How Much Food to Order Per Person for Office Catering: A Cheat Sheet That Actually Works

When catering, how much food should you order? For most office catering orders, select one main dish and two sides per person, based on confirmed RSVPs, and add a 10% buffer for last-minute additions. From there, adjust up for longer events and social gatherings and down for short working meetings. If you are unsure about quantities for a specific cuisine, call the restaurant. If they cater regularly, they know their portions better than any formula.

That is the short answer, but let’s take a closer look. 

Start Here: The Two Numbers That Matter Most

Before you pick a restaurant or even think about cuisine, you need two numbers.

1. Confirmed headcount, not invited headcount.
Base your order on the number of people you have confirmed, not the number of people on the calendar invite. This sounds obvious until you have ordered for the 60 people you invited, only for 42 to show up. In hybrid offices, especially, the gap between “invited” and “confirmed in-office” can be 20-30%, and for most office events, actual attendance runs closer to 75-85% of the invite list. 

2. That confirmed number, plus 10%.
Once you have your confirmed count, add 10% to cover last-minute additions, larger-than-expected appetites, and the boss who always shows up with two extra people. If 45 people confirm, order for 50. 

On Reddit’s r/ExecutiveAssistants thread, an EA with 20 years of experience posted about the one time she ran out of food at an all-hands meeting. She had always over-ordered before and had leftovers, and the one time she tried to cut it close, the hybrid headcount tripped her up. The comment got 611 upvotes because every admin reading it clearly felt the same dread. A 10% buffer exists specifically to avoid that problem.

Quick-Reference Guide by Types of Food

The following section is the one to bookmark, as we recommend how much of each type of meal to order: 

Boxed lunches. Select one per person. This option is the easiest to portion because it is already done for you. Order your confirmed headcount plus the 10% buffer—no math needed beyond that.

Sandwich platters or trays. Plan for 1.5 sandwiches per person, or use the standard industry ratio of 12 sandwiches per 10 people. If sandwiches are the only food (no sides), round up to two per person for a hungry lunch crowd.

Taco bars. Order two to three tacos per person as a main dish and chips and salsa for 100% of the headcount because chips disappear faster than any other item at a taco bar. If you are doing burritos instead of tacos, drop to one per person as they are significantly more filling.

Pizza. Plan for two to three slices per person for a standard lunch order. Round up to three to four slices per person for longer meetings or especially hungry teams. A standard large pizza yields eight slices, so divide headcount by eight and multiply by your per-person slice count.

Bagels and coffee (breakfast meetings). Order one to 1.25 bagels per person. Keep in mind, a Panera or Starbucks coffee traveler serves 10 to 12—not 15—despite what the label implies. One EA on Reddit asked specifically about ordering for 125 people and got this answer in the thread: “Order 140 bagels and 13 to 14 coffee travelers.” That is the +10% formula applied directly.

Buffet-style (BBQ, Mediterranean, grain bowls). Plan for 6-8 oz of protein per person for plated or individually served buffets. For self-serve trays, where people portion their own plates, move to the higher end (8 oz) because self-serve portions tend to run larger. Add 4 oz of each side dish per person. A typical full catering tray feeds 15 to 20 people as a side, or 10 to 12 as a main.

Adjust Based on the Type of Meeting

The type of food gives you the baseline, while the event type adjusts it.

Short working meetings (under an hour): Order standard portions or slightly under. People eat less when they are focused on an agenda, and no one is going back for seconds between slides.

Lunch-and-learns and training sessions (1-3 hours): Add 10-15% to your total order. People linger and graze during presentations, while someone always goes back for another taco when the speaker transitions to Q&A.

All-day events: Plan for two meal equivalents spread throughout the day. For example, select a morning bagel spread and an afternoon boxed lunch, rather than trying to make one catering order that covers six hours.

Celebrations and team events: Round up on sides and desserts. At social events, people tend to graze more than they eat a full plate. They will likely skip the entree but demolish the chips, cookies, and anything bite-sized. One EA in a Food-focused Reddit thread put it this way: “Charcuterie boards and dessert items disappear first, every time.”

The Hybrid Office Problem (And How to Solve It in 90 Seconds)

This is where most admins go wrong. The old math—order for everyone in the office—no longer works when no one is sure how many people are actually coming in on a given day.

A confirmed RSVP list is the solution. 

A quick Slack message or calendar note asking people to confirm if they expect to be in the office and want to be counted for lunch takes 90 seconds to send and removes most of the guesswork. Do it 24 hours before the order is due, and base your number on the responses you get, not on the invite list or the total office headcount.

For recurring weekly or monthly lunches, keep a simple running spreadsheet—even just a column in a Google Sheet—tracking how many people actually showed up versus how much food was ordered. After three to four orders, you will have a reliable attendance rate for your specific team, making the math much easier.

If managing this every week still feels like a headache, turn to Waiter.com’s corporate meal programs. They handle headcount and portion coordination as part of the service. Simply confirm the count, and they’ll manage the rest. This is how offices that order regularly get out of the estimation business entirely.

When to Ask the Restaurant

Want to know the most underused move in office catering? Call the restaurant and tell them your headcount.

If a restaurant offers catering, it has done so countless times. They know how much chicken tikka masala their tray serves, how many tacos a typical lunch crowd eats, and whether their sandwich tray feeds closer to 10 or 15 people. 

One highly upvoted comment in an EA Reddit thread said, “I save myself the hassle and take the restaurant’s recommendations. If a restaurant caters, they’ll list how much to order for your group size, and the people who work there will tell you exactly.”

This one move eliminates most of the math anxiety and shifts the responsibility to the people who actually know their product. Use it every time you order from a new vendor or select a new menu option. 

The One Rule That Covers Most Situations

Let’s simplify all of this:

• Use the confirmed headcount plus 10%
• Order one main plus two sides per person
• Let the restaurant provide specific quantities

The admins who get this right consistently are not doing complicated math. They are simply using a reliable process and adjusting from there.

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Waiter.com has been handling corporate meal delivery since 1995 with full-time drivers and menus from over 1,300 restaurants nationwide. If you regularly order for your team, our corporate meal programs handle the logistics, including portioning, so you spend less time on the math and more time on everything else. See how it works at waiter.com.