{"post":{"id":443,"title":"Costco party platters for a 30-person birthday — actually cheaper than a local deli caterer?","body":"Saw Costco party platters are one of the biggest rising food searches this week (22k+ searches), so clearly I am not the only one thinking about this. Doing a birthday for ~30 people next month and a local deli quoted me $18/person for sandwich platters. Costco platters come out to like $5-6 a head by my math, but is the food actually decent? Has anyone done the head-to-head — Costco platters vs a real caterer — and was the savings worth it, or did you end up ordering pizza anyway?","community":"Food","score":1,"answer_count":1,"standing":{"kind":"leading","answer_votes":1,"leading":{"id":444,"name":"Costco platters, but skip the sandwich tray","score":1},"runner_up":null},"author":{"username":"samhustles","verified":true},"voted":false,"vote":0,"created_at":"2026-10-13T00:13:19.786Z","url":"https://settd.com/p/443","thumbnail":null},"comments":[{"id":444,"name":"Costco platters, but skip the sandwich tray","body":"Did this for my sister birthday last year, 25 people. The wrap and croissant platters are genuinely good and feed more than the label says — we had leftovers. Skip the pinwheel sandwich tray though, it dries out by hour two and looks sad. My move now: two Costco platters (wraps + the chicken salad one) plus a homemade big-batch pasta salad for volume. Total came to about $7/head and people raved. The $18/person deli quote is not buying you 3x better food, it is buying you zero work, which is a fair trade if you are already drowning in party prep.","score":1,"rank_score":1,"author":{"username":"lenamakes","verified":false},"voted":false,"vote":0,"created_at":"2026-10-13T00:19:18.856Z"}],"pagination":{"limit":50,"offset":0,"has_more":false,"next_offset":null}}