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LukeBK Offline OP
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I?m currently working for a camp that is doing Family Style in an effort to help build a family feel to camp. The camp I use to work for used a Served Buffet Line. After my first summer with family style I didn?t see a great difference in the camp feel. What I have noticed is the food cost is a lot higher with Family Style. I want to make sure all my campers get all the food they want. I just want to make sure we are not throwing away a lot of good food.

Is family style worth the extra money and time? Is there any true downfall to the served buffet line? Do you have any suggestions on how to make meals special well saving money?

Thanks?

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I think that while family style meals might take extra time for the kitchen, if your camp has any number of individuals, serving buffet style would take forever. Some weeks our camp has 300 campers. We serve meals family style. Having to add all the time for campers to go through a buffet line would take away from our program time. As opposed to 300 campers sharing one or two dishes of food (buffet style), with family style 10 campers share a dish of food, so everyone can start (and finish) eating much sooner.

Beyond not using up program time, honestly, 300 campers in a dining hall in the middle of summer is not something I really need to happen for any longer than it has to. When it gets really hot it is downright uncomfortable.

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Thanks Oompa Loompa for the feed back. Here is what I have seen from the two camps. The meals at my old camp only took 30 to 40 mins with about 200 to 250 people. The new camp takes 40 to 50 mins a meal with 100 to 150 people.

What we did at the old camp was to have all the boy cabins line up at one door and the girl cabins at a different door. Then we would have 2 or 3 buffet lines set up with staff manning them. 3 cabins would come in at a time and after the last cabins would come in the first ones would get a chance for seconds and then down the line in the order they came in. This is a severed buffet line which means campers do not put the food on the plate staff do that for them. It is a lot faster then campers putting the food on them selves.

The current camp I work for allows each cabin to go in and sit down then we say the camp blessing. After that campers can start to put food on their plates. What normally seams to happen is the staff end up helping the campers then go get refills. Only after that do they start to eat. This usually makes campers wait on staff to finish eating. Then after everyone eats the time it takes to clean off the tables seams to be about twice as long. This is due to the need to bring up about twice as much then with buffet lines.

My main concern is not time. I don?t want to rush campers threw meals so meals taking as long as 50 mins give campers time to relax away from the soon and rest a bit. The camp is located in the south and meal time is for many campers the only time to be out of the sun.

My main concerned are giving staff time to get to know campers with out having to worry about what they are eating or not eating. Well controlling food costs and most important is making sure every camper get all the food they want.

What are everyone?s thoughts and experiences?

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Firstly, Great topic!

Ive been with the same camp for quite a few years. I found this summer that we have actually haved a lot of money by serving family style, but I found this to be the key, portion control.
We found it best to get table counts and put those up in the kitchen. Here is the important thing. Only allow staff and/or cit/leadership (great oppertunity for teaching responsibility). Make sure they are wearing gloves and serve the food. If you do that any leftovers meets the standards to be reused. Have whoever is serving go for seconds if needed.
With this method, and using us foods and food banks we actually only spent around 12,000 to feed roughly 100-110 campers and staff for 6 weeks. I strongly advise the use of foodbanks for fresh produce!
The thing I really found difficult with buffet is how crazy the mess hall gets with everyone running around. Anyone else had that problem?

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LukeBK Offline OP
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Thanks Alex Rogers for the great response. I?m interested in learning more about the food banks that you used. Do you have to show some kind of need to use the food bank? How was the quality of the food products? We currently use local farmers for stuff like our eggs though well it is cheaper we still pay for them.

How long did your meals last with having each table severed individually? Do you do anything special during meal times? How do you run your meals? Do you have any suggestions on things to do during meals to make them more interesting and memorable for campers? We work hard to make our food and meal times very memorable for campers.

We recently installed an AV system it helps make the camp more sellable to groups that want to rent it off during the off season. We also use it at meal times to play music and make announcements. We also play small games such as trivia and this day in history over the microphone.

Thank you to everyone for the great feed back.

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Luke,
I would suggest in looking into the food banks around your area. The camp I work for is a non-profit serving predominantly low income families. I would get in touch with your regional food bank and see if you can work something out. What is so great about the food banks for our program was the produce. A lot of things in the food back will sell by the pound (ex lettuce for only .29 per/lb!) The other function that was useful was buying expired refreshments for staff. A lot of these are hit or miss but some things we great (naked fruit drinks, certain sugar free sodas). It is definitely worth checking into!

