We put out a donation box, with a usual donation of $5 per person.
As Junior Warden this year, part of my year planning was to establish a kitchen/refreshment budget, and try to stick to it. Budgeting $5 per plate, and planning for 25 plates per stated meeting, 50 for degrees and family nights. Experience shows that we're hitting 25 or so for stated, 25-to 30 for EA and FC degrees, 35-45 for MM degrees, and 60 for family night.
Last night was a MM degree, 43 plates, and the menu featured taco salad, beans & cornbread, banana pudding, bread pudding, Cave City watermelon, and iced tea. Spent $92 on groceries (hamburger is pretty high right now); took in $125 in the collection box.
Stated meeting last week featured roasted pork loin & gravy, mashed potatoes, pinto beans, buttered corn, tossed salad, cornbread, banana pudding, & iced tea. 25 plates served.
Family night is a potluck meal, though with our growing numbers, we have way outgrown the potluck model so I do what's pretty much a full meal (Lodge has historically provided the meat entree), so I did a couple of pit hams, potato salad, and beans & cornbread, plus whatever the potluck brings in. We fed 57 plates, but do not put the donation box out for family night, as this is our monthly open house for all comers.
Past meals over the summer have featured Louisiana gumbo, chicken-fried steak, corned beef & cabbage, jambalaya, red beans & rice, pork loin in several styles (it's the cheapest meat entree for these sorts of numbers), salisbury steak, spaghetti, chicken & dumplings, taco salad, oven-fried pork steaks, ham, beef stew, and others. I still have about 20 lbs of rice that a brother donated, and one of the OES ladies filled my freezer with some pasta stuff collected from a closing restaurant, so I have to figure out something to do with that in the near future, so it's an ongoing deal.
I serve as half of our kitchen staff over at the Scottish Rite temple, and so had a little over a year's experience there before stepping up into the JW chair. As Jr. Warden, I pretty much get stuck with the kitchen duties, though I have a couple of our EA's and FC's helping out, and building a bit of interest in forming a standing kitchen committee rather than depending on the skills of whoever is sitting in the JW's chair. The standing committee works well at the Scottish Rite, and that's something we can hopefully transfer over to the blue lodge.
As Emeril sometimes says, we do real cooking in here, we cook from scratch, and serve home-style comfort foods. No take-out chicken or pizza...
It's been a busy year so far, and has pretty well worn me down, as we put these sorts of meals on at least twice a month (plus the monthly AASR meeting), and with degree work over the past couple months, there have been stretches where I've put on the festive board every single week. And we do a monthly Saturday breakfast, too, btw...
But 90% of what happens in our lodge rotates around our dining room/fellowship hall. We have high attendance numbers, and lots of visitors, because the brethren know that if they come to Adoniram, we set a good table and they'll be well-fed with good company. And we do it with consistency. It's as much of a recruiting and retention effort as anything else we do ;-)