Charged for an empty plate?!

I don't go to carvers because the food is generally grim but I don't think it's unreasonable to say they want to charge at least a child meal price if its a child eating a meal. Itskind of irrelevant how much food will fit on your plate. You want a place setting for your baby. So pay.

You genuinely can’t see how being served a meal on a plate is different to helping yourself to as much as you want from a carvery (including extra to feed your child)?

Sorry it is totally different as compared to a sharing a dessert with your partner. If you order a dessert it is a fixed amount and it is up to you who you share with. If you go to a buffet then the charge is per plate or you don’t eat. You can’t sit with your partner and eat off their plate and say only one of you is eating. 🤦🏽‍♀️

Greedy people don’t pile their plates and only eat a mouthful, we eat every single bloody pea and mop up the gravy. I love a carvery and will pile my plate and eat it. OP is suggesting it’s either okay to take more than she would have eaten and wasted it (unreasonable), or it’s okay to take more than she would eat and give it to someone else (also unreasonable). I guess the third, and far less likely option, is that OP would have taken the perfect amount of t of food for herself and given some to DC, meaning she would not have had enough food.

To me, the answer to this seems completely dependent on how much they wanted to charge you for the additional plate.

Obviously they need to charge you something to cover more food than for one person plus all the additional restaurant running costs that apply (and the reasons for this have been well laid out by previous posters, and sorry I do think anyone who disagrees might want to consider that they may have CF tendencies), but I do think it is unreasonable to charge the same price as they would for an adult.

So what was the price OP?

Having had a look at Greene King it is not all you can eat, it’s served meat of choice and then you choose your sides and vegetables. A children’s carvery is only slightly cheaper and there was no menu of a baby charge.

As you are paying for a relatively fixed amount and there is a choice of sizes, I don’t think you are depriving them of huge profits!

@sandwichh would you get one plate and share it with your husband and pay for one even though both of you ate from it? No you would be charged because it’s a buffet dinner you can go as many times as you like.

You expected your child to be fed from your plate? The plate you put extra food on to feed your child. They also have to clean the plate your child eats as well as clean up after said child.

Aside from that I'm not sure feeding a baby a carvery is ideal. I would be worried about salt content. When mine were small I took out what they were having before adding the salt and pepper. As well as the fat content. Hard for them to digest.

This is like the thread the other day where someone wanted a refillable drink to serve five people or whatever

No it’s not

I think it is because of the ‘helping yourself’ set-up of carveries and refillable drinks. Both are easily exploited by the unscrupulous, so there will be policies decided by management to try and reduce cheating and junior staff are obliged to follow the policies regardless of the individual circumstances.

I used to just bring one of my baby’s bowls with us and fill it up with food from my plate. No one even said a word.

It’s very telling that as a society people think under one’s should be charged the price of a kids meal now for a couple of mouthfuls of food. I bet these places are happy to give away dog treats though.

Every carvery I have ever been to has been refillable. Meat is set amount, but you can go up as much as you like for the sides.

You would hope so, but many don't.

But the baby would be there anyway, if she'd brought food from home - changing mat, nappy, dirty high chair and all! Anyway don't most people wipe their high chair and pick up after their baby?

The limit is supposed to be one person’s appetite - not one person plus a bit extra popped on for the baby.

Yes, it’s not wholly fair as a massive six foot guy is charged the same as one of the “teenie tiny appetite” mumsnet brigade but that’s the only way they have of limiting something like this.

A carvery charges by the plate and they don’t have the staff to monitor it to make sure of who’s eating what. You could technically have gone up and got a full serving of meat with your extra plate without being noticed. That being said there’s usually an age under which they eat free or they have a toddler bowl. Did they only offer full adult servings?

A baby that has been eating solid food for 4 months is going to be squishing up a couple of carrots at best as their main food till one year is still milk.

I think your language is a bit out of order. It doesn’t take much to show a bit of common sense about things like this.

But there is a limit, you are the limit. Otherwise 5 people could eat on one ticket. If you buy 1 dessert and share it that’s fine. But if you buy unlimited desserts for 1 person but share with multiple people then it’s not the same.
That said in any buffet situation I expect very small children to be free or very cheap.

Probably a bit more leeway in their profit margins at this sort of place so don’t mind a bit of toast and a yoghurt.

Completely agree!

But it is because he's eating and you are eating. Yes, it's only a small amount but I guess they have to draw a line somewhere. I think they'd be entitled to charge a small fee, but not the full cost.

At first I thought they were charging you for using dinnerware (I’ve seen that happen) but did they actually charge an extra full meal?

It does seem like overkill. I probably just wouldn’t go again.

Don’t be so fucking ridiculous!!

It was a buffet style carvery so the OP helped herself, she would obviously have put extra food on her plate to account for the child !?!🤷‍♀️

Exactly - and that is a bit inconvenient and off putting - sharing a plate with your whole family. And would be embarrassing. So the business model relies on people not wanting to do this and/ or insists on paying for a plate per person (obviously they didn’t insist here as they were happy for the baby to eat off OP’s plate)

Didn’t they have a kids plate option you could have ordered him? At 10 months my DS could eat a most of a kids portion, he ate more than my 3 years old. Of course you need to pay for your child to eat, although I wouldn’t pay for an adult portion at that age.