doing some gluten free sandwiches and some gluten free cakes (only one person is wheat intolerant not coeliac so no cross contamination concerns)

Obviously a proper birthday cake as well!

Does this sound like a good spread of food? Too much or not enough?

Trying to stick to a budget where possible as the room hire was expensive!

Thanks in advance for advice!

How many guests on the fat jabs too? Maybe you have got enough, OP...

It's fine. People will be happy enough.

Personally I think sounds really dated. Nowadays people like other things imo....hummus, various dips, anti pasti, samosas, spring rolls, more interesting bread based food than ham sandwiches...wraps with interesting fillings would be better imo.

This is really helpful thank you. Will remove tuna and do more egg. I like the idea of maybe just buying buns and then setting out ham, cheese etc so people can do their own sandwiches!

will remove peppers and add other veg I agree that’s probably sensible

ill get rid of quorn sausage and add more spring rolls, possibly some onion bhaji?

I think i’ll leave both sausage and sausage rolls just for choice

add more crisps but less choice

add more pizza, perhaps a couple of pepperoni?

delete coleslaw and breadsticks!

i think the fruit and tomatoes will probably be okay but i’ll maybe try and ask around

Double or triple the sausage roles - presume they are the cocktail frozen ones, really cheap from Iceland. Do the cheese and onion ones too as tasty, skip the quorn sausages, plenty of veg options already. More pizza - Lidl has triple packs frozen. Ditch the peppers and celery to free up money too.

a good option for sandwiches is coronation chicken which is high impact in my experience, you need cooked chicken, cheapest option is to roast chicken legs and strip though for work I buy Lidl simply chicken plain chunks, medium curry powder, mango chutney, raisins or sultanas and mayo.

What time is the party? Is it a meal time or is this. Sort of evening snack? Will people be drinking?

work out how many adults, how many children.

then break it down.

eg adult
five sausages
four sausage rolls
one pizza slice
four sandwiches
whatever you think.

then multiply that and add on a little extra.

if it’s not a meal, I would keep it absolutely simple. Crisps, dips, veg sticks.

it’s amazing how quick the costs add up.

depends on the crowd as well. Here it would be DH side farmers and rugby teens, that’s going to take way more food than my elderly parents who might share a sausage roll!

I buy tubs of 50 x cocktail sausages for my two children to eat after school as a snack. Not one tub for 70 adults!! And three peppers for 70 people? Not that I would ever eat a raw pepper at a party but I would buy way more.

It isn’t even one cocktail sausage each. LOL!

I would assume an adult would have 2 or three sausages and sausage rolls, so I would buy three times what you have.

There isn’t anything substantial here. Why not buy 140 chicken drumsticks. That’s two each.

Like others have said you need three times the sandwiches, but it is so much work making all of those yourself. I would seriously consider ordering it all from a supermarket. Sandwiches all made, crudités all prepared, tubs of salad. So so much easier.

I think our idea of party food is very different, but it doesn’t sound enough and I’m a bit confused with the concept. As a fellow gluten free person, it sounds like a nightmare!! Gluten free bread is generally awful!! could you do some chicken thighs, or crustless quiche? A cheese/meat platter with gluten free crackers is a good option.

What time is the party? Could you make it a bit later so people eat first if you can’t afford to properly cater? Sandwiches tend to get stale if left out. If everyone likes pizza, I would just stick to that (do you have enough oven space at the venue though?). The thought of 70 people's hands rummaging through bowls of crisps (especially children), is a bit grim!!

None of your sweet options are gluten free either!

Personally I’d try and make the party a bit later to give people the option to eat first and do meat and cheese boards (bread and gf crackers) with crudités and olives and some lemon and herb chicken thighs.

I’d simplify this but do more - get rid of the sausage rolls but do about 250 cocktail sausages. You can’t overestimate how much people like cocktail sausages (they’ll go first), and mini sausage rolls are basically just pastry. Sandwiches are fine, plenty of crisps, some veg sticks - stick to carrots, cucumber, and celery, and plenty of cakes and fruit. Rather than just expensive strawberries do a platter with plenty of oranges chopped into eighths, grapes, chop pineapple and melon (leave the skin on) and strawberries. Onion bhajis, mini samosas, etc. also go down well.

I have a kilo of strawberries in my fridge, you would be lucky if each person got 1 strawberry if there are 60 - 70 guests. Even with the coleslaw, a spoon of it is about 50g so you would only have enough for about a third of your guests. Dont underestimate the appetite of under 10s. The kids alone would get through your mini sausages before the adults had made it to the buffet table. 3 peppers and a tub of tomatoes just wouldn't cut it. 3 peppers would be enough for maybe 20 people.
I find it hard to beleive that all 70 guests only eat bland beige food and wouldn't entertain anything as exotic as a bit of nice bread and cured meats with olives etc.

You know you've undercatered if mn is saying it's not enough.

It's difficult to please everyone, you don't say what sizes the pizzas are or the coleslaw? Ime cocktail sausages and sandwiches go first, I've catered millions of family parties and yes it's nice to add in lots of variety, I definitely find these 2 go first.

