Earlier quoted context omitted.
Putting a basket in the break room, filled with menus from nearby take-out restaurants, is even easier. I have worked at a lot of different companies, and an ad-hoc, employee-organized lunch run is very common. The person who commits to handling the cash and picking up the food decides on the restaurant, orders are placed by a deadline, and people eat it when it arrives. If a manager or admin staffer names the restau…
I think your suggestion works well at a smaller company (<50 employees), but as the company starts moving to multiple floors/buildings and departments become a bit more isolated then the organic lunches tend to be intra-department vs inter-department. We have lunch brought in once a week. On the days we don't have lunch it is very much as you describe within each department, but on the day the company provides lunch…
On a different note, at my company, talking about work at lunch is pretty taboo unless the topic of the lunch was previously disclosed by the initiator to be work-related. Lunch is when we talk about all kinds of other bullshit and only talk about work if we're desperately spinning our wheels on something or want to vent.