Charged for an empty plate?!

I can see though why it would seem a bit petty to charge 50p if you have numerous other free options — just foreign to me as I’ve never had anything like that so 50p seems a bargain!

Really? This kind of boggles my mind — I have a 3 year old and have spent a lot of time in cafes and pubs with her since birth. I don’t think I’ve ever been offered free food for her! I have always shared an a la carte meal with her or (when she was younger) brought her own snacks.

Sorry didn't mean to repost my previous reply.

I mean that 50p for an empty plate will put me off as there are probably over 100 cafes in the city that wont charge 50p a plate.

Then theres a good 10 or so that will offer fresh homecooked food for baby's and toddlers for free, which is a lovely touch.

As I said where the policy is like a carvery where people will take extra to out specificly on a plate for a toddler or try and get away with it for an older child then of course the charge is reasonable.

But the 50p is to me a similar barrier to return as say a cafe that offers a free top up of hot water in your tea pot, compared to one that is asking £3.50 for another cup of tea. It's the small cheaper gestures of hospitality that make a return customer from me.

CandidHedgehog I agree in principle with what you are saying, and at a carvery or similar I suppose I wouldn't begrudge paying for the plate as that is the business model.

I do remember though when DC was younger I would be much more likely to visit the restaurants when out and about that provided a "free" tots plate of mash and veg. Than to go to a cafe that either charged for food or where I had to provide my own.

I had no issue in providing my own, ut just felt like a bigger treat for me to have a very easy lunch out.

I will still go those restaurants/cafes now as that bit of extra hospitality earned them brownie points with me.

I get that a plate has to be handled, washed, water heated etc......but a 50p charge will put me off ever returning whereas for a quite little loss I will be a returning customer for 14 years.

Or in my parents case...they could have been returning customers for 40 plus years for the sake of 50p

...... isn't the saying for the want of a nail the shoe was lost

@LuckyShark genuinely curious, why would the 50p put you off? It still seems very good value to me and would probably cost me less than the cost of cooking for baby at home…

CandidHedgehog I agree in principle with what you are saying, and at a carvery or similar I suppose I wouldn't begrudge paying for the plate as that is the business model.

I do remember though when DC was younger I would be much more likely to visit the restaurants when out and about that provided a "free" tots plate of mash and veg. Than to go to a cafe that either charged for food or where I had to provide my own.

I had no issue in providing my own, ut just felt like a bigger treat for me to have a very easy lunch out.

I will still go those restaurants/cafes now as that bit of extra hospitality earned them brownie points with me.

I get that a plate has to be handled, washed, water heated etc......but a 50p charge will put me off ever returning whereas for a quite little loss I will be a returning customer for 14 years.

Or in my parents case...they could have been returning customers for 40 plus years for the sake of 50p

...... isn't the saying for the want of a nail the shoe was lost

Ofc YABU it’s a buffet so you pay by the plate! I often split a la carte meals with my daughter and would expect a free spare plate in this situation but for buffet or carvery I’d obviously expect to pay as that’s the whole model.

It all adds up, lifting the plate, washing it, a baby bowl is usually available for pittance.

I waitressed in a pub in the 80s where we were supposed to charge 50 p for a spare kid plate. that was for ser meals not a buffet. People hated it and I think it cost them more in goodwill and repeat custom than it brought in.

The only places I’ve had buffet meals is hotels so little guests will have been factored in. I was more making the point that I’ve happily shared my portion of a la carte food before without climbing up the walls with hunger. Sharing doesn’t necessarily equal more food, especially with babies of that age, regardless of how the serving of said meal works.

Some people really are CFs.

We've no idea if she got more food or not.

I accept your point about the baby bowl but in my view any sharing from a buffet / unlimited sides menu with someone else, no matter how little that person eats is theft. If there is no ‘baby bowl’, you pay the child price or feed the baby before or after (or take food if that’s allowed).

If you are saying you’ve done this with a buffet / unlimited sides / unlimited refills where it isn’t children under X age eat free then you have stolen food too. As I said previously, the fact it’s too small an amount / not worth the publicity to prosecute doesn’t mean this isn’t theft.

If you mean you’ve shared from an ordered plate of a set amount of food, that’s completely different - that’s your food and you can do what you like with it.

Having shared things from my plate with both my kids many times before, I’d say it’s perfectly possible that she’d not necessarily have needed to get any extra for a 10 month old who would just be picking at things. I’d also say that the extra that most people dish themselves up on buffet style meals compared to what they’d be served at a La carte is plenty to share with a baby. All these accusations of theft are completely bonkers.

And “a few quid” may mean completely different things to different people. That wasn’t confirmation of a “baby bowl” portion.

