The clogged grill at our June cookout changed our whole signup system

We had our block party last June in Austin and the guy who always brings his big smoker got sick last minute. Someone else brought a tiny Weber that took 40 minutes per burger with 30 families waiting to eat. We stood around with hangry kids for over an hour, and I learned we need backup plans for every single food station. Now our signup sheet lists a primary person and a backup for each dish, plus we bought a cheap spare propane grill that lives in my garage. Has anyone else had a critical food vendor or neighbor flake out on them at the last minute?

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jesse98818d agoMost Upvoted

Did your grill people end up having a whole backup list by the end of summer? That's smart thinking, but I gotta say our HOA tried that once and it just turned into everyone fighting over who got to bring the fancy smoker, so we scrapped it. Now we just do a potluck where the rule is no one cooks on site, everybody brings something already done, which solves the flake problem but creates a new one where three families show up with the same sad pasta salad.