Retail price

There's no hard and fast rule to answer your question but I'll try to guide you as best I can.

Pork butt and brisket both yield about 50% from original weights. Assuming you provided 4 oz of each meat for the guests and the price of pork butts being $1.89/lb and brisket $3.99, it cost you $2.94 per person for the meat. Next you need to identify the per person cost of corn, potatoes, gravy, roll, beans, butter, tea & coffee. Let's say the total was $1.10. Your food and beverage total is $4.04 a serving.

Now comes the serving utensils. Let's assume the cost per person was $1.25.

Adding the food, beverage & utensil cost the total is $5.29. You sold it for $13.10. Your cost percentage is 40% Not bad. Now you must consider energy costs (food prep) transportation and labor. Let's say $3 @ person. Your total cost is $8.29 (63% Prime cost) You net profit per person was #4.81. That's REAL good.

Of course the overhead of a professional caterer incurs many more costs, which have to be recovered. Depending on how much business they do over a year, it may only account for pennies per meal.

FYI, Pappas Catering in Dallas would deliver almost the same meal for $8.05 per person.

Hope that helps some.

Thanks for the insight. My total cost excluding labor and transportation was $4.67. I didn't figure labor because it was my wife and I. I didn't think about transportation cost...it's 5 miles from my kitchen.

The restaurant impossible guy on food network has a good policy. 3 times your food cost. That works out to one third for food cost, one third for overhead and one third for profit. As he says "without the Profit we loose"

3 times the food costs is the general rule but....

There are so many variables.

You should learn to figure out your exact costs if you are going to do this very much. If you want help with that let me know. I taught the last CS Restaurant class how.

At a minimum total up all your costs to know your expenses.

quote:

FYI, Pappas Catering in Dallas would deliver almost the same meal for $8.05 per person.

Hope that helps some.

Great post Chris, great suggestion to compare with existing restaurants. Looks like that was for Pappas BBQ.

They have to be absorbing costs somewhere, that just sounds too cheap.

Yes, Pappas Bros BBQ in DFW.

The $8.05 pp doesn't include drinks ($1 - 1.25) each tea/water/soda. Nor does in include a $25 delivery fee.

I'm guessin' they aren't smoking Wagyu either. A GM at one of the DFW Rudy's told me they (and most other chains) use Select briskets and get a volume purchase allowance from SYSCO.

$1,353.32 food/supplies
$61.50 transportation
$1,000.00 labor 50 hours labor - I paid my
wife $1,000)
$2,414.82 total costs = $8.33 per person
$3,800.00 charged = $13.10 per person

$4.77 net profit per person.

I'm getting more people wanting us to cater their events and want to charge a fair price.
Any and all advice would be greatly appreciated.

I agree with the 3X's food/supplies cost for a buffet line.

Clearing $4-5.00 per plate is what you can expect when you serve a product that can't be had at the big chain joints. We all have to monitor cost, and use what we have learned to serve that "Special" product our customers expect. Then, the business will take off. Anyone using an FEC or a Cookshack smoker has an advantage. I truly believe that from listening to customers over the years..