I won't suggest quantities because I've just used a 500g tub of coleslaw on sandwiches for 5 people and I also just ate a 500g tub of strawberries myself so I'm obviously a pig.

How about a ready made buffet delivered? We have used Greenhalghs bakery for a lot of social events and the food is always well received. They do a platter for 50 or you can choose your own. They also do large multi portion pies which are delicious. This may work out cheaper? https://www.greenhalghs.com/catering/platters/buffet-for-50-people-menu-2/

Definitely not enough food, and also a bit... meh. And a bit random? The cheese pizza with no other pizza is kinda weird. The chips, what are the chips for? They'll go cold really quickly too, then no one will want them. Not enough of at least one of everything is silly too, you'll have disappointed people if they go to grab something and it's all gone in a second. And the sandwiches sound so incredibly bland, sorry.

What time is the party? Is it across a meal time? If so, i think you need to scrap your ideas and start again.

I don't think you're quite getting this. 😁 5 portions of chips mean you are expecting 1 bag to go around 14 people?! And 4 Pizzas? What's that, a quarter of a slice each?

If you do food like that then there needs to be enough for everyone. So either up the amount significantly, or scrap something like the Pizzas and get more chips instead so at least there is enough of those.

Hope the party goes well.

I don't like this menu at all, for many reasons. In fact, it's my idea of a really bad menu.

1. It's dull and clearly shows you haven't cared about what to serve.
2. It sounds like a menu for children. I can't imagine adults wanting to eat pizza and chicken bites, and loads of crisps, soggy sandwiches and cherry tomatoes.
3. Some deli meats, eggs and cheese between two slices of toast is not party food. It's a lazy, quick lunch on a Tuesday working from home because you're feeling under the weather.
4. Tomatoes and celeries are not actual dishes and should not count as part of the actual meal. At best, they're pre-dinner nibbles.
5. You're relying way too much on processed kiddie snacks as elements of the main meal. I wouldn't want to eat crisps, flapjacks and fairy cakes at an adult's birthday party.
6. I don't feel like the things you've picked out go together. Many things seem really random. Like, what would I need coleslaw for? It's the worst kind of salad, that smells bad, there is anyway, but I don't feel like there's anything on your list that goes with coleslaw. Who wants to eat some mayo coated cabbage and carrots on their own?
7. You're under-catering, in my opinion.

I appreciate you're trying to do it yourself and keep costs down, but this isn't it.

Please don't. Nobody wants cold chips, and again: what do you actually eat it with? It feels like you just pick the cheapest, most low-quality food there is and don't think about how they fit into the rest of the food. This is not catering, it's just feeding your guests whatever.

You already have crisps, nobody needs more fried potatoes.

70 people is an entire wedding party! I'm not surprised you are a bit caught out by this. There are not many folk who would happily take this on..

Surely you must be expecting to spend several pounds per head - if not as much as £10? Especially if you include the paper plates, forks, serviettes etc.

These days I am more germophobic than I used to be, so double dipping is a nogo.

Sorry to pile in but I think I your desserts need upping too. Those little tubs of brownie and flapjacks are minuscule.

You did!

I think you’re entirely correct not to cater for every person to have one of every thing. Everyone doesn’t eat everything.

I’d make sure there was enough savoury ‘mains’, and then whatever you want of the fruit, crisps, veg and dips.

If it was me I’d serve two platters of each of the sandwiches, some big bowls of pasta (really cheap to do if you do a tuna pasta, or pesto pasta, or cheese and tomato), and get a few quiches. Not even sure I’d bother with the chips, I’d just make a lot of potato salad.

I don’t think you need the cut veg, fruit, olives etc. I’d just get a couple of cakes instead of the fruit, and crisps and dips.

The idea of ‘dated’ food makes me chuckle, I have to say. Do people really get their knickers in a twist over whether their food is fashionable? 🤔

According to a friend, who is a professional caterer, people at buffets ear approximately 500g food per head.
On that basis you are looking at around 35kg of food for 70 people.
How big is a platter of sandwiches in terms of weight/number? Does not sound like enough.

Have you actually sat down and worked out the cost of this? You’ve invited 70 people to a birthday party but you don’t want to spend £10 per head to get the venue hot food catering. What does your current menu cost per head, assuming you take on board what people have said about needing more pizza, etc?

How are you going to serve the vegetables, dips and crisps? With 70 guests, some of whom are children, you can’t just put out big bowls of crisps that people put their hands into. Have you ever seen the studies done on the urine contamination of bowls of snacks left on the bar in a pub? 🤢

What else is going in the sandwiches, assuming that you’re not simply serving ham, cheese and egg? Because that would be a little too close to the kids’ lunchboxes in supermarket meal deals 😂 So ham and mustard, perhaps, or cheese and pickle, or egg and tomato, or egg and watercress?

Oh and I’d probably replace pizza with quiche - cold quiche is nicer than cold pizza.

I’m fascinated by this, it sounds like something from my childhood but without any of the fun retro bits - you need a cheese and pineapple hedgehog!

If you add olives remember some cocktail sticks to pick them up :)