As for our mess hall. . . We hold "flagpole" which would gather our camp together, or in some cases units together. From there we would take down the raise/take down the flag. After which we would have each cabin behind their rock and we would call out something they would have to do in order to go in first (Act like rock stars, make a star, be zombies, etc) Doing this eliminates the absolute rush if everyone tries to get into the mess hall at the same time which if not planned for can be catastrophic! From there the food is already on the tables, covered, and 2 pairs of gloves on the tables. As apart of our leadership program we gave the task of food distributions to the LITs, which really helped with giving the counselors time to sit and chat with their cabin instead of rushing around. The LITs really took to this and did a fantastic job. When the portions have been served and the kitchen is ready they have a sign on the wall which they can turn over is there is going to be seconds. It is the server?s jobs to go up for more if needed. This is a tremendous help with helping with a non chaotic flow in the mess hall.
now for clean up, here is an idea that i have thought of but not yet tried. When the kitchen sets the plates on the table for each cabin, make two of the plates on the bottom with a washable marker or something of that nature. Whoever are the unlucky ones who randomly receive those plates will be the table clearers for that meal. Hope some of that was helpful!

Some ideas for meal times....
- try to tune your meal schedule with the program you might be running or something to go with the all campo activity you might do after dinner.
- One thing I found campers had a ball with was introducing the evening program/all camp activities before dinner ends. (ex. For counselor dressed pirates show up in the middle of the mess hall and take the camp director hostage! Make something crazy up to set up whatever the evening program will be and have some of your Sr./leadership staff except the challenge of behalf of the campers) I love doing as many of these types as possible because it helps relieve some negative competitiveness towards fellow campers and targets it more with an us vs. them mentality of camp vs. the evil pirates or something in that nature.

Hope some of this helps! Camp will be coming fast!

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Oh one other thing that campers seem to love is the girls vs boys repeat after me songs. Have the counselors erally by into it and they will do it for as long or short as you want, just remember your ear plugs!

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Well, this is a late post...but I wanted to chime in. Our camp tried family style meals (100 people at most/ meal). It didn't go so well. Our cook couldn't grasp the concept that some kids would eat more and some would eat less. I didn't think it was that complicated, but it really bothered the cook. So, we returned to buffet style w/ staff cooking. We also incorporated singing competitions.

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Hi I hope the summer was great for all of you. Although food service is not me primary responsibility I assist our food service director at various times during the camping season. When I saw this topic it perked my interest. One item with family style service is to look at what your state public health laws state what can be done in a camp setting. Do not forget the in some states camp dining halls are looked on as dining establishments and some of the same rules that govern them govern us. Although we can still do family style dining because our dining hall was built before the cutoff date, we are in the midst of transitioning over to buffet style or modified plating. The main reasons we know that our state will eventually make buffet style mandatory. 2 the amount of food wasted in family style is huge. ONce the food goes out to the tables what isnt eaten has to be dumped. We are able to make the food items delicious and hot. the way the lines go is dependent on how the group director organizes the meal period. Our camp food service staff has had a tradition of putting our best faces and smiles foward and we get repayed by thank you cards songs, cheers etc.
Food service is one of the highest costs of camp one thing that the kids and staffs remember. our food service staffs are the unsung heros of camp along with our facilities staff. Keep the discussion going Sincerely Pat

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Last edited by Kolin; 06/29/11 10:32 PM.
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LukeBK Offline OP
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After many years doing buffet and family style I think I can say that buffet is best.

Buffet is cheaper, quicker, and the quality of food is better. With family style the food often sits on the table 5-10 minutes cooling off before everyone is seated. It can easily sit a addition 5-10 minutes before they start eating. That means a very hot good meal has cooled down.

I also do not see any difference in bonding with family style. The bonding dose not come from passing the food around but the conversation. Allowing campers to eat quicker higher quality food allows them to spend more time happily talking with their fellow campers.

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Really interesting convo here.


I'm not a fan of family style- there's too many people getting up during the meal to get more food. Buffet is so much easier and quicker to manage, for campers and kitchen staff.

I agree with Luke regarding bonding- Family Style doesn't seem to aid with initiating talking between the group anymore than buffet does.

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I've always liked family style much more. If each table only has one runner going to get food, it greatly cuts down the overall foot traffic. It also allowed for less overall food waste in comparison to programs the ran buffet style. I think efficiency comes down to how the meals are managed by staff and the kitchen, not the way the food is served.

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LukeBK Offline OP
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[quote=DaCampMan]It also allowed for less overall food waste in comparison to programs the ran buffet style.[/quote]

I think that depends on how you run the buffet. We always have servers control the portion sizes on the buffet at my old camp. I find having staff give portion out to the campers is the best way to control food waste. It also allows you to reuse food if staff are the only ones giving food out and allows you to stay in serve safe guidelines.

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That's the big advantage to buffet or cafeteria-style meal service, especially when you use servers. My camp is a family camp. We serve a mix of all ages for all sessions except for two kid-only weeks. The serving lines are self serve. Once we leaned how much to prepare for each meal, we have been able to reuse leftovers.

Steven
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Oakland Feather River Camp


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