Our school used to do this spaghetti night twice a year. We now bring in a local italian restaurant to cook and we presell the meals for $6. We only make $2 off each meal, but it is less stressful and we can sit down and enjoy the meal with our families. When we did it ourselves it was definitely spaghetti, but now that the restaurant comes in we are able to offer our families chicken marsala, penne pasta with marinara, caesar salad, and breadsticks. As well as dessert and drinks. We have found this works so much easier for our school.
At our school each grade is assigned an ingredient, so K brings in salad dressing, 1st the soda 2 liters, etc.
I think we buy the salad and supplement other ingredients if necessary. The teachers and staff do all of the cooking and serving, the 5th grade sells desserts to pay for their trip and we have a hilarious skit done each year by "Uncle Tony" and his "wife", played by 2 of our teachers; last year one of them was unavailable, so Uncle Tony showed up with his girlfriend instead, lol. Basically all do is support and help clean up.
We've already done a Fazoli's dinner at my large church. We're tentatively thinking about the same at PTO / school for Feb. Consistent quality, Name brand "drawing card", They can serve, They know portion control. It helps me keep down on the number of volunteers needed. Seems to work best for my group. Good luck on yours.
Can anyone give any helpful tips on how to plan a successful Spaghetti Dinner? Has anyone ever had the students bring in the ingredients? If so how did this work?
