Feeding a Group on Route 46: The Best Shareable Plates for Birthdays and Big Tables

6 days ago

6 min read

There is a specific kind of pressure that comes with being the person who picked the restaurant. Twelve people are coming. One of them is having a birthday. One of them does not eat meat. One of them will order fries and nothing else. And you are the one who typed "restaurants for large groups near me" into your phone at 11pm hoping something reasonable would come back.

Here is the thing about group dining in Woodland Park, NJ: the problem is almost never the restaurant's capacity. It is the menu. Plenty of places can seat fifteen people. Far fewer have a menu built to be passed around, split up, and argued over. At BASK46, that is the whole idea. The kitchen turns out brick oven pizza, wings, sliders, loaded fries, and a long list of shareable starters, which means a big table stops being a logistics problem and starts being the point.

This is a guide to ordering for a crowd on US-46 — what to start with, what feeds the most people, and how to build a table where nobody gets stuck with something they did not want.

Start with a spread, not with entrees

The single biggest mistake groups make is going straight to individual plates. Everybody orders their own thing, the food arrives at eight different times, and half the table is finished before the other half has been served. Shareable food solves that. It lands in the middle, everyone picks, and the conversation never stops for a plate.

So the first round should always be appetizers, and it should be bigger than you think you need. A good rule: one shared appetizer for every two or three people at the table.

The appetizers that were built for a crowd

Sampler Platter — mozzarella sticks, cheesesteak egg rolls, wings, and potato skins on one plate. If you only order one thing for the table, it is this. It settles four arguments at once.
BASK 46 Nachos — beef, cheddar jack, beer cheese, pico de gallo, jalapeños, sour cream, and guacamole. Add chicken or steak if the table is hungry. Nachos are the most democratic food on any menu; everyone can grab from the edge.
Loaded Mac & Cheese — beer cheese, bacon, sautéed onions, topped with panko Cheez-It breadcrumbs. Rich enough that a group can share one order and everyone gets a memorable bite.
Jumbo Bavarian Pretzel — served with spicy brown mustard and beer cheese. Easy to tear apart, holds up on the table longer than fried food, and pairs with everything.
Cheesesteak Egg Rolls and Buffalo Chicken Egg Rolls — the ideal group appetizer because they are already portioned. No cutting, no serving spoon, no negotiation.
Disco Fries — Jersey fries under brown gravy and mozzarella. A North Jersey institution and the plate that always disappears first.
Spinach Artichoke Dip — with tortilla chips. Every big table needs one thing that keeps going while people are still arriving.
Bang Bang Shrimp — crispy fried shrimp in the original BASK 46 firecracker sauce, for the group that wants something beyond the fried standards.

Wings for the table: order more than one flavor

Wings are group food by definition, and BASK 46 Wings come in eight sauces: buffalo, mango habanero, thai chili with pineapple, teriyaki, garlic parmesan, bbq, spicy bbq, and old bay. Ordering a single flavor for a table of twelve is a missed opportunity.

The move for a group is two or three orders across the heat spectrum — something mild like garlic parmesan or teriyaki, something classic like buffalo or bbq, and one that makes people compete over it, which is almost always the mango habanero. If your table wants something different entirely, the Brick Oven Wings come with sautéed long hots and caramelized onions and are served with brick oven bread. They eat less like bar wings and more like a dish.

Sliders: the most underrated group order on the menu

Sliders exist for exactly this situation. They are pre-portioned, they come with fries, and they let a table taste four different things without anybody committing to a full sandwich. There are four to work with:

Fuggetabout It Brick Oven — fresh mozzarella, roasted peppers, thinly sliced prosciutto, arugula, and balsamic glaze on homemade brick oven bread.
Chicken Parm — breaded chicken, marinara, melted mozzarella. The safe pick that nobody complains about.
Beef — mini angus cheeseburgers with sliced pickles and caramelized onions, garnished with a cherry tomato. The small-format answer for a table of burger people.
Buffalo Chicken — breaded chicken, buffalo sauce, melted crumbled blue cheese, lettuce, and tomato.

