Catering for a Crowd: Best Practices for Preparing Banquets and Buffets

Banquets and buffets involve a lot of group movement. In a banquet setting, you need to think about guests who are mingling with one another as service is going on.

Meanwhile at buffets, you know that diners will be busy shuffling around the buffet floor, selecting their favourites from buffet stations at various locations of the dining area.

As a restauranteur, you need to plan how your diners will move around. Some questions you may want to ask are:

• Is there a logical flow to my buffet lines?
  
• Will diners be accidentally bumping into each other as they enter and exit queues and navigate between food areas?
  
• Is there enough space for everyone to move around easily?
  
• Does the service staff have enough room to properly serve diners at banquets?
  
• Can seating arrangements be better optimised for the convenience of diners and/or service staff? 

With effective planning, you can avoid many potential service-related issues and deliver first class service to diners.

At buffets, getting drinks holds up the line. Filling up a beverage cup takes time and queues form quickly. To avoid this issue, place drinks on a separate table away from where you set out the food. Better yet, prepare your drinks and place them in glasses so diners can simply pick them up and go.

A similar issue can occur at banquets. When it gets busy, servers serving drinks may get in the way of those carrying food. To avoid this situation, set up a different area in your kitchen for making drinks. This simple arrangement will allow servers to move around more freely.

Be sure that there are plenty of napkins around, and that they are always within easy reach. At a banquet, keep extra napkins handy at side-serving tables. And at buffets, put out large stacks of napkins at the end of where you're serving food. This makes it easier for guests to grab extras when they need to clean something up.

If there’s one common problem in buffet lines (especially catering lines) that needs to be addressed, it’s this – placing cutlery at the start of the buffet line. There’s simply no reason to ask diners to balance their cutlery on their plates, or in their already full hands. After all, diners are there to enjoy delicious food.

So, we recommend allowing diners to fill their plates with food, then pick up their cutlery at the end of the line. Your diners and service staff will appreciate this simple but important gesture.