[vox] Food & cake for this month's meeting

[Alex Mandel]

Bill Kendrick wrote:
> So we've used Village Bakery many times in the past.  I'm trying to remember
> how many pizzas we bought last year, and whether anyone donated anything to
> help buy them.
> 
> I called VB just now and they reminded me that they have one size of pizza
> they offer ("large", 15 inches), and they feed "2-3 hungry people."
> Consider that we'll have other snacks, and not everyone will want (or can
> eat) pizza, I'll bump that up to 4-5 people.
> 
> So if we expect 40-60 people at this meeting, that's anywhere
> from 8-15 pizzas.  Arbitrarily picking the middle, that's about 12 pizzas.
> Cheese pizzas are $14.  Most other variations are $15.  No reason to get
> the more expensive/gourmet ones, I think.  So that's ~$180 for pizza.
> 
> That IS about 3x what you were looking at for Costco pizzas, but let's
> compare this more accurately.  A 15" pizza is ~706 sq inches,
> while an 18" pizza is ~1018 sq inches.
> 
> You were saying $55 for pizzas, at $9.99 each, or about 5 pizzas, plus
> tax I guess.  So that's ~5090 square inches.  To compare to that,
> we need about 7 Village Bakery (15") pizzas.  That comes out to $105,
> or about 2x what it costs for Costco.
> 
> 
> So... do people think it's worth approx. 2x the money to get food
> from a local, locally-owned business?  Or go the cheap route and
> get it from a big-box store in a different town? ;)
> 
> I'll put some of my money where my mouth is (heh, literally?), and
> donate a bit more if we got it from VB or somewhere else local.
> 
> -bill!
> (not trying to be all high-horsed ;) )

I would suggest you also call Steve's, Papa Johns, Little Ceasers...(in
that order based on quality of ingredients) etc ***(Some of these offer
10% student discounts)
I have the feeling they can come pretty close to the Costco price
without the need to drive 20 min round trip for them.

Thinking about "externalities" of someone having to make the drive and
of course donating the cost of gas/time to do so, plus our community;
image it would make sense for use to opt to support a more local small
business. (The more we do so the more likely they will discount for us
in the future)
Now if someone were already coming from Woodland that could pick up the
pizzas, that might be a more carbon neutral version of the plan.

1.5 cents,
Alex