Would £200 be reasonable for a cooked arrival meal for six?

[zael]

We recently stayed at a holiday cottage. We were arriving late and the owner said the housekeeper is a great cook, so could leave a prepared meal for us. Never done this before.

There were 6 adults. We got left 6 large home made cornish pasties, some vegetables, some potatoes, 6 beers, and a home made victoria sponge. It was yummy.

How much do you think the housekeeper charged us for this?

£200

How much would you expect to have paid?

Well made Cornish pasties with proper steak are £15 each. Another £3 each for veggies. £5 for a beer. £20 for a decent cake.

£168 plus their markup. £200 is about right.

Were you running a business though? Obviously the owner wants to make a profit.

@OP were the pasties like Greggs size or something larger?

I’d not be massively keen on pastry plus potatoes (and pasties often have potato inside too).

Are you sure it wasn’t a Beef Wellington? 😀

Were you actually in Cornwall?

Sounds ok for was home made. The cost includes the time and the skill.

It's a bit pricey, but actually if you added up what that would cost you eating out (assuming pasties were large and good quality), then actually that's probably reasonable. And they are a business who have to pay the housekeeper for her time, (and pasties from scratch and cake would take a while), so I'm not sure why people are comparing to what it costs them to cook at home.
I can't imagine not asking the price before I agreed though.

Did the housekeeper choose the menu OP?

I'm just thinking if they're used to catering for late arrivals, they probably had the pasties (and possibly the cake) in the freezer anyway.

Was the food left for you to heat or did the house keeper come in to serve? I think it sounds expensive if you had to heat and serve, you would also be left with washing up. But I think you were paying for the convenience as much as the food. Also, that meal is crying out for gravy!

£5 for a beer IF you are paying in a pub, which they weren’t.

you catered for 12 people for less than £100

Yes, we do live in very different worlds

I think £200 isn’t far off the mark. You would easily pay that in a gastropub near us. Homemade Cornish pastie with veg would probably be £18-£19, pudding another £6-£7 and a beer £6. Your dinner was a small batch, homemade, labour intensive meal made by a skilled cook and delivered to your door. It sounds much nicer than something you’d get from the local takeaway - a curry for three now costs us about £65 - and that’s just for one main and rice or a naan each and some onion bhajis.

But if you were having it delivered from a pub or restaurant it would.

What would you pay for a homemade pasty, veg, pudding in a gastropub? More than that I think

How much of that 100 was for your time? Hourly at average chef wage?

Everything has a cost.
Tthe knowledge itself has value - cooking is a skill. the use of the kitchen, the electric or gas, the use of pots and pans that over time need to be replaced, etc

For a pasty each, a bit of veg and a plain cake?! Wow

I think it’s good value for money. 6 adults eating out ,even in a pub would spend £30 a head in our area. Factor in the time, cost of ingredients and convenience and it’s great .

That's not my kind of food, however, I wouldn't expect to pay less than £30 for dinner in a restaurant/ pub.

Not much difference really.

Sounds OK to me. It's a luxury service at a luxury price. If you need a cheap meal get a KFC. 6 x fish and chips would have set you back around £100 and the fryer would not have come to your house with alcohol and home made cake.

That sounds about right especially as you say it was all delicious.
You are paying for the convenience and quality, the cook's time/skills

£200 seems reasonable. Stepping into a holiday cottage after a long journey and finding homemade large pasties and a Victoria sponge sounds wonderful to me.

My word, that's expensive for something that isn't a proper meal. I'd expect meat or fish for that price. A takeaway would have been cheaper. It sounds like you enjoyed it though, so that's good!

I’m guessing the question is, would the OP have ordered food and beer to be delivered from a restaurant? If yes, then the price may not be obscene. If you were thinking they’d leave you a lasagne tray bake for £40 and you could bring some cans of beer with you from Tesco for £5 for 4, it’s going to seem expensive. As I say, I wouldn’t have agreed without checking the price first (and the food as none of us wound has eaten Cornish pasties!).

Unless she made the pasties, and they were fabulous, id be disappointed at £200 for 6

I guess as it was all homemade you need to factor in several hours of labour into the price. Plus gas & electric and delivery.

Yes it was homemade

The housekeeper

cooked 6 large pasties
baked a cake
cooked veg and new potatoes
and provided alcohol
Packed it up and delivered it to the property so that it was waiting for the 6 people to tuck in to after they arrived late. They walked in… no ordered takeaway, no hauling out food to cook. All there ready and waiting.

£200 well spent I’d say