SC -taverns/2 day feasts

[Ceridwen]

>
>
> I'm very leery of trying to do all meals for two days.  You are
> talking
> about a tremendous amount of work, usually without professional help,
> with a
> hefty price tag.  A quick estimate of the expenses is $10-12 per
> person to
> do it right, which means charging $16-20 per person to recover the
> expenses
> and turn a profit commensurate with the risk.
> I just realized that  the post was about taverns specifically, and had
> written about feastcratting (below) but do have a Tavern experience to
> share.

    For Trimaris' Tenth Year Anniversary event, I was asked to provide a
Tavern, as the feast hall only seats 150 and we were expecting about
1200 people. It started (in the planning) to be only a feast supplement
on Saturday and Sunday, and by the time we were done planning it was
from crew supper on Thursday until Breakfast Monday, 3 meals a day, open
from 6 am to midnight each day. I had a crew of 3 that I could count on,
as our Barony was involved with the event in many other capacities. The
"kitchen" was a small building (screen house) with a sink! I cooked with
a fire pit, a bbq smoker (8 X 3 feet) and a  two burner gas stove. we
brought along an upright freezer  (12 cu. ft.)and many, many coolers. We
set up a 20x20 pavilion for seating and a 10x15 for serving area. (took
a large U-Haul truck to get everything there and back)    The meat and
dry goods shopping was done ahead of time with price in mind and
pre-portioned if  necessary. (ever see a meat manager at a grocery store
cry?... they advertised whole bottom round cut to order for .99/lb, and
I needed 120 lbs... shaved!) The rest of the shopping was done day by
day at the local grocery.
  I got the barony to front the money for the supplies by promising them
the profit if there was any.  We sold advance tickets at $14.00 for the
weekend and also advertised the tavern in the advance flyers in
Talewinds and the Seneshals' mailings for 3 months. On site, meals could
be purchased separately at $1 breakfast, $2 lunch, and $3 dinner. Drinks
were free to all because of the extreme heat. (went through 100 gallons
each of lemonade and iced tea, plus 30 gallons of my Lord's mead -yes,
we carded!) Sold 104 advance tickets, which put us in the black before
we ever got on site. With extra shopping trips for charcoal and produce,
we made a $700 profit for the Barony.  Figured by the amount of food
served that we had about 300 customers a day.  Had the most fun I've
ever had at an event... took me three weeks to recover! Made a few
mistakes, but nothing serious, and was "the" hang-out spot for the
event. I would gladly do it again, with one caveat... the whole Barony
cannot be on the crat crew for the event!!!!!!!    I have done 3 of the
last 4 Trimaris Memorial Tourneys  (Spring Crown Lyst- Memorial Day
weekend each year) as feastcrat, cooking all meals with little
difficulty. Here for Kingdom events your budget is preset by the Kingdom
(currently at $5 per head per day). I serve Travelers feast Friday night
, breakfast, lunch and feast on Saturday and Sunday, and breakfast
Monday out of that with no probs. I am not exclusively a period cook,
although about 80- 90% of my recipes are redactions of period recipes.
To see this year's menu , visit :
http://commnections.com/rurik/tmtfeast.htm

> My budget was $1375.00 to cook for 150 on Saturday and 125 on Sunday
> (limited by the size of the feasthall) I ordered as much as possible
> from a commercial restaurant supply house, and had it delivered to
> site the day of the event. I did a bit of shopping on the local
> economy for ingredients needed in smaller quantities than the supply
> house carried. and came out in the long run about $150 under budget. I
> also include in that the cleaning supplies and figure in drinks for
> the populace all weekend, 24 hrs a day (50 gals each of iced tea and
> lemonade). Trimaris is HOT this time of year.

My planning started 8 weeks ago with a local crew of 6 plus the
expectation of 3 others I knew I could rely on. We planned the menu
together from recipes I had redacted or collected over the last 10
years, and had weekly meetings to expand the recipes, plan the prep and
cooking schedules, and "plan B" just in case things went wrong. The
kitchen at this site has a walk-in cooler, but I was told it would not
be available, so we planned on coolers for everything and extra ice
supply. (didn't need those after all.. the kitchen Mgr. kindly put off
his order till the day after the event closed.. but we were prepared) We
had 4 ovens, 16 burners, a flat grill/griddle, a warming closet, and a
20 quart mixer.    By the week before the event, we had an hour by hour
schedule of what was to happen when, (Noon Friday to 10 am Monday),
recipes typed with step by step instructions for inexperienced helpin a
3 ring binder, and the food order placed. The only thing that went wrong
was that the food order arrived on site before we did (the invoice
specified the time of delivery, but the driver got ahead of schedule)
and had been (very kindly) put away in the cooler by the camp kitchen
Mgr. The shedule went so smoothly that I was able to take a 3 hour nap
befor the Laurel's meeting on Saturday and came back from the meeting
to find my crew on schedule to the minute. (we took time to bake cookies
for the crew Friday night during prep as well :-)
    Granted, I was in the kitchen as supervisor from 6 am to 9 pm each
day, except for my nap Saturday, and was pretty crispy on Monday (still
am.. it was this past weekend) but things went amazingly smooth.
Leftovers were minimal, and all but a very little bit was eaten or taken
home with folks Monday morning. After breakfast Monday I sat down with
my 4 main helpers and went over the menu, recording leftover amounts and
how best to adjust the recipe to avoid this in the future, as well as
planning a little extra of a couple dishes for future reference that
were better accepted than I had figured they would be. (we got
Trimarians to eat cabbage.. go figure.. this is a Very Carnivorous
Kingdom)
    Following another thread.. this was a DRY site.. no alcohol of any
sort allowed on the premises, not even for cooking. Three of my dishes
called for wine or beer, and I substituted alcohol free varieties (Ras-
don't have kittens here!) and I was pleased with the results, as
apparently were the diners.. no complaints.

>  Ceridwen
>



============================================================================

To be removed from the SCA-Cooks mailing list, please send a message to
Majordomo at Ansteorra.ORG with the message body of "unsubscribe SCA-Cooks".

============================================================================