To think that you should not bring a lunch box into a cafe

[Chocolateandcrisps]

There is a lovely cafe in a church which we visit often. There is a little play area which my ds loves and reasonably priced lunches, cakes and a sandwich lunch deal for the kids.

Last week two people walked in with their kids, who were about 3 years old, ordered coffees for themselves and brought out a lunch box for the kids. They did not order cake, lunch etc for themselves - just coffee.

I have given my ds rice cakes, water from cup, snacks in cafes before but never taken out a lunch box.

Am I being unreasonable / judgy to think that you should not bring a lunch box into a cafe for your kids?

I take a lunch box for my ds's all the time to the local soft play which has a café attached.

They don't have allergies. I take it and make no excuses or attempts to hide it.

I have no intention of paying £££ for my ds's to eat chips or plastic-ham sarnies on white bread. We also go about once a week - I don't want to feel obliged to spend an extra tenner on an unnecessary lunch each time.

I have been approached once by a woman to tell me that 'Sorry, you can only eat food bought on the premises here'. My reply was very politely that sorry, I don't like the look of the food in the café and can't really afford to buy a meal out as well as the soft play. But i'd be happy to leave and go to Junglies (their competitor down the road) instead if I could have a refund.

They let us eat the lunch box.

I take food for my 14 month old DS, I buy food and drinks for myself and then leave a tip. I'm not buying plastic, crap food for DS to waste.

I accept that some places won't like this, I'd do as asked if anyone said anything providing they were polite. Once DS is 2 I'll expect cafés will be less tolerant but for the meantime I think most understand.

Soft play would be lovely. DS3 has been once, and it ended in a trip to A&E, and administering adrenaline. Never again.

Couthy you mentioned something about bills have to be paid. Cafe owners have bills to pay as well. Do you really think it's fair in a busy cafe that a party of 8 or even more should occupy a space for 8 or more if only 4 or less are paying for any food? You say you dont have space in your houses to meet there but you expect a cafe to provide space free of charge?

Consideration runs both ways.

Unless the cafe is rammed and there are people at the door waiting to use those seats it's irrelevant Caitlin17 because they'd be making nothing on them at that time anyway. They'd be having even more trouble paying their bills if the whole group decided not to use the cafe any more and go elsewhere here they were allowed to use a lunch box.

Well, there's plenty of cafés here that DONT let us in. The one we does go to recognises the amount of custom they DO get from our group. Bill has never been under £30...often well over £50...

Rafas I said "busy. " It's not irrelevant. The cafe is nor going to make money if it has to turn away potential paying diners because a party of 8 is there and only half of them are paying for food.

And on one memorable occasion, with all our DC's with us, despite the 5 lunchboxes, over £100 for the group. We did a SIOB at THAT one! (There were 5 adults and 12 children eating and drinking in the cafe that day, as well as the 5 with lunchboxes...)

Sometimes only half a party of 10 is paying for food and drink, sometimes it's 17 out of a group of 21...

Couthy a bill of £30 for the number of people you were mentioning is nothing. I'd say that was one course with a drink and coffee for 2 people.

Both play cafes in the two towns I used to go to have closed down. They just didn't make enough money. Fairly obvious why, reading this thread (severe allergy sufferers excepted).

And a bill of £100 for 17 people is £5.88 per head. Either you go to extraordinarily cheap places or several of the 17 were paying for little if anything.

In fact if I'm reading your post correctly there were 17 eating in the cafe and 5 with lunchboxes so your bill of over £100 was split amongst 22.

Lots of us drink soft drinks rather than coffee / tea, and we all have slices of cake (and very nice they are too). I'm not in London, if that makes a difference? I've found cafe prices in London to be far dearer than my local town - I can get a full English for under £5 here, not seen that any cheaper than £7.50 in London.

OP, not sure why this concerns you. If I prefer to feed my children homemade food, I will. That doesn't mean I should be banned from visiting cafes (where I purchase coffees and drinks by the way so it's not like I just take a table and pay for nothing).

I'm not in London either and don't see what soft drinks rather than coffee or tea has to do with anything. I'm really taken aback at your attitude that it is reasonable to expect you can occupy table space for your whole party but only half of you will buy any food.

Pigletin so you and your children who are too special to eat anything other than your home made food are entitled to occupy a table for say 3 people whilst you have a single coffee in a busy cafe and feed your children food you haven't bought from him?

Yes Caitlin, that's right - unless the cafe owner objects she is entitled to do just that.

Incidentally - I do hope you lot who are currently getting your knickers in a twist about other people's kids eating their own food never, ever 'hold' a table whilst the rest of your party queues up, thus stopping everyone else who has already got their food from sitting down. Because that really is beyond the pale.

But OK if I get out my flask and lunchbox, while I wait for them?

No caitlin, I'm not too special to eat cafe food, but my children might be depending on what is served. I order drinks for everyone, not just for myself. So if there are 3 people at my table, there will be 3 drinks and maybe desserts. As SirChenjiin said, unless the cafe owner objects, I am perfectly ok to do this. Still not sure what that has to do with the OP or another visitor in the cafe.

Assuming no allergies special diets.. it's slightly cheeky for a child of that age. However, if I owned a cafe and either I had people ordering drinks in it while feeding their kids from a lunch box or not ordering drinks in it and going elsewhere. I'd choose the first option.

I cannot believe just how entitled some people are.

Why should a private business provide you with "free facilities" just because you don't want to feed your child plastic ham,prefer to only feed them home made food, or cant organise your life to make sure your child is fed before leaving home.

Whats wrong with sitting on a public bench,if raining in a covered shopping area or even eating in the car ?

A generation ago it was mostly unheard of to stop off in a cafe whilst out,yet people were still able to manage their childrens dietary needs without having to resort to using a cafe's facilities for their child's picnic !!

The only person I know who has a truly severe nut allergy wouldn't even eat her own food in a public place anyway - the risk of cross contamination is too high .

Sir Couthy has made it clear any owner who objects will never get her custom again so clearly she does think the owner is unreasonable if he's not keen on his cafe being full of non paying customers.

As for bagging tables, actually no ,I don't do that. It's also rude.

Touché, Morgause. It's not ok, it really isn't, but views on this are going to be polarised. Those that do it will never accept that it's inconsiderate and will always make excuses to do it, because they want to.