How Many Pizzas You Need For A Party, From Bffs Only To Blowout Bash

If you're ordering pizza for yourself and a few friends or family members, you may have a fairly good idea of how many to order based on what you already know about everyone's appetite. However, when you're dealing with larger parties, like a kid's birthday bash or an office get-together, things get more confusing. You don't want to blow the budget and wind up with a bunch of leftovers but, on the other hand, it would be terrible to run out of food before everyone gets their share.

A good rule for determining how much pizza to order is based on the fact that most standard pizzas are cut into eight slices, although there are exceptions, such as square-cut pizzas or specialty items like Domino's Brooklyn-style crust pizza, where a large yields only six slices. If you are buying standard round pizzas and you figure on each party guest eating three slices, all you'll need to do is multiply the number of attendees (including yourself, of course) by .375, which is the decimal equivalent of ⅜. Of course, this math means that you may have to do a little rounding up (never down) depending on how the numbers shake out. For example, if you're serving 20 people, .375 x 20 = 7.5, so you would order eight pizzas.

While the ⅜ (or .375) rule is a useful jumping-off point, it isn't a one-size-fits-all solution. If you're a kindergarten teacher with a hungry class to feed, you might find that a single slice per kid will work. Upper elementary school kids or adults with smaller appetites might be satisfied with just two slices. But, if you're Vince McMahon treating the entire WWE roster,  you might need to figure on a whole pizza per head –- one of The Rock's epic cheat day meals consisted of no fewer than four pizzas along with a dozen pancakes, after all.

The size of the pizza, too, will come into play. A large pizza will tend to be between 14 and 16 inches in diameter, but it's possible to find some real behemoths that will feed a large crowd all on their own. One Texas-sized pizza called "The Bus," which may be the biggest pizza in the U.S. (or even the world), is said to serve 75 people. Even the Cicis Piezilla, coming in at a not-quite-so-giant 28 inches, will give you 64 slices.  If you're figuring on three slices per person, this means that a single Piezilla ought to satisfy about 21 people.