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?
