Team breakfast for 20 people in Paris: quantities, price and timing

How much food do you need for 20 people at breakfast?

Here is the short answer for a team of 20, before the detail: 40 pastries, 20 pieces of fruit, 20 juices of 25 cl, coffee and tea in flasks, and still water. That covers a one-hour breakfast meeting with nobody going hungry and nothing left on the table at 10:00.

Two pastries each is the number that works. One looks mean when the plate empties at 8:50; three means a tray of croissants going stale by the coffee machine at noon. Add one piece of fruit and one juice per person, and coffee and tea that keep coming.

For a meeting that runs past 11:00, add something savoury or a yoghurt: people who skipped breakfast at home will be hungry again by mid-morning. That is the difference between a welcome breakfast and a breakfast that carries a workshop.

Which breakfast menu, and what does it cost for 20?

The minimum order is €300 per delivery. With the Continental Breakfast alone, it takes 27 guests to reach it, so a team of 20 usually moves up a menu. The table shows the totals for 20, default menu, coffee and tea in flasks, water and disposable tableware included.

The Balanced Breakfast swaps pastries for yoghurt with granola, fruit salad, multigrain bread and a green juice. The Sweet Indulgence adds mini pancakes and hot chocolate. The Savoury Brunch brings a mini bagel with smoked salmon, a vegetable quiche, a boiled egg and Comté. The Signature Executive is the one for a board or a client meeting.

What time should the breakfast be delivered?

Deliveries run in two-hour slots, and the first one is 7 to 9 am. For a 9:00 meeting, that is the slot. For an 8:30 start, book it too, and plan the first quarter of an hour as arrivals and coffee: the slot is a window, not an appointment.

Notice is 24 hours before the start of the slot. A breakfast for Thursday at 7 am is ordered and paid by Wednesday 7 am, which in practice means the day before, first thing. Everything else in the order (floor, room, the mobile of whoever opens the office) matters more at 7:30 than at any other time of day, because reception is often not staffed yet.

Hot drinks, diets, and why there is no champagne at breakfast

Coffee and tea come in flasks, unlimited, with every breakfast. Fresh juices can be added at €2.50 per guest and soft drinks at €3. There is no alcohol on breakfast menus, not even for a celebration: a launch at 9 am is toasted with orange juice.

Give the number of vegetarian guests when ordering. For coeliac colleagues, a gluten-free breakfast exists at €18.70 per guest. If part of the team eats halal, the halal breakfast costs €13.60 per guest, with 48 hours' notice. Allergens are listed in English on every menu page, so forward the link before you order rather than asking around the open space.

Who sets it up?

Nobody from our side stays: everything arrives ready to serve, and there are no waiting staff. One person clears a table near the meeting room, opens the boxes and lines up the cups; it takes ten minutes. On-site set-up is available as an option, €90 up to 30 guests, if you would rather walk in to a laid table.

Delivery is free across Paris and Île-de-France, except Seine-et-Marne (€90).

What if the team breakfast happens every week?

Then stop ordering it every week. The office subscription delivers the same breakfast, or meal trays, on the same day and slot for eight deliveries, with 10% off the menus, paid in one go by card when you order. The Monday stand-up or the Thursday all-hands gets its croissants without anyone remembering to click.

Vary the menu across the weeks if the team gets tired of pastries: a Balanced Breakfast one week, a Savoury Brunch the next. Twenty people notice when breakfast has been the same since September, and a change costs nothing.

Our view, for a recurring breakfast: keep the same slot, keep the same room, and tell reception once. After three weeks, the delivery runs without anyone thinking about it, which is the whole point.