# Is it rude to bring food to a restaurant? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 29, 2004, 10:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-rude-to-bring-food-to-a-restaurant/257423 "2004-07-29T10:58:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![StGermain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stgermain/32/2868_2.png) [@StGermain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StGermain)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2004, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-rude-to-bring-food-to-a-restaurant/257423/21 "2004-07-29T23:06:42Z")
I once saw a Burger King employee get fired on the spot for coming back from his lunch break drinking from a McDonald’s cup. It was quite the floorshow for we patrons. StG ---
**Author:** ![MLS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MLS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MLS)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2004, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-rude-to-bring-food-to-a-restaurant/257423/22 "2004-07-29T23:10:14Z")
> [@nonpolar](#): > > couple months ago someone started thread on bringing your own wine to the restaurant,I would not bring anything to the restaurant except money. Not having a link to the other thread, let me just interject that in certain cases it is perfectly fine to bring your own wine to a restaurant that does not have a liquor license. Some encourage it. As to the OP: the most tactful thing would be to eat beforehand and then just have dessert. If they’ve got onions in the cheesecake there is a real problem! It’s often possible to find “pure” foods on a menu. A baked potato with nothing on it is pretty safe, for example. It’s at least in its own skin, if not wrapped in foil. Also, your friends will probably appreciate it if you make no big deal about it. I have a friend with celiac disease. She can’t eat any form of wheat and several other grains, and is somewhat lactose-intolerant. Our close friends know her problems, but few other people do. She’ll have a baked potato, or a hamburger with the roll “on the side,” ---
**Author:** ![DeadlyAccurate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ac91a4/32.png) [@DeadlyAccurate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DeadlyAccurate)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2004, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-rude-to-bring-food-to-a-restaurant/257423/23 "2004-07-30T00:06:53Z")
> [@The 27th Evil](#): > > This phenomenon of bringing food from one restaurant into another- they don’t think that bringing KFC into a Pizza hut will upset the Pizza Hut manager? :eek: > It’s just common sense not to openly patronize the opposition inside a restaurant. People amaze me sometimes. KFC and Pizza Hut are owned by the same company. Same with Taco Bell. At least that was the case 8 years ago when I worked for Pizza Hut. ---
**Author:** ![MsRobyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/90ced4/32.png) [@MsRobyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsRobyn)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2004, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-rude-to-bring-food-to-a-restaurant/257423/24 "2004-07-30T00:21:54Z")
> [@The 27th Evil](#): > > This phenomenon of bringing food from one restaurant into another- they don’t think that bringing KFC into a Pizza hut will upset the Pizza Hut manager? :eek: > It’s just common sense not to openly patronize the opposition inside a restaurant. People amaze me sometimes. [Strictly speaking, they’re not competition](http://www.yum.com/). Robin ---
**Author:** ![Rhiannon8404](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rhiannon8404/32/17929_2.png) [@Rhiannon8404](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhiannon8404)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2004, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-rude-to-bring-food-to-a-restaurant/257423/25 "2004-07-30T00:59:15Z")
When I was 18, I worked at a camp. On the weekends the caretakers wife, her kids, some of the other girls and I would go into town and do some shopping. This woman would drive through Burger King for herself and her kids and then waltz into McDonald’s and eat. _So the kids could use the playground._ She never purchased food there. Just brought the BK stuff right into the restaurant and ate there. I’m surprised noone ever told her that the play structure was for _patrons only._ The other girls and I were so embarrassed. We would buy our lunch at McD’s and eat on the other side of the restaurant. We wouldn’t have gone with her at all, but she was our only ride into town. Some people are just clueless. ---
**Author:** ![The\_27th\_Evil](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ebca7d/32.png) [@The\_27th\_Evil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_27th_Evil)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2004, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-rude-to-bring-food-to-a-restaurant/257423/26 "2004-07-30T01:58:29Z")
> [@MsRobyn](#): > > [Strictly speaking, they’re not competition](http://www.yum.com/). > > Robin Well, I stand corrected. Shows how little I cared when I worked at KFC. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2004, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-rude-to-bring-food-to-a-restaurant/257423/27 "2004-07-30T13:08:16Z")
> [@MLS](#): > > a hamburger with the roll “on the side,” [hijack]That’s probably for the best–as the old proverb tells us, that roll is about the least healthful way to eat your grains, anyway.[/hijack] Daniel ---
