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?

Where are people getting steak from?

For the menu you received £20 a head tops, for a proper 2 course meal and 2 bottles of wine £50 a head would be fine.

I used to do this in my holiday cottage. £25 for 2 for pie, mash, gravy and chocolate brownie with cream. It was so fucking stressful and I made no profit at all.

Butchers (not supermarket). You need a good cut for pasties because they're a relatively quick cook.

I meant “Where are people getting steak from?” as in “Where is it mentioned?” - not literally “Where do you buy it?” 😁

Some posters are assuming steak is one of the ingredients in the cornish pasties.

The beef in Cornish pasties is skirt steak (or at least it should be). It’s a cheap cut so the cost per pasty won't be huge, especially as there won't be that much of it in there.

£33 a head doesn’t sound exorbitant for home made.

I’d have preferred a couple of beef bourginion or similar from Cook with some sides. Prob less than £100.

That’s what I’m saying; it’s a weird assumption.

No, it's a cheap cut of meat. Beef skirt

Sorry, I think I misunderstood what you were driving at and I mistakenly lumped you in with what some other posters appeared to be saying.

Re-reading, I clearly see that you were going from the pov of the people eating and how the value stacks up for them compared with other options - apologies.

I do think from the pov of the housekeeper/cook, though (and maybe the price includes commission for the cottage owner for putting the business her way), she's under absolutely no obligation as some are suggesting to price her service as cheaply as possible, just so that the holidaymakers can get a bargain from her time and labour.

As long as the price is stated upfront, it should be down to market forces and how many take her up on it against those who decline but would have otherwise gone for it if it had been cheaper.

It's a little on the steep side but it's not at all unreasonable. It's not "homemade" it's food made by a professional person doing it as their job. So you cover wages etc not just food costs just to break even. And the owners of this holiday cottage are clearly running it as a business which means by definition they will make as much profit as they think they can manage (and often businesses subsidize lower than desired profits in one area eg rent by hoping for bigger markups from optional extras eg welcome packages and food add-ons). Nothing to see here.

That sounds expensive to me. Not everyone likes the same food so no choice involved. If they’d offered me that with the price up front I’d have said no and stopped at a pub en route.

£10 each?! There’s not even that much steak in each pastie once it’s chopped up and mixed with all the veg, and they don’t use fillet steak.

Presumably the owner paid the housekeeper an hourly rate (or are they already on a fixed wage already if they are a permanent housekeeper?) so would have been cooks hourly rate + cost of ingredients. I think for what you got it was expensive and the owner definitely made a £100+ profit on that.

If you had paid that amount in a cafe would you have been happy?

Does this include an hourly rate?

I don’t understand why you think OP and her party would pay an hourly rate.

“Nothing to see here”

😝😝😝

Op not been back. Very frustrating.

I think that sounds reasonable, Main, desert and a drink, of good quality, delivered to your door for £33 each (no tip). You’d struggle to have that in a restaurant.

Sorry, I mean the cost of ingredients, then the time it takes to make the food. For example, cake makers cost their cakes by breaking down the ingredients, cake box, I guess something for resources used, plus an hourly rate. If it took eight hours to make a cake from beginning to end, maybe it’s 8x £20.

I would say a lot of it would depend on the price of the holiday cottage.

High end place costing thousands - £200 doesn’t seem unreasonable.

A less fancy place where cost is more of a consideration I would think it strange that they didn’t clarify the price. Adding £200 onto a cottage that cost, for example, £800 is a lot for one dinner.

I would view that dinner on a par with the convenience of a takeaway, Chinese or Indian etc. Which for 6 people would probably cost around £70-80. So I do feel £200 is a lot for some pasties, but I do appreciate the cost of the ingredients, time to make it and delivery etc.

If you were to give feedback I would suggest that a tiered menu with 3 different options and price points would be a good option.