In addition to failure points, there are also the extra questions from people who get unreasonably excited about a free lunch. Here are some tips on how to avoid these mini-failures and deal with them when they happen.
Ask your ‘client’ for their preferences Your ‘client’ is the person who’s asked you to organize the event. Ask them if they have any preferences for food choice. If there will be a presentation, ask them if they prefer to have the food served before or after it.
Make sure the company pays Too many times, a person who’s asked to order lunch does not have a company credit card. Do not “front the company money” by putting a several-hundred-dollar charge on your credit card; that’s not fair. Ask your manager, the marketing team, or your ‘client’ to figure out how you should pay for the meal. It’s also a good idea to ask if there’s a budget or per-person spending limit so you don’t get yelled at because one guest decided they wanted two sandwiches. You should tip at least 20%, but make sure first that the company allows it.
Invite everyone If guests outside your company will be invited, contact them separately. It’s easy to get tripped up if you assume that “everyone saw the Slack message.”
Handle the presentation technology early If your team lunch will include a presentation, work ahead of time with the person who’s giving the presentation to make sure you have what you need to make the tech work. If you are running a Zoom call at the same time, set up that call ahead of time and troubleshoot your setup so that the presentation will run on the call and in the room.
Choosing a restaurant The food is one of the most stressful parts of any event. It’s amazing how picky people are about food they’re not paying for. Don’t blame your coworkers for being human, but also don’t let them stress you out.
Boxed lunches or individual meals Lunch catering has been a mainstay of Panera since way before Doordash existed, and they’re good at getting orders correct and getting them there on time. I personally got a little bored with Panera at a previous job, but there’s a good reason we used Panera all the time—they’re safe and reliable. And who doesn’t love a boxed lunch that includes potato chips and a cookie?
If you use DoorDash or GrubHub, choose a restaurant you’ve used before or one of your colleagues recommends. Now is not the time to “try out that new momo place.” Also double and triple-check that you’re ordering from the right location. Surprise, there is more than one Dunkin’ Donuts in Boston.
If you’re using your personal DoorDash account, make sure that you’re having the food delivered to your company, not to your house. Not that I’ve ever made this mistake.
If the budget permits, order one or two additional lunches so you have them on hand for stragglers and missed orders.
Family-style options Pizza is an old standby for team lunches for good reason. It’s inexpensive and you don’t have to worry about portion size or someone feeling left out. Locally in the Boston area, Stoked offers great vegan pizza (three words you might not have expected to see together in a sentence).
The mechanics of the food order If you’re ordering from a group shopping cart, communicate early and often about the food ordering deadline. The ideal deadline is the day before the event. Then you can place your order as soon as the restaurant opens the next day.
If you’re ordering online directly from the restaurant, be careful. Small local restaurants often have multiple ordering platforms and they don’t always check them or get the orders right. I once had 10 pizzas delivered a day early because the restaurant mis-read my online order. Pick up the phone and ask the restaurant how much advance notice they need and what the best way is to order.
Don’t forget napkins and drinks Do whatever you need to do to make sure you have enough plates, cups, flatware, napkins, and soda on hand for the lunch. This can be as simple as grabbing a liter each of Coke and ginger ale at the grocery store the night before and stowing them in the company fridge.
Don’t feed pests Have a supply of large garbage bags on hand, put all the trash into them at the end of the event, and dispose of them properly. Don’t be the person who leaves 10 empty pizza boxes under the counter for the enjoyment of the neighborhood rodents. In that vein, make sure you clean up (or arrange for clean-up) once at the end of the event and once again at the end of the workday so that any leftovers are properly stored.
Do not accept extra stress about these things
Someone wants to know ahead of time who else is attending For some reason, team lunches bring out the high-schooler in some people. Don’t engage with questions like that. People have restricted diets Be respectful and do your best to accommodate individual needs, but don’t take it to heart if something minor goes wrong. If you have someone on your team with food allergies, they probably have plenty of experience trouble-shooting team lunches.
The food gets cold Unless you’re running a fancy catered event and the caterer is bringing chafing dishes and cans of Sterno, food will to cool off (especially if there’s a long presentation before people eat). You cannot veto the Second Law of Thermodynamics, even if your CEO wants you to. There’s too much or too little food If there’s extra food, leave it in the kitchen for people to take home and make sure to return at the end of the day to store or dispose of it. If people complain about there being too little food, smile brightly and say “At least clean-up will be easy!” There’s a tech issue with the presentation. The speaker didn’t work with you to troubleshoot the tech ahead of time, and now their laptop won’t connect. You’ve got the Zoom call running but there’s an echo that you can’t get rid of. Stuff happens. Adjust your plan and move on.
No one should blame you for anything that’s gone wrong, but if someone does, you’ve got your first volunteer to run the next team lunch.