Iowa BBQ Company

06/11/2025

06/03/2025

In the past, and more so recently, we have posted about ordering the proper amount of meat, due to guests taking both meat selections.

There have been a few nail biters, that were slavaged simlly because the headcount didnt show up. Otherwise they would have ran out of meat.

Up until this date, we have never ran out of meat, except in the xase of when people were coming back for 2nds.

In the coming weeks, we inevitable face this happening. From our point of view, seeing eating habits, the client will run out of meat with 100 guests remaining, as they chise not to order enough.

What do we do. Ultimately it will seem to the guests that Iowa BBQ Company ran out of meat. When the reality is 200 of the 1st 300 guests took both meats, and the client didnt account for that.

This leaves us with a potential negatibe impression and feedback.

Do we take the additional meat needed, and approach the client, when the meat is about gone, with an additional charge, after they have paid? This seems to me to be tacky, and I dont want to be accused of trying to make an additional sale. Aside from an unhappy client, we are more protective of our reputation.

The bottom line is this. Nothing will stop your guests from taking both meats if thats what they want to do. A sign, an announcement by the DJ, RSVPs, the Police . . . .will not stop people from taking both. An announcement by the DJ will help, but wont stop it. Its a buffet style meal, but that doesnt mean all you can eat.

05/25/2025

We cater alot of wedding. We pay attention, and we see wedding guests eating habits. We try to advise our clients, not only for their wedding day to be perfect, but also to protect our reputation. If a bride and groom run out of food, its not because of Iowa BBQ Co, its because theg didnt order enough, or had too large of a plate with just a standard dinner option of 2 sides.

1st, the plate. We advise and recommend that, if your getting your own dinnerware, that you avoid 10 inch plates, unless you are getting 3 or 4 sides, or salad for all of your guests. With the standard meat and 2 sides, the 10 inch plate appears half full to the wedding guests, tempting them to fill it even more, potentially eating more than you have ordered for. If you padding your numbers by 25%, the 10 inch plate wont be a problem.

Second, make sure you accomidate for people taking both meats. When you order 2 meats for 300 ppl we are bringing 150 servings of 1 meat, and 150 of the other. Most people are going to take both meats. We dont see this occassionally, we see it every single week, at every single wedding. We offer meat by the pound, it is economic, and provides assurance you wont run out. We dont sell extra pounds to make money, we do it to protect our reputations. Because when you dont plan accordingly, we look bad.

We havent had an issue, but weve had too many close calls. Those were mainly because the amount of people they told us to plan for, didnt all show up. If they had, there would have been an issue with meat. In the event that this happens and we are being approached by your guests, we are simply going to say, we brought what they told us to bring.

Hopefully it never happens.

04/29/2025

Weekend Photo Dump

04/27/2025

When selecting your menu, keep a few things in mind. It is your special day, however your guests are eating too. To make a non specific example, pea salad. Not everyone will eat it. As your guests graze over the food they will make decisions according. They will either take 2 or 3 rolls, load up on meat, or load up on the other side. Habit is to fill the plate. This could cause issues. Weve never ran out of food, not once ever, but theres times its been close, with a lot of pea salad left. Plan accordingly, we can give you advice.

04/13/2025

Sold out 9:02am

1 # Burnt Ends
1 # Cheesy Potatoes

Reheat in the bag, in the microwave for about a minute each.

Cash or Venmo, and we currently don't have change.

$15.00 for the bundle. This is limited and we will message you back to confirm your in, and will update the post when sold out.

04/13/2025

Hint Hint

04/12/2025

Burnt Ends

02/26/2025

People ask us all the time, has the price went up. We set the prices for the year and they dont change. We dont believe in quoting you a price and then you decide to use us, and then we say, we raised the price. In the past few years this has been painfull but thats our policy.

This year were going to get killed on cornbread and 7 layer salad unless the egg crisis ends soon. While we do not place a surcharge, some do. Bothersome to me is placing a 50 ¢ surcharge on an egg that doesnt even cost you 50 ¢ to begin with. If eggs were 2.00 a dozen and are now 5.00 the surcharge should be 25 ¢.

01/26/2025

Well this is fun!

01/20/2025

Stacy says last night was the end of the 2024 season. I say it was the beginning of 2025. We do have close to a 2 month break (thats intentional by the way). No matter how you look at it, we could not be succesful without our 2 daughters, and a few other who help when they arent available. We have never cancelled on a client, and our staff has never called in sick or not shown up. In todays culture, that speaks very loudly. Quite frankly, we all work our ass off to make your event what you expect it to be. For those clients who were kind enough to provide a gratuity, THANK YOU. In 2025 we will contimue to operate with no automatic gratuity. We leave that up to the client to determine if we met their expectations. Ill stop there.

Now, onto the amount of food you should order. We kept a very detailed log onnthe 2024 season. Never did we run out of food. There were 14 wedding in which the client ran out of meat, at the end of the night. This was during the time that people were getting seconds. Each of these 14 weddings did not have their headcount. The number of guests was considerably lower than we were told. As an example, on a 250 person wedding. 200 showed up. Those 200 ate 250 servings of meat, and at the end of the night, there were at least 50 servings of each of the sides still left.

75% of your guests including you and your wedding party are going to take both meats. We suggest you order extra pounds of meat, vs padding the count as you save a good amount of money that way.

In the event that the meat runs out before all of your guests go through the line (on seconds, and thirds, its expected) its not because we didnt bring enough food, it's because you didnt order enough.

We say goodbye to 2024, and hello into 2025. Thank you to all who have supported us.