Taco Bar Sign Up Sheet (free, online)

How to set it up

A taco bar is the easiest group meal there is because everything comes in a tray and nothing has to be timed. The sheet is the menu with counts: tortillas and shells, a couple of meats, beans and rice, the cold toppings, the salsas, chips, dessert and drinks. Put the number of people at the top and a serving size in each row, and the bar builds itself.

The mistake is an open list where everyone brings cheese. One tip: group the small toppings into rows of three, like 'lettuce, tomatoes and onions', so one person brings a set and you don't have twelve rows for things that cost four dollars. Ask people to bring toppings in the container they'll be served from, with a spoon.

Questions people ask

How much food for 40 people?

Plan on three tacos each, so about 120 tortillas and roughly six pounds of cooked meat across the meat rows. The counts above are built for 40; change the serving sizes in the rows for your crowd.

Can people say what they're bringing?

Yes. Add a text question at signup, 'What exactly are you bringing?', so you see 'mild salsa' and 'hot salsa' instead of two salsas that turn out to be the same jar.

We do this every quarter. Do I rebuild it?

No. Copy the page, change the date, and email everyone who brought something last time from the page. The rows and counts carry over empty.

Why not a paper sheet or a Google Form?

A paper sheet lives in one place and fills up with the first people who walk past it. A Google Form takes forty signups for a row that needed two, and you find out in the spreadsheet. An online sign-up sheet closes each row when it's covered, sends a reminder the day before, and gives every person a link to cancel so the spot reopens. See the side-by-side with Google Forms.