Spit Roast vs Buffet vs Individual Packs: Which Catering Style Fits Your Event?
We get asked this question all the time when people are planning an event: “Should I go with a spit roast, a buffet, or something simpler?”
It’s a fair question, because these are the three catering styles most people consider first. Each has its place, but each also comes with trade-offs that aren’t always obvious until the day of your event. Here’s how they compare and why our freshly roasted catering packs have become the go-to alternative for hosts across Cranbourne, Carrum Downs, Cheltenham, Frankston, and Pakenham who want the best of all three without the downsides of any.
Spit Roast Catering: The Showstopper (With a Catch)
There’s something about a spit roast that turns a gathering into an occasion, the slow-roasted meat, the aroma, and the theater of carving it fresh in front of guests.
Best for: Weddings, milestone birthdays, and larger backyard celebrations where you want a centrepiece moment.
The catch: Spit roasts need specialist equipment, a few hours of cooking time on-site, someone experienced to run it, and enough outdoor space to set it up safely. That’s a lot of moving parts for a host to manage on top of everything else an event involves.
What we offer instead: Our meats are slow-roasted fresh every day in-house, then delivered ready to serve, hot and carved. You get that same succulent, fall-apart texture and rich flavour without hiring equipment, briefing an operator, or building your event timeline around a spit.
Buffet-Style Catering: The Crowd-Pleaser (With Extra Logistics)
Buffet catering is popular because it’s generous and flexible and guests build their own plate from a spread of meats, vegetables, and salads.
Best for: Corporate functions, community events, and larger parties with a wide range of appetites.
The catch: A true self-serve buffet usually means chafing dishes, serving staff, a designated table setup, and someone managing the line so food doesn’t run out or go cold. For a lot of venues — office lunchrooms, clubrooms, backyards — that’s more infrastructure than the event really needs.
What we offer instead: Our catering packs give you the same variety a buffet promises — a mix of roast meats, seasonal vegetables, salads, and our famous house-made gravy — pre-portioned and ready to lay out, with none of the equipment or staffing headaches. It’s why so many corporate teams in Carrum Downs and community events around Pakenham order from us instead of arranging a full buffet setup.
Individual Catering Packs: The Reddy Roasts Specialty
This is what we do best, and it’s built for exactly the problem the other two styles create: getting great food to a group, fast, without the setup.
Best for: Office lunches, work meetings, school events, sporting clubrooms, birthdays, and honestly, almost any occasion, big or small.
Why people choose it: Each pack is portioned, ready to serve, and easy to distribute with no queues, no equipment hire, and no cleanup. Just quality roast meals, individually packed and ready to go, made fresh on the day using premium, locally sourced ingredients.
Worth knowing: This is our go-to recommendation for busy workplaces in Frankston and Carrum Downs, footy club functions in Cranbourne, and school events in Pakenham anywhere organisers need something efficient that still tastes like a proper home-cooked roast.
Why Reddy Roasts Is the Practical Choice for Any Occasion
We don’t run spit roast equipment or self-serve buffet lines, and honestly, most events don’t need them to get a great result. What we do is roast premium meats fresh every day, pack them with generous sides and our signature gravy, and get them to you ready to serve, whatever the occasion.
Our team has catered backyard birthdays in Cranbourne, corporate lunches in Carrum Downs, school and community events in Pakenham, and everything in between across Cheltenham and Frankston, always the same fresh, oven-roasted meals, made the way we’ve made them since 1988.
Flexible pack sizes, consistent quality, and zero setup hassle, that’s what makes Reddy Roasts the practical choice, whatever you’re planning.