The most common catering mistake isn’t picking the wrong restaurant — it’s ordering the wrong amount from the right one. A "tray that serves 15" can mean 15 generous plates or 15 people who leave hungry, depending on how the chain built the portion. Before comparing prices, it helps to know exactly what each size actually delivers, because that’s the number that determines whether your office lunch runs short or leaves three trays of leftovers in the break room.
Chipotle: Portions Sized Per Person, Not Per Tray
Chipotle catering is built around a per-person allotment rather than a fixed tray count, which makes it one of the more predictable options to size correctly. The standard Build Your Own spread requires a minimum of 10 people and portions out roughly the same amount each guest would get in a regular bowl or burrito — about four ounces each of protein, rice, and beans, plus toppings. Burritos by the Box works differently: it has a lower six-person minimum, and every two burritos come bundled with chips, salsa, and sour cream, which matters if you’re ordering for a smaller meeting and don’t want to buy in the 10-person tier. On the side, a Chips & Dips tray is sized to serve 10 to 15 people, so it can usually cover two smaller entree orders without needing a second tray.
Subway: Sub Length Determines the Real Headcount
Subway’s catering math is less intuitive because the serving count depends on how the subs are cut. A Classic or Premium Sandwich Platter contains five footlong subs sliced into 15 pieces total, but the realistic headcount is closer to 5 to 9 people once you assume each guest eats two to three pieces rather than exactly one — some ordering guides list it as covering up to 15 people, which only holds if everyone takes a single small piece. The Giant Sub line scales more predictably by length: a 3-foot sub is cut into 18 two-inch portions and serves roughly 9 to 15 people, while a 6-foot sub doubles that to 36 portions and 18 to 25 people. For groups where individual packaging matters more than a shared platter, the Assorted Lunch Box Bundle is the cleanest option to plan around — it’s built for exactly 12 people, with 12 sandwiches, 12 bags of chips, 12 cookies, and 12 drinks, so there’s no guessing at how the pieces divide.
Olive Garden: Family-Style Pans Built for Ranges, Not Fixed Counts
Olive Garden’s catering menu is structured around family-style pans rather than individually plated portions, so most sizing decisions come down to picking the right range for your group. Individual pasta pans — Chicken Alfredo, Lasagna Classico, Five Cheese Ziti al Forno, and similar dishes — are sized to serve 4 to 6 people each, which makes them a reasonable building block for smaller departmental lunches where you want variety across two or three dishes instead of one big order. The packaged Meal Combinations step up from there, designed to serve 8 to 14 people as a bundled package rather than a single pan. For larger, more hands-on events, the Create Your Own Pasta Station is sized in multiples of 10 people and includes two pastas, three sauces, three toppings, salad, and breadsticks — useful for a 30- or 40-person office event where guests are building their own plates rather than being served from a single pan. Soups follow their own logic: a half-gallon serves about 6 people and a full gallon serves about 12, which is easy to forget when you’re only budgeting for entrees.
Chick-fil-A: Trays Sized by Piece Count, Not Guest Count
Chick-fil-A catering trays are labeled by the number of pieces inside rather than a guest count, so the actual headcount takes a small conversion. Nugget trays run small (64 nuggets, about 8 people), medium (120 nuggets, about 15 people), and large (200 nuggets, about 25 people) — useful benchmarks if your group tends to eat more or less than the average nugget count per person. Chick-n-Strips trays follow a similar small-tray pattern at 24 strips for roughly 8 people, and Chick-n-Minis trays run smaller still at 20 minis for about 5 people, which is easy to underestimate if you’re used to the nugget tray math. For groups where everyone should get an identical, individually wrapped meal rather than sharing from a communal tray, the Packaged Meals option scales in fixed quantities of 10, 25, 50, and up, pairing an entree with Waffle Potato Chips and a cookie per person — the more predictable choice when a shared tray risks uneven portions.
The Sizing Question Behind the Cost Question
Before requesting a quote from any of these four chains, the more useful first question isn’t "what does this cost" but "what does this actually serve." A tray labeled for 15 people can mean 15 full plates or 15 light snacks depending on the chain and the item, and the gap between those two readings is exactly where offices either run short mid-lunch or end up paying for food nobody eats. Matching your real headcount — and how hungry that group typically is — against the specific tray sizes above is a faster way to land on the right order than comparing sticker prices alone.