Large Party Fire Time Planner

Works out when to fire long and short items, how long plating will take, and whether a big party has to go out in waves, for expediters and sous chefs running the pass.

Your estimate

Fire short items this long after the long items...

Plate-up time for the whole party...

Max plates per wave within the hold window...

Waves to fire this party...

Estimates only. Assumptions are listed below, and you can change every input.

A 24 top is where the expo pass usually breaks. Fire everything at once and the salmon sits in the window while the ribeyes finish. Fire the ribeyes first and lose track of the math, and half the table watches the other half eat. Then there is plating: twenty-four plates at twenty seconds each is eight minutes for one person, which means the first plate has been dying under the heat lamp for most of that time. This planner does the arithmetic before the ticket hits the rail.

The stagger is the difference between the longest and shortest cook times on the fire: fire the long items first, wait that many minutes, then fire the short items so everything lands together. Plate-up time is the party size times seconds per plate divided by the number of hands at the pass. The maximum plates per wave is how many plates you can finish before the first one has sat longer than your hold window. If the party is bigger than that, the tool tells you how many waves to fire. It does not know your oven capacity or burner count, so treat the result as a starting point, not a guarantee.

How to use this tool

Enter the party size and the longest and shortest fire-to-pass times among the items on the ticket.
Set plating seconds per plate, how many people will plate, and how long a finished plate can sit in the window.
Fire the long items first, fire the short items after the stagger shown, and split the party into the number of waves shown.

What the math assumes

Cook times are the fire-to-pass times you measure on your own line during a rush; the planner has no built-in cook time for any item.
Every item on the fire can start when called; burner, oven and fryer capacity limits are not modeled.
Plating runs at a steady pace with every pair of hands working the whole time; runners, checks and re-fires slow it down.
A plate is treated as dead once it sits longer than the hold window you set; the planner uses that limit, not a fixed number.
Items with cook times between the longest and shortest are fired at their own offset, which is the longest time minus that item's time.

Frequently asked questions

What if the party has three or four different cook times?

Fire the longest first, then each other item at the longest time minus its own cook time. A 14 minute steak, a 10 minute chicken and a 6 minute fish fire at 0, 4 and 8 minutes.

Should I fire a large party in waves or all at once?

If plate-up takes longer than your hold window, waves are safer. A table where everyone is served within a few minutes beats one where half the plates are cold, and if the party spans several tables, send each wave to one table.

Does this planner replace a good expediter?

No. It hands the expo the numbers before the ticket lands, but reading the line, holding a fire when a station is buried, and calling re-fires is still a person's job.

Link to this toolhttps://platepassr.com/tools/large-party-fire-planner/

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