Basically, the story is that a couple of hefty patrons were banned from a buffet for allegedly eating too much. Or too much of the expensive foods.
Lots of questions to go round for this one…
Is a restaurant justified in refusing service to someone who eats too much? Or charging them extra?
Personally, I’m thinking no. Not unless they’re also making some sort of allowance for customers who comes in and don’t eat very much, maybe a discount of some sort.
I could see there being a problem if they came in when the doors were opened and just sat around eating until the buffet was closed down, but someone eating alot just balances out the diner that eats light.
The restaurant owner claims they were ‘dining exclusively on the more expensive seafood’. Maybe they were, maybe it’s just spin doctoring by the business. Still, I’d write it up to the cost of doing business.
The buffet is within their rights to ask the patrons not to come back, but I do not believe that they can legally ban them. As for the food, if you offer it and people eat it, that’s tough shit on you.
The local Chinese buffet started charging a premium to tap the crab legs because they were taking a bath on them. That’s the way to go if you’re losing money on big eaters.
If it’s your restaurant, you can ban anyone for any reason, at any time. They have the right to refuse service. That doesn’t make it morally right, although they are a business, not a charity, and they are in it to make money so I don’t really see it as being a wrong thing to do.
I think I read this in a similar thread on the subject at the SDMB before, but “buffet” restaurant does not necessarily mean “all you can eat”. Buffet means “food served on a buffet table and you can go help yourself.”
So it would depend on what the signs inside the restaurant said.
Unless the restaurant explicitly said “all you can eat for the low price of XXX” then they are within their rights to charge people more, or tell a customer that s/he is eating too much of the expensive items.
(Of course when I say within their rights, I am talking IMHO and not about what is legal or not - I am not a lawyer.)
Yes and yes. However, one must still maintain a proper relationship with the customer. That means you charge them the list price, unless you reach an agreement in advance for a surcharge. That means, if you agree to provide a service for a fee, that you provide that service in full or you do not charge the full fee.
No kicking the person out after they pay, when they haven’t had their fill at the All You Can Eat buffet, unless you refund their money. No charging them $10 extra after watching how much they eat. No insulting your customers. If you don’t want to serve them anymore, tell them when they leave that they are not welcome back.
There are enough people out there who think of an AYCE buffet as license to stuff their faces with the most expensive food they can get their hands around, piling their plates with crab legs then complaining when the restaurant doesn’t put another $50 worth on the platter right away. It’s not a competition, and the goal isn’t to “win” by eating food worth more than the fee, If that’s how you treat my business, I won’t do business with you anymore.
I agree. The restaurant has the right to charge more but they should have told the customer up front not after the meal. It’s their restaurant. Put up a sign limiting servings of the expensive stuff or offering it for an additional fee. How about one that says, we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone, or whatever technicality you need. Just be up front and let your customers decide if the service is worth the price.
For my buddy’s 18th birthday, we went to a seafood place that had a buffet. So think of a pack of 17-18 year old boys and how much food we could pack away. We probably could have closed the joint, since we could have devoured a small island nation.
But the main reason we got cut off, was because we were all focussing on the lobster. It was way too expensive for the restaurant to feed us a metric ton of lobster while other patrons were barely keeping up.
The restaurant staff was gracious about it though. They asked us to forgo the lobster and roast beef, and they weren’t rude about it or anything.
I used to work with a guy about 6’8" and was just under 300 lbs. We’d go to a local buffet and they never turned him away but he ate plenty of vegetables. We sure had some laughs joking about how he scared the crap out of the owners.
“Here he come, time to phone in bomb scare”
“You put chair back by table, no can sit at buffet”
I think the problem is that they aren’t addressing the flaw in their buffet system. Don’t want someone eating $150 worth of lobster at your $12.95 buffet? Fine, set it up in such a way that you are given a choice of steak or lobster (or whatever) as your main entree and make the side dishes all you can eat.
Would this have even been a news story if the people they had kicked out had been thin?
Every buffet I’ve been to lately now has some sort of placard stating they can limit quantities, cut people off, charge extra, etc. I don’t believe in gouging the small businessman, but casino buffets are a different story- I went with a friend once who only liked the claw meat on lobsters, and she got about five of them, ate the claw meat only and dumped the rest, but casinos are evil, so fuck em
Fortunately it’s rare but at work I’ve noticed those who seem to think its there constitutional right as a consumer to fuck us over. When we try to politely head them off they are indignant and act like we’re the assholes. {shrug} All part of a days work.
Unless you are Jack Binion, I don’t understand your reaction to my post- I was slamming casino owners, not casino employees. Casinos make billions, the amount they lost on the five lobsters is like me losing a penny- literally. Surely you as an employee don’t care about people wasting food at a casino buffet- its not your money right? And hell, its not like we didn’t give the cost of the lobsters back tenfold while losing at the casino- they still made their money off of us, food wasting included. And I tipped generously as well.
A WAG: While there may be an overlap between those who are thin and those who eat enough to threaten to put an AYCE buffet out of business, that ain’t the default.
Perhaps there would have been a slightly different spin on it, like how everyone seems amused by that tiny woman who wins all the competitive eating contests.
But it isn’t “all you can possibly stuff in your gaping maw,” after all. There’s eating, and there’s eating just for the hell of it.
