How do you organise who brings what to a cookout?

List what you actually need — a couple of salads, a dessert, ice, plates — then send one link and let people claim a slot and say what they're bringing. A group chat can't do this job because messages scroll away and nobody can see what's already covered, which is why six people all bring dessert.

Cookout planning

Q: How do you plan food for a cookout?

Work backwards from the headcount before you shop: about two quarter-pound patties per adult if burgers are the only main, or 1.5 patties plus a hot dog each if you're grilling both, with kids under 10 counting as half an adult and roughly 10% added on top. Convert that to what the shop actually sells — pounds of beef and eight-packs of buns — then keep a running count on the day so you cook what people actually want rather than what you guessed.

Q: What is the most commonly under-bought item at a cookout?

Buns. People count meat carefully and then forget the bread entirely. Buns come eight to a pack, so divide your patty count by eight and round up — 40 patties means five packs.

Q: How many people can a 22-inch kettle grill cook for?

Roughly 8 to 10 burgers per round on the direct-heat area, and a round takes about ten minutes. Past eight rounds you are grilling for well over an hour before the last person eats, which is the point to borrow a second grill rather than cook faster.

A cookout is three questions, and they land days apart. Who's bringing what, asked the week before. How much do I buy, asked in a shop on Saturday morning. And who wants what, asked at the grill with tongs in one hand. Here are free tools for all three — no accounts, nothing to install.

The week before

Find out who's bringing what

List what you need, send one link, and everyone claims a dish and says what they're actually bringing. You find out about the seventh dessert now, rather than when it arrives.

Start a signup

Saturday morning

Work out what to buy

Tell it your headcount and it writes the shopping list — patties, hot dogs, buns and pounds of beef, in the units the shop actually sells, with a cushion for burnt ones and drop-ins.

Open the calculator

Tongs in hand

Keep the count as they ask

Tap a card each time someone tells you what they want. No names, no typing, and it keeps working with no signal — the notebook, without the notebook.

Start a tally

Or let the whole party order for itself

Past twenty people, one person keeping the count stops working — you get pulled away mid-tally, or two people ask at once and one of them gets forgotten. Send one link instead and everyone puts their own order in from wherever they're standing.

Up to 40 people in a room, no app to install and no account to make.
Whoever's cooking sees the running total update as orders land.
And sees exactly who asked for what — plus who hasn't ordered yet, which is how you make sure you got everybody.

Start a live tally

Six desserts is a coordination failure, not bad luck

People bring dessert because dessert is the easy answer and nobody can see that four others had the same thought. In a group chat "I'll bring something sweet" scrolls away in four minutes, and there's no moment where anyone can check what's already covered.

The fix isn't nagging, it's making the gaps visible at the point someone is deciding. That's also why a claim carries what you're actually bringing rather than a bare tick: "Dessert — Sam is bringing brownies" tells the host something a checkmark never does, and stops two people quietly claiming the same slot for different things.

Buy for the headcount, cook for the tally

These are deliberately two tools rather than one, because they answer different questions and you are a different person when you ask them. Shopping is an estimate: you don't know exactly who is coming, so you plan generously and buy in the units the shop stocks. The grill is not an estimate — the people are standing in front of you, and the only thing that matters is how many go on in the next ten minutes.

Trying to do both with one number is where cookouts go wrong. You either cook to the shopping estimate and produce forty burgers for a crowd that wanted hot dogs, or you cook reactively and run out of buns at five o'clock.

The quantities, stated plainly

Most guides look like they disagree about burgers per person. They don't — each one is answering a slightly different question without saying which. This is what the calculator uses:

Burgers only: two quarter-pound patties per adult.
Burgers and hot dogs: about 1.5 patties plus one hot dog per adult. When both are on the grill, most people take one of each rather than two of one.
Kids under 10: count as half an adult.
Cushion: add 10%, for the one that falls through the grate and the neighbour who wanders over.
Buns: eight to a pack. Divide patties by eight and round up. This is the single most under-bought item at any cookout, because everyone counts meat and nobody counts bread.
Cheese: slices for about two thirds of the burgers, sixteen to a pack.
Vegetarians: two veggie burgers each, four to a box, counted out of the beef rather than added to it.

Two crowds nobody plans for

Hamburgers and cheeseburgers are separate orders to separate people, and working out which is which one guest at a time, mid-cook, is a genuine waste of a grill. Ask once and record both — the tally does that on the day, and the calculator buys slices for about two thirds of the burgers, which is as precise as you can honestly be in a shop.

The other is vegetarians. Most calculators don't know about them; this one has a count for them, because one box of veggie burgers is a much cheaper mistake than the alternative.

When the party gets big

Past twenty or so people, one person keeping the count stops working — you get pulled away mid-tally, or two people ask you at once and one of them gets forgotten. At that size, send everyone a link instead. Each person enters their own order from wherever they're standing, and whoever's cooking sees the running total, who asked for what, and a list of who hasn't ordered yet. That last list is the one that matters: it's how you make sure you got everybody.

Grill capacity is the other limit. A 22-inch kettle does roughly 8 to 10 burgers a round and a round is about ten minutes, so a crowd needing eight rounds means the last person eats well over an hour after the first. That's the point to borrow a second grill rather than try to cook faster.

Cookout planning FAQ

How do you organise who brings what?

List what you need, send one link, and let people claim a slot and say what they're bringing. A chat can't do it: messages scroll away and nobody can see what's covered.

How do you plan food for a cookout?

Work backwards from the headcount before you shop, using the quantities above, then convert to what the shop actually sells — pounds of beef and eight-packs of buns. On the day, keep a running count of what people ask for so you cook what they want rather than what you guessed.

What is the most commonly under-bought item at a cookout?

Buns, by a distance. People count meat carefully and forget bread entirely.

How do you keep track of who wants what at a barbecue?

For a small group, tap out a running tally as people tell you — no names, just counts. Past about twenty people, send a link so everyone enters their own order, which also shows you who hasn't ordered yet.

How many people can a 22-inch kettle grill cook for?

Roughly 8 to 10 burgers per round, about ten minutes a round. Past eight rounds, get a second grill.

If the grill stays cold

Plans change and sometimes the answer is that nobody wants to cook. EatNearMe picks a real restaurant near you — spin the wheel, run a group bracket so everyone gets a vote, or settle it from a shortlist you already have. When the bill lands, the tip calculator splits it.