Charged for an empty plate?!

She was taking her food off her plate to feed the child, she was paying for that food, is comprehension not your strong point?

Not sure about Greene King, but most carveries nowadays don't allow return visits. They gatekeep the plates at the time of issuing them. It would be very obvious with one glance if somebody was piling it up, rather than taking a couple of tiny spoonfuls for a baby.

They could even insist that you have to put all of the food on to your own plate and only give you a second 'decanting' plate to take away with you empty.

It's all very well saying to just feed them from your own plate, but babies will often dislike or be sensitive to baby-friendly food - like mash, peas or carrots - being allowed to come into contact with sprouts, anything fatty like roast potatoes or sauces - especially horseradish!

And that’s what OP should have done.

Agree, How can anyone clean up after their baby, it’s not like the staff will lay out cleaning g products for you to do it yourself!
I didn’t eat out much with my girls when they were little, it was too difficult as they both have autism, but I would try and keep the mess to a minimal but I drew the line at scooping food of the floor and wiping down with our own wipes!

You’re missing the point, that’s the pricing structure, you pay per plate, hence why you can feed your baby any extra from your plate.
Are staff supposed to assume that the extra plate isn’t going to be piled high, and a non eating guest eats for free, are they supposed to monitor the OPs table?

Oh you dear sweet naive darling.

But thank you for being one of the tiny minority that do clear up after their kids.

I get their fair reasoning that every plate given out could be filled repeatedly with food; but what I don't get is the people on this thread who are calling it CF behaviour to add an extra spoonful of mash and a couple of carrots and a dozen peas for a baby - when many people take enormous amounts as a matter of course.

Most places nowadays don't let you return to refill a plate anyway, so I presume they must already have an eye on anybody trying to do so. I don't know about Greene King, but places near us usually give you a ticket once you've paid and then hand you a clean plate in return for the ticket at the actual carvery counter. Anybody turning up without a ticket or with their own plate (whether previously filled there or brought from home, like Alan Partridge!) would be turned away.

I used to take ds a plastic bowl from home when we went to carveries & fill it from my own plate, never had a problem, he just had cauliflower cheese, mash, carrots & gravy with a tiny bit of shredded turkey.

Unpopular viewpoint I’m sure but to me the noise and mess that young children make in pubs is really off putting, and I’d imagine it makes a lot more work for the staff!
Parents should appreciate that they’re not actually doing anyone a favour by dining out and as such they shouldn’t expect freebies!

I'm astonished at how many people on a parenting website don't seem to appreciate the difference between a baby under a year old and an adult!

Would it be cheeky and embarrassing to stack up one plate high and then sit eating from that one plate with your husband, instead of paying for two meals? Of course it would.

Would it be embarrassing and awkward to put your husband over your shoulder, ask him in a sing-song voice if he has windy-woo-woos and burp him? Obviously.

Would it be weird to take your husband to the toilets and change his nappy? This is just getting silly now.

Many, many people at carveries pile their plates way up high. Some even have it down to a fine art - maybe taking several Yorkshire puddings to act as a perimeter barricade and vessels for extra food! Whether they eat it all or not, it makes no difference to the restaurant (well, if they leave a lot, that's extra waste for them to have to pay trade rates for). Taking only what you will actually eat yourself and what a baby will eat as well is going to be far, far less than many adults will take.

Why are so many people not getting this?!

"All you can eat" is charged by the plate. So you pay for the plate, thats how it works. Dont want to pay for a plate? Dont ask for a plate, easy.

This sort of thing is why some places now charge by the seat rather than the plate. I am in the industry and its not unheard of for people to go to an all you can eat, pay for one plate and everyone on a table of five share it and keep going back for more and more food. I was gobsmacked but it happens!

If you want to share with your baby, call ahead and ask the best way to do that.

🤔

The amount of food isn’t the issue, it’s asking for a plate when the carvery is charged per plate/person.

My Dh and I once shared a pizza and asked for an extra plate, they added £5 to our bill just to share a pizza and called it the sharing surcharge. We refused to pay it and never ate there again.

Totally agree, this is what their rule is, like it or lump it, pay for one plate, you get one plate.
maybe OP is embarrassed to feed their child off their own plate, but the fact is if you don’t pay for an extra plate you don’t get an extra plate.

The plate was probably to allow the baby to pick pieces up to feed themselves, as many babies like to do, and to possibly catch anything that falls from the mouth. Maybe it’s helpful to put a couple of things on the plate to cool before passing to baby.

The alternative is eating directly from the high chair tray but that’s disgustingly unhygienic and more messy to clean up. Or being purely spoon fed but some babies hate that.

As for the size of the baby - how much variety in the size of 10 month olds is there really?!

I'd have done this at that stage. He wouldn't have eaten enough to justify a baby bowl as such but I'd have brought my own cutlery and bowl for him and then just given him little bits off my plate. I think it was a bit cheeky to ask for a plate for them though I also think most family oriented places would have let it slide.

Have you ever looked at the floor when a crowd of mummies and babies have passed through a cafe? Usually a couple of days worth of doggie bags left behind!

Sounds like a bit of common sense should've been applied. Taking a plate to feed a school aged child for free is CF behaviour. Everyone knows a 10 month old is going to eat bugger all and only what they are given.

Just an thought, but I assume OP is a woman and will therefore likely eat less than a man would at the carvery while paying the same price. I doubt the baby's 'portion' would have made up the difference.

I understand the carvery process the same as you, but I think OP is U.

Because once she has the 'extra plate' in her hand, there's nothing stopping her filling it right up with an adult size portion.

There typically no one monitoring the sides section of the carvery, the control is how much you can fit on a plate. OP would have had 2 plates worth of space for the price of one.

Obviously OP was planning just to put a little on the plate, but I'd bet my bottom dollar that people ask for 'a spare plate for the baby' and then pile it right up for one of the adults to have extra.

She might have been more successful if she'd asked for a saucer or something else that was obviously not a carvery plate once they were all back at the table with their food.

Exactly, if you compare Op to a customer that doesn’t bring their baby, there is no advantage to the company, only disadvantages of more cleaning up at the very least.
It’s great that places are baby/child friendly unlike when I was a child many moons ago but let’s not go to the other extreme that by bringing a baby to a pub you’re doing the company a favour!

If it is such a teeny tiny amount then why would she need an additional plate? A couple of spoonfuls should have sufficed...

Also she hasn't said how large this baby was?

But again, that's how carvery pricing works. It's not done on quantity of food but number of plates.
You can't mix and match pricing types.
You can pay for a set amount and have as many free plates to put it on as you want
OR you have unlimited food but pay for plates.
Otherwise how will they make any money.

And you know you want the plate for a tiny baby but they don't. And frankly why can't "a few mouthfuls" be shared from your plate anyway?

No because a 10 month old isn’t a whole family of people old enough to eat actual meal sized portions.
there is a reason restaurants have child menus and at 10 months old at a buffet the amount eaten will be negligible

But they will have those costs whether the baby eats from the menu or a jar from home. Many restaurants know that making themselves baby / child friendly will attract the young families market and can be a big money spinner, especially at Sunday lunch time. The babies tend to be accompanied by adults who spend money on their food and drink. And if they have a good experience, they’ll keep coming back to spend even more money.