Common Restaurant Hotel Pan and Steam Table Pan Capacity & Yields
Common stainless steel steamtable pan capacities are listed below. Full Topped-off values are for pans full to the top. 85% capacities are meant to represent typical fill levels and are 85% of the topped-off values. Plastic pans do not correlate the same as stainless steel and typically have a minimum of 5% less volume.

Comments from before Site Migration
Thank you so much! This is so handy and concise!
i am feeding 130 for a wedding. How many hotel pans of Mac n cheese do need.
Sheryl – I’ll need more info.
- What kind of group/event is it?
- Are they a captive audience (will they all be there for the entire 5 hours…or will people come and go?)
- What is your portion size (hors d’oeuvres are typically I – 2 bites each)
- Will there be any other food there?
Would you have the amounts of hors d’oeuvre items to serve per person? I am looking at serving 300 guests with 10 different appetizers. The event will last 5 hours. Any help that you can provide me will be greatly appreciated. I find your website very useful and thank you for putting it together.
Shotgun pan!! You see them used a lot for meatloaf…
torpedo pan… hmmm… always called em bullets…just an interesting fyi comment!
I can write from experience that stainless pans can vary in weight significantly. Even the same size and brand stainless pans can vary by as much as an ounce.
A torpedo pan is long like a hotel pan, but only half as wide. They are long and narrow.
What is a torpedo pan?
Hi It would also be a good idea to have TARE weights for steel and also plastic cambros
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Why are they called shotgun pans or torpedo pans
Can’t find an origination for the phrases. But torpedo pans maybe because they are long and thin like a torpedo?