Catering a Company Picnic

A company picnic has a problem no other work event has. Nobody arrives when they said they would, half the guests are children, and the headcount you were given in April bears no relation to who turns up in June.

Food set out at noon for a crowd that peaks at two spends two hours getting worse in front of everybody. That is the whole difficulty, and it is a timing problem wearing a catering costume.

A long arrival window

People come when their morning allows. Some bring families after a soccer game, some arrive straight from a shift, some appear at four having said they could not make it.

Cooking to order does not care. The person who arrives at four gets exactly what the person who arrived at noon got, because it is made when they ask for it. There is no tray that has been out for three hours and nothing that has to be thrown away because the crowd came late.

That is the same argument that makes this work at a graduation open house and a family reunion, and it is set out in full in food truck or buffet caterer.

A headcount nobody can pin down

Staff say they are bringing three and bring one. Or say they are not coming and bring five. Every organizer knows this and most catering contracts punish it.

A rough number at booking holds the date. About a week before the event we confirm your final guest count, your entree picks and the serving time. A rough potato-versus-pasta split comes about two weeks out, and an estimate is genuinely fine there. Food assembled as people order absorbs a moving count far better than portions counted in advance do.

Feeding families

A picnic is the one work event where children are the difficult guests. A potato or a pasta bowl handles them without a separate kids’ menu: the same base, less on it, and no negotiation at the front of the queue.

It works the same way for the adult who eats no pork and the one who wants everything. There are vegetarian options. There are no vegan ones, and we would rather tell you that now than improvise on the day.

Outdoors, and the ground under the trailer

Picnics happen in parks, on company land and in fields. For a one-day event we need no power, no water and no kitchen. That is what makes those sites workable at all.

  • The trailer is 22 feet long and is towed by a full-size Chevy van, so it needs a route in and room to maneuver into the spot.
  • Solid ground. A trailer this heavy will sink or get stuck in soft ground, and that matters most after a wet week.
  • Nothing else for catering or a one-day festival. We are self contained.
  • For festivals of two days or more, a 50-amp RV-style outlet within 50 feet, and access to potable water.

The one worth checking properly is the ground. A park lawn after a wet week is where this goes wrong, and it goes wrong slowly and expensively. If your site is grass, say so when you book and tell us whether there is a gravel or paved alternative.

How to run the service

For a picnic, Loaded Truck usually beats the alternatives. The trailer is outside anyway, people are already milling around, and a window gives them somewhere to go and something to look at. The queue becomes part of the afternoon.

If your picnic has a fixed sit-down moment, or if it is indoors because the weather turned, Loaded Stations does the same job under a roof.

Loaded Stations

Serving stations set up inside your venue. You pick four entrees off the menu and choose potato, pasta or both. Guests walk up, say what they want, and watch it built. Up to 300 guests.

Loaded Truck

The same four entrees you picked, ordered at the trailer window and handed over a minute or two later. The trailer ends up being part of the event. People like watching the window.

Loaded Bar

The buffet. You pick three proteins, two toppings and three sauces. Potato and pasta go out in bulk, guests walk the line, and our staff top each plate as it passes. Up to 400 guests.

Numbers and timing

We serve up to 400 guests for the Loaded Bar and up to 300 for Loaded Stations. Our lines go just as fast as any normal buffet, and the buffet stays open afterward for seconds. When you send an inquiry, we'll give you an estimate of how long it will take to serve your guests. For a picnic, speed matters less than usual. What you want is a long service that keeps producing food as people drift in.

Tell us the shape of your afternoon rather than a single serving time. “Gates at eleven, most people between one and three, done by five” is more useful than a headcount on its own.

Booking

Call 931-271-7455 or email nicholas@itsloaded.com with the date, the site, a rough headcount and the arrival window.

Other workplace events are covered in corporate catering, what a quote includes is in what catering costs, and if staff are buying their own lunch rather than the company paying, that is event vending.