Guide 08 · Money
Food, beverage, and the BEO
How the F&B minimum, service charge, and tax add up, when meal guarantees are due, and how to read a banquet event order line by line before you sign it.
The short version
- Price every menu with service charge and tax on top: in this guide's hypothetical, a $64 lunch with a 25% service charge and 8% tax on both costs $86.40 a person.
- Set each meal guarantee from confirmed attendance, not registrations, because you'll typically pay for the guarantee or the actual count, whichever is higher.
- Sign a BEO only after checking its times against the agenda, its counts against your numbers, and its special meals against a list of names.
Food is the line attendees judge three times a day, and the one where budgets quietly grow, because the menu price is not the invoice price. The banquet event order (BEO) turns your menu into a work order for the kitchen and a bill from the venue. Learn the math, read every BEO, and the final invoice holds no surprises.
The F&B minimum
Venue contracts commonly include a food and beverage minimum: a committed spend, often tied to meeting room rental. Miss it and you pay the shortfall. Before you sign, ask whether service charge and tax count toward it (frequently they don’t), whether it’s measured per day or across the event, whether bar sales count, and what happens if headcount drops. Choosing a kickoff venue covers the clause alongside attrition.
Service charge and tax, worked
A hypothetical lunch buffet: $64 a person, 400 guests, a 25% service charge, and 8% tax on both food and service charge.
| Line | Math | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Menu | 400 × $64 | $25,600 |
| Service charge | 25% of $25,600 | $6,400 |
| Subtotal | $25,600 + $6,400 | $32,000 |
| Tax | 8% of $32,000 | $2,560 |
| Total | $34,560 |
That’s $86.40 a person for a $64 lunch. If tax applied to the menu only, it would be 8% of $25,600, or $2,048, for a total of $34,048 ($85.12 a person). Whether tax applies to the service charge varies by place and contract, so ask the venue to show the math on a sample BEO.
Apply it to the minimum. Suppose this hypothetical contract sets a $150,000 F&B minimum counted on menu prices alone. At the same rates, reaching it costs $150,000 × 1.25 × 1.08, or $202,500. Finish at $138,000 of menu spend and you owe the $12,000 difference; whether that shortfall carries service charge and tax is a contract question. Carry the all-in number into your per-head budget.
Guarantees and the guarantee date
The guarantee is the number of meals you commit to pay for, function by function. It’s due before the event, commonly about 72 hours out; your contract sets the date. After that, counts can usually go up (if the kitchen can manage) but not down, and you’re typically billed for the guarantee or the actual count, whichever is higher.
Many venues also prepare an overset, a little food beyond the guarantee so late additions don’t empty the buffet. Whether they do, how much, and whether you pay when it’s eaten all vary, so ask your venue.
To set the number:
- Start from confirmed attendance, not registrations.
- Subtract people who’ll miss a meal: the exec dinner, the early flights home on Day 3.
- Count crew, staff, and speakers as their own line, often with a separate crew meal.
- Count every function separately. Day 1 lunch and Day 3 lunch are not the same number.
Meal timing against the agenda
The kitchen times hot food to the BEO, not to your keynote. When the general session runs long, a lunch that was ready at noon sits under heat lamps.
- Put BEO times in the agenda and the run of show, and change all three together; the three-day kickoff agenda shows each day’s shape.
- For buffets, a common planning number is one double-sided line for every 100 to 150 guests. Ask the catering manager how many they’ll set and how long 400 people will take.
- Open breakfast well before the first session (an hour is a comfortable rule of thumb), so nobody eats eggs in the back row.
Breaks that don’t eat the schedule
A 20-minute break for 400 people is mostly line. Shorten the line, not the break.
- Split stations across both ends of the foyer, with coffee apart from the snacks.
- Have everything set and hot before the session lets out.
- Put water in every breakout room so nobody walks back for it.
- Where the venue allows it, order breaks on consumption (coffee by the gallon, pastries by the dozen) instead of per person.
Dietary and allergy handling
Collecting needs at registration is the easy part; the guide to an accessible, inclusive kickoff covers it. Getting the right meal to the right person is where it fails.
