We hold a Fall Festival every year and our local volunteer fire dept. sets up grills to cook hamburgs, hot dogs and veggie burgers. They have A LOT of fun, make a little bit of money and it's no work for our PTCA! It also comes in handy to have our firefighters and EMTs on site (LOL). The PTCA holds a bake sale and our most popular item is "decorate your own cupcake". Many people bake plain (unfrosted) yellow and chocolate cupcakes. Another person (decorates cakes on the side) makes orange and green frosting. Another person makes small bags of candy toppings (candy corn, gummy worms, etc) and jimmies are available. The kids LOVE it.
We do pizza by the slice. We buy whole pizzas from Pizza Hut for a really good price and have them deliver. I've done the food two years in a row and here's what works for us. We hav over 900 students and our carnival is a community event so we get big crowds.
Our carnival is from 12 - 5. We have 20 pizzas delivered at 12 (they give us the warmers to use) and another 20 delivered at 2 pm. We had a couple of pizzas left over last year. We buy only pepperoni and cheese and they are equally popular. The only thing I might add is a couple of veggie pizzas since we have so many people that don't eat meat.
Hope this helps. One year we tried to have the pizzas delivered as we were getting low but it didn't work for us - we always ran out before they got there.
I love the idea of pizza by the slice. I am curious as to what toppings are the most popular and how many pizza's you generally order? We have about 500 students and I would love to do this in place of our usual hot dogs this year.
We are considering Pulled Pork from Smoky Bones, with two sides our cost is $3.75 a plate! We will mark that price up to perhaps $5 or $6 and make a kid's plate.
We always do a package of hot dog, chips and can of soda for about $3. We also do pizza (from Pizza Hut) and soda. We're in California - there's a chain of Chinese food places here called Pick Up Stix. We buy big trays of one of their chicken dishes and sell individual portions with rice. People love it and it sells really well. It's funny to read all the stuff you guys sell. It would NEVER go over here - people are really particular about what they eat and we can barely sell hot dogs. Has to be real juice - no Capri Sun, and people would never buy a Frito pie. We sell more bottled water than soda. We also sell more cheese pizza than pepperoni. It's a whole nother world out here!