My first catering gig....of sorts.

I've been toying with the idea of setting up a BBQ trailer for events, catering, etc. In working through all of the potential pitfalls, many of the same concerns so many of you have considered, I'm trying to winnow down the unknowns. One of these, the most obvious up front, is: is my BBQ any good?

It may seem like a silly question, but to me it's rather basic. My family and friends tell me they like it, but they're my family and friends. While I can rely on them for sympathy and support, to a degree, I can't really on them for an honest assessment of my cooking. So I came up with what I think is a good idea. I approached our local fire house and have promised to deliver them pulled pork, mac-n-cheese, baked beans, cole slaw, and potato salad for 5:00PM this Saturday -- NO CHARGE. This is a little thank you for what they do and a little market research. The only thing I ask of them is to fill out a little evaluation questionnaire and to be brutally honest.

So, my question for you all is, what sort of questions would you add to this questionnaire if it were your project? I appreciate your input.

Many thanks,


Don

Well, I took them pulled pork, mac-n-cheese, baked beans, mustard potato salad, cole slaw, two kinds of sauce, and potato rolls. I put together a one page questionnaire with a scale of 1-10 for each question. The bad thing is that I only received three response sheets from the six guys on duty. A lot of effort and expense went into this for not much of a response, but I suppose that should be expected.

The good news is that the pulled pork was a hit -- 9's and 10's across the board for taste, moistness, smoke flavor, and general satisfaction. The sauce, which I'm still not happy with, was five's from all three respondents.

I was surprised that the mac-n-cheese garnered 6's. I expected that to be a home run.

The surprise is the baked beans, which didn't take a lot of effort, were a big hit. I used brown sugar and the sauce I'd made up. perhaps the sauce that I'm not happy with should be the base for baked beans?

Cole slaw was 5's -- one liked the chop and another didn't. Can't please everybody.

The mustard potato salad was not liked by this crew. I put it together quickly, and can likely improve it but I won't be dissuaded from putting it on a buffet or menu.

Overall, I'm glad the hard part, the pulled pork, was a hit. The other items can be worked out. It was a full day of work putting it all together, mostly by myself except for my wife's mac (which I love). I've worked in restaurants in the past, but this was a good experience to gauge the prep time for any sort of event.

I can see doing this again for different fire houses and different mains. We'll see.