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Inexpensive, Casual Space for 60 People Pre-Wedding - Not Looking for Food


naxos

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Looking for a Sunday night restaurant or space for pre- wedding dinner in July.Not looking to have another wedding but a casual space for folks to eat, drinks some and toast the couple. If we find a space, we can order in our own food. 

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4 hours ago, naxos said:

Looking for a Sunday night restaurant or space for pre- wedding dinner in July. Not looking to have another wedding but a casual space for folks to eat, drinks some and toast the couple. If we find a space, we can order in our own food. 

Can you give some more detail?

1) Where do you want the space? Near any public transportation?

2) Would a "club" of some sort be acceptable, like an Elks Lodge? (I don't even know what an Elks Lodge is, but it's the first thing that came to mind.) A restaurant will surely cost you more since they'd need to close it - plus, I don't even know if it's legal with insurance and all that.

3) What about an indoor pavilion at a public park? You'll probably want somewhere air-conditioned since it's in July.

4) I assume from what you've written that you're pretty much looking for the equivalent of a school gymnasium. Do you need chairs and tables? Something more like a banquet hall?

People will definitely need these details, at the minimum, and if you could show your hand about how much you can spend, that will help your cause. I don't have many Baltimore connections, but I can put the word out for you - give me your best description of an ideal setting.

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  Thank you for asking for clarification.

My daughter's wedding will be "downtown"ish on Monday and out of town guests will likely stay near the Inner Harbor.

The ideal venue would be a restaurant that has all the tables and chairs etc and could arrange for us to have a meal for max $30 pp with the option for us to bring wine, beer and/ or alcohol. We have found places for a meal at that price but would need to purchase drinks and that nearly doubles the price. So a BYO restaurant that seats 60 would be great.- if one exists.

Food need not be anything too special, obviously for the price, but a gathering place.

We tried a pizza place but was required to pay more than $1000 for use of space.

Space would have to be transport friendly-many will be without cars so uber could be a solution if not too far. - We looked into renting a bus so we could use some of the State or County park pavilions but weather is a potential issue- rather not be in a park in the rain  but the bus rental  is too expensive. I had not identified "indoor" pavilions with AC.

A school gymnasium would be a bit too low key...

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$30 a person for 60 people is $1,800 in total revenue, which probably means $500-1,000 in profit for the restaurant, and you might need to find a place that isn't normally open on a Sunday night, or is downscale enough to close the restaurant for 60 people at the height of tourist season. It sounds like you have your work cut out for you, and I'm not sure you're going to find a restaurant at the Harbor - have you checked around with some of the hotels and their banquet rooms? That's where I'd start - calling around, and seeing if somewhere at the harbor will do a banquet for 60 at $30 a head. The big sticking point is going to be bringing your own alcohol, because that's a big profit center for the hotel (think about it: the amount of profit they'll make can be accounted for by 4-6 extra customers staying in rooms that night, which isn't worth a whole lot of trouble for them to go to).

I'm sorry I don't have more optimistic news, but this may be reality. You might also try a place in Little Italy, since that's so close to the Harbor, and some of the family-owned spots would be *glad* to get 60 people on a Sunday night. I think you're more likely to be able to influence a mom 'n' pop Italian restaurant than a hotel.

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