Case study · August, Lawrenceville Highway
The Tucker Block Party
Four Party Platters for a street closure of ninety neighbors, measured piece by piece before the trays went out and after they came back.
Before
The organisers had run the same street closure for three years, and each year the food came from a warehouse club: two aluminium trays of sandwich wraps and a stack of chip bags. The complaint was always the same. Half of it went back into a car at the end of the evening, and nobody talked about it afterwards. They had a $300 ceiling from the neighborhood fund and ninety expected guests, which is $3.33 per person before drinks.
What we did
We took the booking six days out and slotted it onto a Friday fry morning. Four Party Platters at $65 came to $260, inside the ceiling with money left for ice. Spice was split across the trays: two mild, one medium and one hot with pili pili on the side, because a street of ninety people does not share one heat tolerance. We carried the covered trays to the table at 5pm, uncovered them at 5:30pm, and came back for the empties at 9pm.
After
The table cleared in twenty-five minutes. Of 224 pieces, nine came back, and all nine were from the hot tray, which told us to run three mild to one hot at events this size rather than two to one. Seventeen households from that street placed a first order within the following two fry days, and eleven of them are still ordering. The neighborhood fund booked the same four platters for the following August before the trays were back in the van.
Measured results
| Measure | Result |
|---|---|
| Guests servedHeadcount counted at the barricade, not estimated | 90 |
| Pieces delivered120 mandazis, 80 samosas, 24 large chipette portions | 224 |
| Table cleared inFrom first tray uncovered to last empty tray | 25 minutes |
| Pieces returnedAll nine were hot samosas, so we shifted the ratio | 9 |
| Cost to organisersFour Party Platters at $65, delivery and collection included | $260 |
| Follow-on ordersNew households ordering within the next two fry days | 17 |
What we changed afterwards
Events of eighty or more now default to a three-to-one mild-to-hot split, and we uncover trays thirty minutes after arrival rather than on the doorstep, which keeps the samosa pastry from softening under the cover.
In the neighborhood
“Three years of grocery-store wraps and then this. The trays were empty before the music started, and half my street has been ordering boxes ever since. It cost us less than the wraps did.”
Sarah J.
Block party organiser, Tucker
Book the next event on a fry day
Four days of notice, a headcount and an address inside ten miles is everything we need to quote a platter order.