Father Day Catering in Brooklyn for a Grill Day Without the Grill Work

Here is how Father Day usually goes in Brooklyn. Everybody comes over, the afternoon is warm, the food is meat, and one person spends four hours at a grill turning things over while the rest of the family sits down. Often that person is the father, which defeats the entire exercise.

Buying the meat as trays fixes it in one move. The proteins arrive cooked, in covered pans, ready to go on a table, and the grill becomes optional instead of load bearing. If somebody wants to put a few things over fire for the smell of it, fine. Nobody has to.

What meat trays carry a Father Day table in Crown Heights?

Three of them, at the top of the catering list.

Pan Steak is $160 for a full party tray. It's the most direct substitute for the thing people were going to grill, and it comes out of a kitchen that cooked it properly instead of a backyard where it got flipped too early.

Lamb Suya is $165 and is the top of the entire menu. Suya is a Nigerian and Hausa preparation, spiced grilled meat, and lamb suya on a Brooklyn table on a June afternoon is a different kind of afternoon. It is the tray guests ask about, and it is not something you can pick up on most blocks in central Brooklyn.

Fried Chicken Suya is $120 and is the one that disappears fastest. It carries the same seasoning idea at a lower price, it is easy to eat standing up with a plate in one hand, and it works for the people at the gathering who are not going to attack a tray of steak.

More on how the two top end meat trays compare is in the post on choosing between the steak and lamb catering trays.

What rounds out the table on a Brooklyn afternoon?

Meat alone is a mistake, and it is the mistake most Father Day spreads make. The proteins are the expensive part and they go further with something under them.

Mac and Cheese is $90 and it is not negotiable. It is the tray that empties first at every gathering in this borough and pretending otherwise wastes everyone's time. Pan Collard Greens is $60 and does the opposite job, cutting through a table of rich meat with something that has been simmering for hours.

Beyond those two, White Rice is $40 and is the cheapest way to stretch three meat trays into a full meal. Pan Jollof Rice is $85 if you want the rice to carry flavor instead of sitting under it. Mashed Potato is $80. Pan Caesar Salad is $60 and gives the table something cold and green next to everything else.

The full catering list runs from $40 to $165 and every number is the price of a whole pan. There is nothing on the menu priced by the plate.

How much does the whole thing cost?

Work it as pans and the budget stops being mysterious. The meat trays sit between $100 and $165. The rice, sides and salads sit between $40 and $90. You pick how many of each.

If somebody at the gathering does not eat red meat, Pan Baked Chicken and Pan Fried Chicken are $100 each, Pan Whiting is $115 and Pan Shrimp is $125.

A useful way to think about the split is that one tray should be the thing people talk about and the rest should be the things people eat a lot of. Lamb suya is the talking point. Fried chicken suya and mac and cheese are the volume. Getting that balance wrong in either direction is the most common Father Day ordering mistake, either three expensive meat trays and nothing to put them on, or a table of sides with one lonely protein in the middle of it.

How hot is the suya, and how far does a pan go?

Two questions come up on nearly every call about the suya trays, and the answer to both is the same. Ask the kitchen.

How hot a dish comes out isn't something this post will assert. Suya is a seasoned preparation and people's tolerance for it varies enormously. If it matters to you, and with a family gathering it usually does, ring 718-799-7160 and describe who's eating.

How many people a full pan covers isn't published either, because it isn't a fixed number. It depends on how many other trays are on the table, whether the afternoon runs long, and whether people are getting one plate or four. Say how many you expect and the order gets sized to it. Whether the food can be brought to you, and what that involves, is a phone question too. This post won't claim it either way.

Ordering from 1172 Park Place

FreeTown African & American Cuisine is at 1172 Park Place in Crown Heights. The number is 718-799-7160 and the full tray list is at https://www.freetownbk.com/menu.

The thing worth remembering is that a West African tray and a soul food tray come out of the same order here. Lamb suya next to mac and cheese and collard greens is not a fusion experiment, it is what the menu is. For a family in central Brooklyn where half the table grew up on one and half on the other, that is one phone call instead of two.

If June has more than one occasion on it in your house, a Juneteenth cookout spread ordered by the tray is the other one, and it leans on the same meat trays. The matching post for the spring is a Mother Day order she does not have to touch. The wider view across every occasion is in the guide to holiday catering bought as counted pans in Brooklyn.