And your parents are fully entitled to vote with their feet. You don’t say whether this was for a buffet or for dividing up a set amount of food but either way, providing an extra plate costs the owners something (staff time, washing up etc). Multiply that by the number of babies / young children in that restaurant and ‘just providing a plate’ can have an actual impact on profits.

Whether or not restaurants should offer free food to children under a particular age is a business decision on their part. The only restaurant in a holiday village probably has plenty of customers without offering incentives to get people through the door. The diners don’t get to decide that if the restaurant doesn’t do a ‘children eat free’ offer they will take the food anyway. I note your parents didn’t do this, they stopped eating there so they clearly recognised it was up to the staff whether this was permitted.

40 years ago, the only restaurant in our holiday village charged my parents 50p for an empty plate for my 10 month old sister.

They used to eat there at least once a week, and pop in for a drink a few times a week everytime they were up on holiday- at least 16 weeks a year

They NEVER went back. And neither have any of their largish crowd of friends. How much that 50p cost the business?

The OP says in her post at at 13.29 on 10/9 that there was an option for ‘a few quid’ so it appears there was. Also, even if she means the full child price, the carvery is for one person. Not two people but one won’t eat much.

Do you really think the OP didn’t get the amount she wanted to eat plus the amount she wanted for the baby? Because I don’t believe that for a second.

Something else to consider - where is the cut off? Another poster has said she does this for her two year old.

I do agree some posters on this thread have no clue, though. The casual justification of stealing food and the excuses - it’s for a baby, it’s only a carrot and a roastie, it’s unlimited food (yes, for one person) - are truly shocking.

Edited to add ‘some’ to the paragraph above.

Does it have a baby bowl though? I looked on a random carvery menu for Greene King and only saw the kids option at around £8 available, although different branches may have different menu options.

And it’s not theft if mum just got her normal portion that she wanted to share. I really don’t get some of the posters on this thread. They have no clue.

Still theft. That’s why this carvery has a baby bowl - so parents only pay for the small amount the child actually eats.

You are probably right it’s best not to tell the staff you intend to steal food for your child, though…..

Yes, this makes complete sense
When our Children were babies, at the most, they could just manage a few small bites from my plate, anyway
Nowhere close, to an actual meal
Sometimes it's just best not to request an extra plate, but just share the one
💚🙏💚

Also in this case, the sides are unlimited so the OP doesn’t just want an extra service, she wants free food for the baby since I don’t believe for a second she wouldn’t take the amount she wanted to eat plus the amount she intended to feed her child.

@SprayWhiteDung
"Also, it's obviously socially awkward - and likely seen as grabby - but I've never been to a carvery where they've stipulated that the food has to be eaten on the premises.

Taken simply, you could argue that the price you pay is for a full plateful, so if you only want to eat half of it there, you can quite legitimately take the other half home and heat it up tomorrow."

Absolutely NOT
All the "all you can eat " places I have ever been to have signs clearly saying that all food must be consumed on the premises..... Some of them offer a few bowls of sweets and I think some CF were filling tupperwares. One place we go to includes bottles and cans of drink in their price. When they first opened you could take away with you a half consumed bottle of Fanta, but they had to clamp down and ban anything leaving the premises because CF were opening 5 or 6 bottles and taking a sip so they could then leave with them!
In addition a lot of them also have signs saying that if you put food on your plate and don't eat it they will impose a £5 penalty!
We went to one of these last week with my niece and her 13 month old baby. The restaurant provided a high chair which occupied the space that a paying diner could have occupied, so they were already "losing money" because of the LO.(it is so wildly popular that they were turning people away).
They offered her a "child option" which she turned down because as he doesn't eat much she had brought his usual jars of food and yoghurt...and a bowl and spoon. They did kindly heat his food for her as he wasn't keen on eating it cold (niece did try it at room temperature).
I also noticed a new sign beside the fruit bowl which said " sorry, even the fruit is to be eaten here": presumably more CF were grabbing an extra apple or banana to eat later.
I do think that "all you eat" offers bring out the CF in far too many people.
On the other hand, when we went to a regular Alsatian restaurant with a friend and she ordered a huge choucroute (because she knew it would be good, even though she wouldn't be able to manage their standard portion size), no one batted an eyelid when she then got out her tupperwares to take the rest of the food she had paid for home. The same principle as a doggy bag: you have paid for what you have been served and it is entirely reasonable to take it home to prevent food waste.

But you got extra food specifically for someone else. It wasn't your food. You loaded your plate with extra with the specific intention of dividing it into two meals. No matter how unevenly. If your child hadn't been there, you would have put less on your plate.

If it was an adult who only wanted a few bites, you'd still have to pay for them.

Kids don't have some special status that means businesses should have to cut into their profits to feed them.

It's a business not a charity, of course they will charge for any additional service.

YABU.

It is different.
Husbands and wives don't share plates at buffet type places.