Planning a team lunch? Try these 14 fun ideas including trivia, blindfold tastings, potlucks, food trucks and more to bring coworkers together.
Looking for some team lunch ideas you can include at your workplace? We’ve got you!
How often do you get time to have lunch with your teammates? We understand that gathering everyone together requires some planning and effort (and a lot of calendar juggling). However, sometimes it is necessary to go the extra mile and gather your teammates at the lunch table. Yes, we are talking about organizing a team lunch!
Team lunches are a great way for employees to bond over a meal and recharge. Those moments around the lunch table can spark conversations, break down silos, and create memories outside of everyday work. A team lunch is more than just food; it’s a chance to reconnect.
If you plan to take your employees on a team lunch, we have some interesting ideas like Trivia, Two Truths And A Lie, Pictionary, Bingo, and much more. By the end of this blog, you’ll have a mix of creative ways to turn an ordinary lunch into a team-building experience.
Here are some fun activities you can add to a team lunch or even an afternoon brunch to make it more engaging:
When we say “Salt and Pepper”, what is the first thing that comes to mind? It’s pairs, of course. This activity is all about finding pairs.
Stick a note on each participant’s back with the name of one half of a pair, like Salt and Pepper, Bread and Butter, Tom and Jerry, or Laurel and Hardy. Players must mingle, ask questions, and figure out what’s written on their back in order to find their matching partner. It’s simple, interactive, and perfect for getting conversations started.
This activity requires a lot of interaction with your coworkers and it can turn into a fun icebreaker session during lunch.
Why not mix lunch with a little food knowledge? A food trivia can be a great inclusion for a team lunch.
You don’t need a lot of planning for this activity. Just prepare a set of questions beforehand. The questions can be something like:
An activity like this boosts everyone’s energy and enjoyment levels.
Want to add some extra fun to the lunch table? Try a blindfold tasting game.
If there are any meat lovers on your team, include some small bites of steak or barbecue to blindfold taste. You can also include different varieties of cheese or even wine like Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, or Pinot Noir. The harder it is to guess, the more entertaining it becomes. It’s a playful way to surprise your coworkers and test their taste buds.
Many of us enjoy the classic Pictionary game. How about including a food version of this activity during your team lunch?
Just draw food items and let teammates guess what they are. You can keep it easy with things like cookies or pasta, or make it challenging with themes like “healthy food” or “party snacks.” The level of difficulty is up to you.
Musical Bingo is very similar to the usual bingo game, except that the cards consist of song names instead of the regular bingo numbers.
To play, have someone play the song numbers mentioned in the cards. As songs play, participants mark them off on their cards. The first to complete a row shouts BINGO! and wins. It’s lively, interactive, and a great way to end a team lunch on a high note.
It’s time to put those culinary skills to the test. A cooking competition during a team lunch is the perfect way to mix fun with creativity. Set challenges like preparing a dish with a surprise ingredient or asking each group to come up with their best recipe in under 30 minutes.
Activities like these help employees enhance their team-building and coordination skills and encourage everyone to be responsible team players. By the end, you’ll have delicious food and a stronger team spirit.
This activity can be a wonderful icebreaker. It will also help you uncover many facts about your employees.
To begin, every person starts by telling 3 statements (2 truths and a lie) about themselves. Other employees have to guess the lie correctly. The core idea behind this activity is to frame the truth and lie in a manner that could confuse others.
Check out this example:
Guess the lie! The Two Truths and A Lie game can lead to interesting conversations and confessions at the lunch table.
Would You Rather is an easy, conversation-driven game. All you need is a list of creative and funny questions. Each player asks the group to choose between two scenarios, often both equally silly or challenging.
Some great examples of Would You Rather questions include:
The real fun begins when people defend their choices, turning a simple question into a lively debate. The more outrageous the questions, the more entertaining the game becomes.
If you are a MasterChef fan, the word ‘Mystery Ingredient’ would strike a chord.
For this activity, each participant gets a common mystery ingredient to cook something innovative within a time frame.
The ingredient could be something classic like chocolate or cheese, or something quirky that forces creativity, like pumpkin or chili. The excitement comes from watching how differently each team interprets the same challenge. Will someone whip up a savory dish while another makes dessert?
In the end, reward the winner who comes up with the best dish.
If your team enjoys a good drink, a cocktail or mocktail-making contest can be a refreshing twist to a team lunch. Stock up on mixers, syrups, and a selection of spirits or juices and soda for mocktails, then let each team design their own signature drink. Encourage creativity by asking them to give their drink a unique name and story.
At the end, you’ll have a tasting round where everyone gets to sample and vote. It’s fun, collaborative, and leaves everyone with a new favorite drink idea.
For teams that love hands-on activities, sushi roll making is a winner. Lay out ingredients like rice, nori sheets, salmon, crab sticks, avocado, and cucumber, then give everyone a chance to try rolling their own sushi.
To make it more engaging, add a judging round where creativity, presentation, and taste all count. This activity is perfect for foodies and gives the team a chance to bond while learning a new skill. Plus, everyone gets to eat their creations, making it both fun and filling.
If you are planning something on a bigger scale or a budget, why not have a food truck festival?If you’re looking to make a team lunch feel like a festival, food trucks are the way to go. Picture your office parking lot or a nearby open space filled with trucks serving everything from gourmet burgers and tacos to fresh juices and desserts. Everyone can stroll around, sample different cuisines, and chat with coworkers while they wait in line.It’s a fresh break from the usual restaurant or cafeteria setup, and it gives employees the chance to explore foods they might not normally try. Plus, it’s a great way to support local food truck businesses. A casual food truck lunch instantly transforms into an event people will be talking about for weeks.
A potluck brings a personal touch to a team lunch. Every team member contributes a dish—it could be a family recipe, a regional specialty, or just a favorite comfort food. The spread ends up being a colorful mix of starters, salads, main courses, and desserts, with something for everyone.To make it even more fun, you can add a theme: Italian night, Mexican fiesta, or “childhood favorites.” A well-planned potluck feels warm, inclusive, and gives everyone a chance to share a little piece of themselves with the team.
If you wish to add a twist to your lunch gathering, why not introduce a theme?Themed lunches add a sense of excitement among employees. There are various ways to plan a themed lunch:
Themed lunches inject excitement before they even begin, because people look forward to dressing up or trying out the special menu.
Slack offers several apps that enable you to coordinate and plan your lunch with your team members.
Lunch Train is a great app to connect with team members for lunch. To get started, go to the team channel, enter the forward slash command followed by “lunchtrain” (/lunchtrain). This will allow other team members to board the lunch train. They will also be notified of the lunch timing and will get reminders accordingly.
Want to know who is interested in having lunch with you? Slack has the Lunch Buddies app for this purpose. Start by creating the “Lunch Buddies” channel with the ‘@’ command. Once the channel is created, the bot creates polls to find out who is interested in participating in a team lunch.
Want to save some time deciding on the lunch menu? Snackbot gives you restaurant menu details, takes orders, and helps with the necessary calculations. In short, it is a wonderful app for streamlining the menu ordering and bill payment process.
Lunch Roulette enables you to find a lunch companion. It randomly pairs people so that they can have lunch together. This app is great for bonding and helps members break the ice.
Team lunches are a simple yet powerful way to bring people together. They give employees a chance to step away from work, relax over food, and share conversations that build trust and friendships. When teams bond like this, collaboration at work becomes that much easier.
It’s also a chance to explore different cuisines and try something new with your colleagues. So go ahead and plan one. You’ll be surprised at how much fun your team has when the lunch table becomes the meeting room for the day.
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