I was in a Chinese restaurant the other day and, whilst eating, I noticed they had signs on the walls saying something to the effect of:
“We make very nice food here and we don’t like to see it go to waste so please try to finish everything on your plate”
So far so good but then in small writing underneath that it said:
“We will charge an extra £3 ($5) if there is any food left on the plate”
wtf? This is outrageous on so many levels but I was wondering whether it’s even legal. You’re already paying for the food so whether you eat it or leave it is up to you.
How would this pan out in your jurisdiction? I’m still in such a state of shock that I can’t think clearly about it’s legality and need some help.
I’ve never had it enforced, even when most of a sushi roll or something is left. It’s more a CYA for jackasses who grab 5 plates on the onset. Sushi places will have another line to the effect of “you must eat the rice too,” to keep people from scooping off the good parts.
Yes. Some people can waste prodigious amounts of food in an all-you-can-eat setting*. I can see having this policy to discourage that. It’s a different situation with ordering off the menu and getting a fixed amount, the leftovers of which you can take home with you.
*It’s a combination of “eyes bigger than the stomach” and poor planning – like taking a heaping amount of something unfamiliar only to find out you don’t like it.
Why would it be any less legal than an order-off-the-menu restaurant charging you full price for something you didn’t finish? They tell you their policy, and if you don’t like it, you can just go and eat someplace else.
I think the problem arises when people take HUGE amounts of various foods before they know whether they’ll like it enough to eat more than a bite or two, and/or they don’t realize how close they are to feeling full. It’s easy enough to avoid leaving 90% of it on the plate.
Just seems like they post a price up and that should be the price. If there’s leftovers then shouldn’t that be the restaurants responsibility? I mean what is the extra charge actually for? You don’t get anything for it.
An off the menu restaurant charging full price for something you didn’t finish seems fair enough. You knew the price when you ordered - not the restaurant’s problem if you can’t finish it.
I understand it must be frustrating being a restaurant owner having people pile huge amounts of food on their plate and then leaving half of it and I can understand them putting signs up encouraging you not to do that. I just wonder about actually going one step further and charging people for it. They must have huge arguments in there every time they try to enforce that rule.
Hasten to add I ate all my food so it wasn’t an issue for me.
Well if they really insist on charging me more for what’s left on my plate, I can make sure nothing is unless they start charging for spillage. I also wonder how they’d like someone to stuff themselves and then vomit on the way out – that’d be just great advertising for anyone entering the restaurant.
Can you request a to-go-box for your unfinished meal? If so, it would discourage cheapskates from going in and eating the buffet, and getting a plate full of extra food (essentially another meal) to take with them at no extra charge.
The extra charge would essentially be for what you are taking home with you.
You may not agree with the logic here, but it seems to me that the extra charge is for the food you’ve taken and wasted that they could have sold to someone else. It is quite frustrating working at restaurants that have buffets where people pile food onto their plates constantly and leave lots of good food at the end when they ‘just can’t eat any more’. I’ve also eaten with people like that, and found it wholly bizarre. There’s often a real fervency with them; “It’s eat all you can! Pile up those plates lads, you can have as much as you want!”
It’s almost like they think it might all be gone by the time they go back for seconds or thirds or fourths, which of course it won’t be. Hah, but I digress.
Almost invariably when you’re running a buffet, you will cook more than you sell anyway, so there’s always some waste, unless you start being really stingy towards the end and only make upon request.
Why should the restaurant care what you get for it? What they care about is that they’re out the food. You paid them for all you can eat, but then you took more than what you could eat, so you pay them more.
This happened to me a couple of weeks ago. Got one dish that tasted weird and I just sent it back like I would at any other restaurant. If they give you something that isn’t up to snuff they aren’t going to force you to pay for it. As I wasn’t taking advantage, nothing (other than an apology) was said of it.
I once watched exactly this situation in a buffet restaurant. It was not permitted and the customers were quite irate. It was in a retirement area, with many poor retirees - the restaurant would have lost its shirt if they had allowed ‘doggie bags’. Sad, really.
At least some buffet restaurants charge by the container for take-out food. If they do that, then they can charge the same for “doggie bags”. That would be fair.
I have never seen an AYCE buffet allow doggie-bags…
That said, I’ve never seen an AYCE post a sign like this.
More than likely, there is no way to legally enforce their sign (is it readily visible as SOON as you walk in the joint??). I used to manage a shoe store, and in the middle of it was a giant playground for the kids. On top, there was a large sign that read, ‘CHILDREN MUST BE SUPERVISED AT ALL TIMES…WE ARE NOT LEGALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR INJURIES RESULTING FROM PLAYGROUND USE’…
Of course, we knew this sign was not worth the plastic it was imprinted on, but I guess the hope was that when Susie-PorkChop let juvenile delinquint junior climb to the top and fall off, breaking his arm that she would see the sign and be too stupid to figure out she had no rights…
Maybe a scene like this at the restaurant?? Posting a sign to possibly scare those who don’t realize the AYCE has no legal recourse to enforce it?