to think that £4.50 is a ridiculous price for a scone?

[emsyj]

I have just been to a new cafe that has opened on my local high street (small town in the north west, not a big city, not central London - just a bog standard local high street).

There were 4 of us and 3 tried to order carrot cake. The waitress returned a few moments after taking the order to say there was no carrot cake left, all they had was Victoria sponge or scones. So without the benefit of the menu in front of us listing the prices, two of us went for the sponge and one for the scone.

When it came time to pay, the person who had the scone was charged £4.50 for the scone and another £2.45 for a black coffee. I thought it must be a mistake so went to ask if it was right and the cafe owner was quite aggressive in saying that yes, it was £4.50 for the scone because they are 'baked fresh every day with locally-sourced ingredients'. I said I thought that £4.50 was a silly price for a scone, even if it were embellished with gold leaf.

So AIBU? Needless to say, we won't be going there again which is a shame as the cafe is seeking to be family-friendly with buggy parking, lots of high chairs, paper and drawing stuff for the older kids etc and we had high hopes for it being a nice weekly meeting place.

That's one of the biggest rip-offs I've read about in a long time. And this is Britain.

Send her the link. Her business will not stay afloat for long with those prices.

Rip off

Waitrose cafe do a cream tea for £3.00ish - pot of tea, scone, clotted cream and jam

IF it came with a big pot of cornish clotted cream, homemade strawberry jam and a big pot of tea it would be fine but otherwise HOW MUCH!!

Bet they don't last long - the shop - not the scones!

yes stupid price for a scone. Cream tea at my local farm shop is £4.95 with pot of tea, but only one scone which I think is a bit of a rip off, but I think a plain scone is about £1.50

wow, am amazed it's still open

especially in the nw, it wouldn't cost that much in Starbucks

I can see her point (maybe if I really squint really hard) that perhaps the ingredients and everything else might mean that they have to be sold at that price, but then no-one in their right mind pays that amount for a scone - even if it is locally sourced ....

RHS Gardens sells homemade cake for £3.50 a slice and even then I think it is a liberty ...

The thing is though, she just didn't get it - she was trying to tell me that it was so expensive because of the ingredients etc, but to my mind a scone is still a scone and there is a ceiling price. It was an ordinary-sized scone with (I am told) very ordinary-tasting jam and was, apparently, nice but nothing special.

Another local cafe does super-amazing huge blocks of tiffin for £1.75 - so they will continue to get our business!

Did she take lessons from the recent Harry 'I Saw You Coming' Enfield sketch ???

emsy I would have laughed out loud at the enormous price. (I wonder what wage the waitresses were on?)

Cream tea where I work (country hotel/restaurant/pub) is £4.00 and for that you get a huge home-made fruit scone, jam, cream, butter and a large pot of tea (with a top-up if necessary). Pot of tea or coffee is £2. I regularly get catsbum faces at that price, they'd have a fit at £4.50 with no tea.

How much was the sponge cake, out of interest?

YANBU. I'd have expected a cup of tea with it for that price, unless it was somewhere very posh & fancy.

I think if they're aiming for the family-friendly market then those prices aren't going to work at all. If you go in with a toddler and a baby and you pay for tea/coffee and scone, drink and something for the toddler it makes it a v expensive outing. I know it sounds bad but for those prices I'd want a child-free cafe so I could savour my scone without trying to gulp it down between the kids whining chatting

I think it was £2.60 for the sponge. It was very nice, but a rather small slice (oink) and I wouldn't pay that again. With the pot of tea my bill was £4.90. I think that is pricey, but within a normal range.

Thing is though, there is a very good cafe just round the corner that serves much nicer cakes for the same money. They are also much friendlier and more pleasant.

Haven't seen anywhere in London that would dare charge that much for something made of flour and butter - even if it's hand milled and churned by the landlady herself.

Vote with your feet! And name and shame so I don't accidentally go there.

Tea at the Ritz may well cost £45, but you get rather more than one scone for your money! You get masses of freshly made sandwiches with delicious fillings, fresh baked scones ( last time I went they were warm apple and raisin- yummee!) with jam and clotted cream, slices of cake, the most delightful pastries and often, something extra like a complimentary creme brulee as well. Of course, you get as much tea/coffee as you want and the experience of eating in the sumptuous surroundings along with a quality of service which would be hard to beat. Also, you can have extra helpings of all the food if you wish, with no extra charge. Given the choice between that or £4.50 for a scone in a 'cafe' somewhere in the north west, i know which I would choose!

Crikey emsyj, if it was £2.60 for the sponge cake then I've just been charged £3.45 for my cafe latte...boo hiss

You have to price according to what people will pay, so if the ceiling is X, you have to match the cost of your ingredients according to that. If you simply can't make cake for less than "X", don't sell it!

I am currently baking and cooking with Sainsbury's basics plain flour, whose only difference is that it is not milled as finely (well! I can't taste or feel a difference. anyway, granary flour has got bits in it!))

Shit a brick!

No, her cafe will not survive with prices like that. And neither will she do well if she can't be polite to her customers either.

Its not as if scones are made with expensive ingredients either.

I am totally with you plupedantic - seems very simple to me, but I couldn't convey this message to the cafe owner!

A friend of mine had a meeting with a Business Link advisor a year or so ago, and learned that a cafe is almost the most likely type of business to go under. She ended up not going for it.

Evidently a lot of people make mistakes like these.

Bettys Cafe Tea Rooms:

Yorkshire Cream Tea - a pot of Tea Room Blend tea and two freshly baked sultana scones with strawberry preserve and Stamfrey farm clotted cream is £8.25. Breaking that down - the tea is £3, leaving £5.25 for two scones. I make that £2.63 per scone in a rather prestigious Northern tea room.

YANBU.

OUTRAGEOUS!

YADNBU!

Silly people/cafe owners.

I am a wanky-cafe connoisseur, but even I would baulk at paying £4.50 for a scone.

That is outrageous, even for those used to London prices!

Is it a well-to-do town with not many other cafes?

Utterly preposterous. And, actually, insulting, I think. I cannot bear the sensation of eating somewhere where the proprietor plainly considers their customers to be fools. oooooo I'm cross now. Do send her the link!