House party for 80 -- I'm cooking

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Having a bartender and margarita machine at the bar, what other specialty drinks should we offer?

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Hurricanes

only suggestion id have is putting out some meat just in case you have people who for whatever reason arent into crawfish

like pick up a litle bbq from somewhere or something like that

I would change the gumbo to chicken and sausage since you will already have shrimp and crawfish.

Crawfish queso doesn't appeal to me, but I'm probably in the minority. I would have crawfish cardinale with french bread toasties for dipping/loading. Or I would consider having crawfish bread slices.

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what other specialty drinks should we offer?

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Pfeizeritas

This is great! I also love cooking and hosting as well.

Some thoughts about your menu:

1) A couple of other people have said this, but I'd offer some non-seafood options. Since you want to keep a cajun menu, maybe some jambalaya and some boudin / boudin balls. You could do this in addition to the gumbo.

2) Add Apple crack dip with fruit on the kitchen island

3) Dessert - any chance you could have someone cooking up beignets throughout the party? I'd also load up some petit fours. You want grab and go here, since you are, I assume, already going to have a cake at some point.

4) Drinks - for events like this, I love doing a specialty drink. Does your dad drink? If so, what is his favorite drink? Make that the specialty drink in his honor. Since you will have a bartender, get a little sign made up for the bar that says, Party Special - "name of drink" in honor of Dad and list what's in it. If you are experimental type (or your bartender is) find out your dad's favorite liquors/mixers and create something new!

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Good on ya for self-catering. It can be fun to tackle that sort of thing every once in a while. I’d be a tiny bit concerned about a traffic jam in your kitchen. If you’ve got appetizer type things on the kitchen island, people will cluster there...and others will be trying to get to the gumbo on the stove.

Why not set up your appetizer station away from the kitchen, closer to the bar? Or break up the apps into 2 clusters, one inside near the seafood and another inside near the bar? Traffic flow is as important as menu, to me. 80 ppl is quite a crowd in all but the largest houses.