The Party & Game-Day Order Playbook

How much to order per person

Start with the math, because guessing here is how you either run short or drown in leftovers. A dependable rule is about one entrée per adult, plus a couple of shareable sides for the table. From there, add an extra item or two for big eaters, picky variety, and the leftovers nobody complains about.

1. 8 people → 3–4 entrées
2. 12 people → 5–6 entrées
3. 20 people → 8–10 entrées, plus sides

Lean toward the higher number when the group skews hungry or when you're serving one dish as the only main. Cold leftovers are a feature, not a waste.

Why dollar-off usually wins on big carts

This is the single most valuable idea in the whole playbook. On a large order, a flat ‘dollars off when you spend X’ code often beats a percentage — but not always, so you have to check the actual numbers. Take a $60 order: a $10-off code beats a 15% code (which saves $9), but it loses to a 20% code (which saves $12). The headline doesn't tell you which wins; the arithmetic does.

The broad pattern is that the bigger the cart, the more a flat dollar-off tends to come out ahead. It's also the safer choice on a party order, because it won't accidentally drop your subtotal below the free-delivery minimum the way a deep percentage sometimes can. When you're unsure, our homepage calculator settles it in seconds.

Timing your party order

Order ahead — this matters more than people expect. Game-day and weekend-evening windows get genuinely slammed, and ordering early protects your pickup or delivery time just as much as your price. A great code does you no good if the kitchen is backed up an hour past kickoff.

You've got two good paths depending on your setup. Choose pickup ahead of time to skip the line and grab the order on your schedule, or clear the free-delivery minimum (easy on a party cart) if you'd rather not leave the gathering at all. Either way, locking it in early is the move.

Don't forget sides and drinks

Sides are where a party order quietly gets cheaper per head. Sides, shareables, and drinks stretch a group order a long way, and they fill people up so you can order slightly fewer entrées. The savvy play is to hunt for a free-drink or free-item deal to add volume at little or no cost, then apply your single best code across the whole cart.

For more on squeezing value out of sides and the Grubhub Perks menu, our value deals hacks guide shows how a free side can out-save a flat percentage — logic that scales up beautifully to a crowd.

Splitting the bill and the logistics

Big orders come with people-logistics, not just order math. If everyone's chipping in, lock the discount first and split the discounted total — dividing the pre-discount price and then applying a code means someone quietly pockets the savings. Work out the per-person share from the final number you actually pay.

On the fulfillment side, decide early between pickup and delivery, because each changes your timing. Pickup ahead of time gives you a guaranteed slot and dodges delivery fees entirely, which on a large order can be the bigger saving. Delivery keeps you at the gathering but leans on clearing the free-delivery minimum — trivial on a party cart — and on the kitchen not being swamped. Either way, naming a single person to place and track the order avoids the classic mix-up of two people ordering half a party each.

A quick pre-checkout checklist

Before you pay for a big order, run through this: headcount math done and rounded up, the cheaper of dollar-off versus percentage confirmed in the calculator, free delivery cleared or pickup time reserved, and a free side added to round out the table. Four small checks, and a party order that's both cheaper and less stressful than winging it.