clambake
Julie
06/30/10 		Hi! I will be ahead of our annual clambake next year and this year was a success but financially disasterous. I need to know how many bushels of clams for 150 people and will also be serving sausage/steak sandwiches with onions/peppers, fried boneless chicken, salt potatoes and of course the clams with butter. I am not so sure on how much to charge since this is my first dealings with a clambake.
ellen
06/30/10 		You need to get the lists from this year and figure out why it was a financial disaster.

Why are you serving steak sandwiches? The star of this show should be the clams, which are very labor intensive. I also would not do fried chicken; it is also labor intensive; a grilled chicken choice, or something simple and make ahead like meatball sandwiches would be a much better and more economical choice.

It sounds like, whatever you charged, you need to be charging at least double. Seriously, the plate charge should be set at 3 to 4 times times the cost of the food, especially if it is supposed to be a fund raiser.

You might look at my discussion of a large community clambake for some ideas:

www.ellenskitchen.com/bigpots/plan/serve500.html

You would use about 1/3 the amount for 500.

ellen
06/30/10 		Just incidentally, the cost for catered clambakes, not including lobster, is in the 40-55 dollar per person range.