Three Things That Will Make Your Buffet Great

Setting up your buffet

There’s no event too big or too small for a buffet. However, depending on the occasion, not every buffet is created equal. Without careful planning, the outcomes could be far less than impressive. A messy buffet table will make your event memorable for all the wrong reasons. So, the next time you host an event with a buffet, make sure you’ve considered these three little things that can take your buffet from good to great.

Make sure there is plenty of room around the buffet table for your guests to move and pick from.

Key Aspects: The Perfect Spot and Enough Room to Circulate

When you host an event, location is everything. Similarly, where you place your buffet is going to have an equal impact on your event. When setting up a buffet, people sometimes forget to account for the movement of the guests. The buffet table may fit perfectly up against a wall, but there’s not enough space around the buffet table for the guests to get their food, or it’s so cramped that you end up with a lot more spills than necessary because everyone is trying to maneuver around the crowd. Twister is a fun party game, but it should not involve the buffet table. If everyone is contorting their bodies trying to maneuver around the crowded buffet table, you’re going to end up with long lines to the buffet, and food everywhere.

A Buffet Needs a Beginning and an End

You need to keep the crowd moving. Otherwise, you’ll create a traffic jam around the buffet table. People tend to hover near the food, so you have to consider ways to keep the traffic moving. A simple way of creating a starting point and a finish point for the buffet is to have the plates at one end and the cutlery on the other end. That way, people will know which end to start and which end to finish. If you think you’ll speed up the buffet line by having people come from both ends, the final result will be everyone bunched up in the middle, reaching over each other and creating a mess.

Rent serving and catering equipment for your buffet table.

Keep Drinks Separate

Another great way to get people to move away from the buffet line and give room for more guests is to keep the drinks separate. You might benefit from having the drinks on the other side of the room so that you are forcing people to leave the buffet space. You can also break up the whole buffet into stations to keep the buffet line moving.

Renting equipment for your party buffet

The final piece of the buffet puzzle is to rent enough tables, catering equipment, serving equipment, linens, plates, cutlery, and glasses to keep the buffet line moving. We have a large selection of rental gear to suit any buffet. Work with one of our party specialists to make sure you get everything you need to set up the buffet table and serve your guests.