If your group would rather go full size, the burger lineup is worth reading before you order — the 46 Smash and the OG Bask Bar Burger both have a following.

Brick oven pizza is the center of the table

For a large group, pizza does more work than any other item on the full menu. It arrives fast, it is easy to divide, and it is the one thing that can satisfy a picky eater and an adventurous one from the same table.

Order in threes so the table has range:

The safe one: Original Brick Oven or BASK 46 Margherita. Mozzarella, marinara, basil, olive oil. Nobody is disappointed.
The crowd-pleaser: Meat Lover with bacon, meatballs, sausage, and pepperoni, or the Pepperoni Special with Jersey fresh tomato, red onions, garlic, and basil.
The one that starts a conversation: Fig & Blue with figs, blue cheese, arugula, onion confit, and balsamic glaze. Or the Funghi with rosemary mushrooms, fontina, onion confit, and truffle oil. Or the Hot & Spicy Upside Down, made cheese first with spicy marinara on top.

Two more worth knowing for a mixed group: the Rocky Marciano, with sautéed broccoli rabe, garlic, sausage, and shaved parmesan, and the Veggie Lover, which covers the table's vegetarians without making it feel like a compromise pie.

Feeding the people who eat differently

Every big table has them, and a group dinner is only as good as the experience of the person with the most restrictions. A few reliable answers:

Vegetarians: Cauliflower Bites in buffalo or thai chili with pineapple, the Arugula salad with roasted beets, goat cheese, candied walnuts, and dried cranberries, the Veggie Lover pizza, or the Garden of Eden with spinach, tomato, ricotta, and feta.
The lighter eater: the Avocado Steak salad with marinated skirt steak, roasted corn, pico de gallo, and cilantro lime vinaigrette, or the Buffalo Chicken salad, which eats like wings in salad form.
Kids: cheeseburger sliders, chicken fingers, or pasta with marinara or butter. Birthday tables are usually family tables, and this is the section that keeps the youngest guests happy.
he one who only eats fries: Truffle Parm Fries, Sweet Potato Waffle Fries with truffle aioli, or Onion Rings as shared sides. Order two and let the table pick at them.

How much to actually order

The most common mistake is under-ordering the first round and over-ordering entrees. Here is a working template.

Table size	Starters	The rest of the table
6 people	2 appetizers plus one order of wings	2 brick oven pizzas, 1 order of sliders, 1 large salad
10 people	4 appetizers plus two orders of wings	3 to 4 brick oven pizzas, 2 orders of sliders, 2 salads, 1 or 2 shared sides
15+ people	The Sampler Platter plus 4 appetizers and three orders of wings	5 to 6 brick oven pizzas, 3 orders of sliders, 2 to 3 salads, a spread of shared sides

Two shared sides that stretch a big order further: Honey & Bacon Brussels Sprouts and Truffle Parm Fries. Both hold up on a crowded table and both give people something to reach for between rounds.

Birthdays and the long table

A birthday dinner works differently from a regular one. People arrive at different times, the guest of honor is not going to sit still, and half the table is there for the room as much as the food. That is where shareable ordering pays off: food on the table before everyone is seated means the energy never dips.

Start the appetizers early. Send wings and pizza out in waves rather than all at once. Keep something on the table at all times, and the celebration keeps its rhythm instead of stalling between courses.

Where to find us

BASK46 is at 1530 US-46 in Woodland Park, NJ, easy to reach from Totowa, Little Falls, Clifton, and Paterson. The kitchen is open until midnight Sunday through Thursday and until 2am on Friday and Saturday, which matters more than people expect when a group runs long.

If you want the wider picture of what a night here looks like, our guide to eating on US-46 covers the rest of the menu. And if you are already at the stage of building the order, the brick oven and artisan pizza menu is the place to start.

Grab the big table, start with the Sampler Platter, and work outward from there.