Social Distance Outside Food?

Make what you like but you be the person serving it. No one helping themselves.

Or individual package it ahead of time.  We did this at a recent party and it worked out well....  We also used disposable knifes, forks, etc.

I’d probably do take out if your time is limited. But, I’d call myself cautious and I don’t eat around others anymore. I’ll take my mask down for a quick sip of water and that’s it. 5 seconds, tops.

I would probably have food delivered from a good restaurant that you trust. Since you know ahead of time what you are ordering, you can let the guests know when you invite them and have them specify if there is anything that you will be serving that they do not want on their plate. Then I would dish up the plates inside with the help of family members and carry the filled plates to the guests. If anyone wants seconds, I would get a fresh plate and do the serving and delivering thing again. That way, no one else is around the food table except for server. I would probably go ahead and use paper plates and plasticware just for the occasion with a big trash can on the side of the house for throwing plates away.

I would also have sanitizer and paper towels on a table outside. I have a battery-operated dish soap dispenser that I would be using for sanitizer so that no one was touching the shared container. You just hold your hand under the dispenser and the eye detects your presence and dispenses the bottle contents. If you can't do that, maybe order individual hand sanitizers in those foil containers.

I will be so very happy when we can all stop thinking of every single move we need to make.

How about baked potatoes? You could put individually wrapped ones at each plate and each couple could have a dish of soup cream, cheese, etc at their table.

Take out teriyaki or individual pizzas.

 

You could also do any kind of kebab. Marinate and skewer chicken, beef, pork or shrimp ahead and grill before serving. 

The dollar store usually has a few different sized serving trays that can work as oversized plates with lidded serving cups or these stemmed dessert cups. Load each tray with pita, a skewer, individual servings of tzatziki and/or hummus, cucumbers, olives and grape tomatoes. Guest can decide if they want to load everything in the pita or nibble their way through it.

ETA This is another option where the lid becomes a base.

Either serve it yourself to everyone, or have them bring their own food. I would not eat anything buffet style if that was the option.

I've been to several socially distanced events with small groups of friends (ie happy hour). The person hosting made each person their own charcuterie board basically - no sharing of food but we each had small crackers, cut cheese, olives, meat etc.