- Counts by name. Send the catering manager names, needs, and (for plated meals) table numbers, and check the BEO’s count for each need.
- Labels. Every buffet item labeled with its name and common allergens, by the kitchen, which knows the recipe.
- Separate prep. Ask how special meals are prepared and served: separate surfaces and utensils, plated and covered rather than buffet, brought by a server who knows who they’re for.
- Every function. Breaks and receptions too, not just lunch.
- No promises you can’t keep. A banquet kitchen may not be able to guarantee a meal is allergen-free, so don’t promise it for them. For severe allergies, connect the attendee with the chef or catering manager before the event, and leave medical decisions to the attendee and their doctor. Ask the venue about its procedures and your insurer about yours.
The BEO, line by line
A BEO is the venue’s work order for one function: what’s served, where, when, for how many, and at what price. Expect one per function, revised often.
| Field | What to check |
|---|---|
| BEO number and revision | You’re signing the latest version |
| Post as | The name on the reader board; keep confidential launch names off the hallway sign |
| Date and times | Match the agenda and run of show, including setup and service start |
| Room | The right room, plus the foyer for breaks served outside it |
| Setup | Seating, table count, buffet lines, and stations match the production floor plan |
| Counts | Expected count, guarantee, and any set count above it |
| Menu | Every item, service style, and quantities for consumption orders |
| Special meals | A count per need, matched to your list of names |
| Beverage | Bar type, hours, brands or package tier, and bartender count |
| Pricing | Unit prices, service charge and tax at contract rates, and any bartender, attendant, or small-group fees |
| Billing | The master account it posts to |
| Signature | Yours, dated, on the latest revision |
Once signed, the BEO is generally what the kitchen produces and what you’re billed against, and your contract may make it binding.
Hosted bar models
| Model | How it bills | Upside | Trade-off |
|---|---|---|---|
| Consumption | Per drink, or per bottle opened, depending on the venue | You pay for what’s poured | Hard to predict until the bar closes |
| Per-person package | A flat price per guest for a set number of hours | Predictable | You pay for nondrinkers and early leavers |
| Drink tickets | A set number per guest, then cash or close | Caps spend and consumption | Tickets get traded; someone has to hand them out |
| Cash | Guests pay their own | Lowest cost to you | Feels stingy, and bartender fees or a bar minimum may still apply |
Hybrids are common: hosted beer and wine with cash for spirits, or a consumption bar capped at a dollar amount. Whatever the model, get the close-out count that night.
Alcohol is a liability question as much as a budget one. Let the venue’s bartenders serve, keep food out while the bar is open, close it before the event ends, and ask your venue, counsel, and insurer what your policies and coverage need to say. Duty of care at kickoff covers the wider safety plan, and evening events people enjoy covers the rest of the night.
What to sign off, and when
- At contract. The F&B minimum, what counts toward it, service charge and tax rates, and the guarantee date.
- Around T-45. Menus, drafted with the catering manager.
- As BEOs arrive, often a few weeks out. Each one reviewed, corrected, and signed.
- On the guarantee date. Final counts, function by function.
- A day or two before. The pre-con (pre-convention) meeting: walk every BEO with the catering manager, banquet captain, and chef.
- On site. Every change as a revised BEO, and a banquet check signed after each function.
Field note: Count the room yourself at peak, then sign the banquet check the same day against your number, not the BEO’s. Nobody remembers on Thursday how many people ate breakfast on Tuesday.
Post-event reconciliation
Check the itemized final bill against the signed BEOs and banquet checks, not the contract estimate.
- Counts. The guarantee or the actual, whichever is higher, matching what you signed.
- Bar. Consumption matches the close-out counts.
- Service charge and tax. At contract rates, only on lines that carry them.
- The minimum. Calculated as the contract says, shortfall included.
- Concessions. Every credit or comp the contract promised, applied.
- Strays. Personal charges that landed on the master account.
Raise disputes in writing, promptly; your contract may set a window. Then carry the real per-person costs into next year’s budget.
Good kickoff food goes unnoticed: on time, hot, labeled, and enough of it. Getting there takes a calculator next to every menu and your signature on every BEO.