How many servers for a plated lunch?

What shapes the crew at a plated lunch

A plated lunch is a service with a hard end. When an afternoon session resumes or another function needs the room, the clock decides how fast plates go out and how fast they come back. The server count matters, but the turn matters as much.

Hotelwright counts a plated lunch with the breakfast and lunch setting: 1 server per 20 guests for any plated meal that starts before 3 pm, and 1 per 16 if wine is poured at the table or the service is French. The start time moves a meal between settings, so a plated meal that starts at 3 pm or later falls back to the plated dinner setting. At Hotelwright's starting ratios that is 1 per 20 before 3 pm and 1 per 20 from 3 pm, and each can be changed without touching the other.

What the ratio cannot see is the turn: when the room has to be clear, and whether the same servers are needed in the next room. Settle those first, then check the count.

How it's calculated

Servers: the guest count divided by 20, rounded up. At 100 guests that is 5.

Captains: the first one from 50 guests or 4 servers, then 1 more for every 250 guests.

Bartenders are added only when the event has a bar: 1 per 100 guests, at least 1 per bar.

The count is the guarantee once it is in, and the expected count until then. Hotelwright never takes a count below the people already assigned, and every ratio is a setting each hotel edits. The servers per guest guide compares every style of service, and the printable ratio sheet puts them on one page.

A plated lunch uses the breakfast and lunch ratio, which applies to any plated meal that starts before 3 pm. Each hotel can set it apart from the dinner ratio.

Three tips

1. Start from the flip. Ask when the room must be clear and when the next function's setup begins, then plan dessert, coffee and the clear around that minute. If the turn is tight, a busser or a houseman at the strike helps more than another server on the first course.
2. Send special meals first. Match each special plate to the order's special-meals line and the seat, and have the captain check it on its way out before the main plates follow.
3. Name a room for each server when lunches overlap. If two lunches run side by side, say who covers which room at the pre-shift line-up. The Schedule checks flag a person covering too many rooms at once, and it is easier to avoid at the line-up than on the floor.