**Author:** ![Edward\_The\_Head](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ce73a5/32.png) [@Edward\_The\_Head](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Edward_The_Head)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2004, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-rude-to-bring-food-to-a-restaurant/257423/28 "2004-07-30T15:01:42Z")
> [@The 27th Evil](#): > > My rule of thumb is the less processed , the better. Dried legumes/grains and assorted frozen veggies can get you a huge array of dishes (cheaply to boot). I can just cook up batches of my ingredients and throw them together when I want. Overprocessed canned crap food, you are probably better off without anyway. Have you had issues with most foods made with broth? If you can handle broths, it expands your options immensely. > > Also, do you tell people about your allergies usually? I usually end up doing so because a college student who cooks tends to stick out, but I’d rather not. Most of the time it’s a safety measure, but I _hate_ getting the pity looks. > > Sorry if I’m badgering, I’ve just never met anyone else who has to put up with this. I don’t take much to veggies so I tend to stay away from them more. I like my pastas and meat and potato type meals. The worst part for me is trying to find anything but plain pasta without anything but cheese added to it. Even pasta sauce has all that crap added to it. I’ve been making my own lately, which is actually better, but lately I’ve even had problems finding plain tomato sauce. No one gives me any problems cooking my own food. Of course I’m well out of college so that helps. However, I didn’t figure out what the hell was wrong with me until a couple of years ago. Through college I noticed some things really hurt, though I didn’t know why. I ended up getting some ulcers a few years ago and had to change my diet around and this is when I found out that onions and garlic were what was hurting me. Most of the people I eat with know not to cook with onions, some are nice enough to make something without onions as well. Some, like my mother, seem to think it’s all in my head. I’ve found too that while it doesn’t hurt me as much as it hurts you, I can’t eat the powders either. Especially garlic powder. While garlic doesn’t hurt as much it seems its just as bad in any form. You’re not badgering, most people think it’s strange, but then again they don’t deal with it. I don’t know anyone else like me either, except for my father who can’t eat raw onions. ---
**Author:** ![kka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/54ee81/32.png) [@kka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kka)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2004, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-rude-to-bring-food-to-a-restaurant/257423/29 "2004-07-30T17:09:48Z")
> [@zephyrine](#): > > Sorry, but I just have to comment on this: > Do people really **do** this? If I was running a restaurant and someone did this I would ask them to leave immediately! Why can’t young children eat chinese food? (And personally I wouldn’t give a young child McDonalds, anyway). I do this, but not to a chinese restaurant. My son has anaphylactic (life-threatening) allergies to milk and eggs. He can safetly eat a McDonald’s Happy Meal - and that is about if for restaurant food except for a small local restaurant we trust. When he get’s invited to birthday parties at Chuck E. Cheese, we bring a Happy Meal for him. I call ahead, get an okay from the manager, and thank him/her profusely. But I would never do this at any other type of restaurant. ---
**Author:** ![Abbie\_Carmichael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/49beb7/32.png) [@Abbie\_Carmichael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Abbie_Carmichael)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2004, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-rude-to-bring-food-to-a-restaurant/257423/30 "2004-07-30T17:13:57Z")
> [@zephyrine](#): > > Do people really **do** this? If I was running a restaurant and someone did this I would ask them to leave immediately! Why can’t young children eat chinese food? (And personally I wouldn’t give a young child McDonalds, anyway). Let’s pretend for a moment that my kid didn’t like Chinese (she devours it). If me and DH wanted Chinese and we got our kid some MickeyD’s, so she could eat with us, and the manager came up and told us to leave, that would be the LAST time we’d ever eat there. A lot of kids don’t like Chinese, and some families have this crazy notion that eating together is a good thing. You’re going to tell two paying customers to leave over something as silly as a bag of McMatter for the kids? Even better: what if these customers were regulars who were there at least twice a week? I’d say any restaurant that pulls a stunt like that would go out of business fairly quickly. ---
**Author:** ![nonpolar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/3da27b/32.png) [@nonpolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nonpolar)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2004, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-rude-to-bring-food-to-a-restaurant/257423/31 "2004-07-31T17:40:19Z")
> [@Abbie Carmichael](#): > > Let’s pretend for a moment that my kid didn’t like Chinese (she devours it). > > If me and DH wanted Chinese and we got our kid some MickeyD’s, so she could eat with us, and the manager came up and told us to leave, that would be the LAST time we’d ever eat there. > > A lot of kids don’t like Chinese, and some families have this crazy notion that eating together is a good thing. You’re going to tell two paying customers to leave over something as silly as a bag of McMatter for the kids? Even better: what if these customers were regulars who were there at least twice a week? > > I’d say any restaurant that pulls a stunt like that would go out of business fairly quickly. If I were owner of that Chinese restaurant I would post pictures of you and your family on the front door and never let you in ever.(Just Kidding) Think for a second,why don’t you go first to one of hundreds of Mcdonalds in your area and stuff your kid with junk food while you eat some french fries and then proceed to(without any outside food) Chinese restaurant and not risking beeing tought as cheap.I’m sure there not that many good Chinese restaurants around ,why risk getting thrown out for stupid bag Mc\*\*\*\* ? ---
**Author:** ![dnooman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/839c29/32.png) [@dnooman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dnooman)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2004, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-rude-to-bring-food-to-a-restaurant/257423/32 "2004-07-31T20:13:52Z")
> [@The 27th Evil](#): > > This phenomenon of bringing food from one restaurant into another- they don’t think that bringing KFC into a Pizza hut will upset the Pizza Hut manager? :eek: > It’s just common sense not to openly patronize the opposition inside a restaurant. People amaze me sometimes. > > **Left Hand of Dorkness** , the dessert idea is one I do take up sometimes- too often and my figure would feel it. ☹ . But Perkins makes wonderful pie… They should have just gone to a Ken-Taco Hut. They don’t have them everywhere, but they do exist. I didn’t know that Yum! Brands also owned LJS and A&W too, learn something new everyday. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-rude-to-bring-food-to-a-restaurant/257423.md?page=1)