Was this acceptable cafe behaviour or a big faux pas??

[AHardDaysWrite]

We're having lunch in a busy cafe (me, DH, two dcs). We ordered a main meal each plus two sides of chips to share. All the chips were soon polished off. On the next table was a woman and her son. She ordered chips for him, but when they arrived he only ate a couple and refused the rest. They left soon afterwards. My DS wanted more chips, so I gave him the (largely untouched) portion from that table. DH was aghast but my reasoning was that the waiter was only going to bin them anyway - why waste food? Was I BU?

Can you imagine if the family suddenly had a thought to return for the uneaten chips.

YouStay why, though? Why is taking something that would be thrown away so wrong? It's not like stealing from a shop.

Whoops. Try again. Unlikely to be a dirty nappy in there, I can't see someone going out of their way to go round the back of the store to put one in. Possible, but not likely. But if the food was nestled up against a dirty nappy then no probably wouldn't eat it.

exactly classy, and fitting name ;)

hmm but surely the skip is just the dumping ground for all the bins in the place. Food scraps, fine and off, anything that's contaminated, snotty tissues, the odd nappy someone has put in a normal bin etc

I would not have done that. The hygiene thing doesn't bother me too much. But I just wouldn't give DC extra portions of something relatively unhealthy.

Can you imagine if the family suddenly had a thought to return for the uneaten chips.

Now that would have been funny. And very embarrassing

Sparkling that's what I thought! Imagine it!

"We forgot our chips..."

"We ate them."

Would be horrified if it did to be honest. Then again, most of mums hotel tales horrify me. Every time I enter one I have to remind myself of health and safety laws. Mum - who was one of the head chefs - distinctly remembers cooking breakfast whilst bladdered and vomiting into a bucket, washing and microwaving broccoli 3 times for 3 successive plates, watching her boss smoking whilst frying stuff and flicking ash into the tray, stealing the empty bedrooms for boozy nights in... This was a naice hotel as well at the time apparently, popular with people on Scottish whiskey/castle trail.

So as I say I would be bloody horrified if it still happened - recooking stuff - but you never know ;)

My mums a good person to go dining with as if there's a problem, she's quite happy to tell the staff how to improve whether they wish to hear it or not. But scarred as well and very quick to check if things are freshly cooked!

That said, I couldn't eat off someone's plate if they weren't related to me.. Otherwise I finish everything oink.

Hope they hadn't just recovered from a bout of D + V, apart from that can't see the problem, but from infection control point of view and all those lovely pathogens not something I'd do myself, (but almost certainly would have in my student days!!)

Why would you come back for chips? It wasn't a takeaway. You'd assume your table would be cleared pretty quickly after leaving, no?

I never noticed anything like that when I bin surfed. There seemed to be different bins for different things. Not sure how easy it is these days anyway, as some stores crush it to prevent people taking the food.

Ugh
I don't actually know why it's so gross, but it is.

No Hard DS2 would do something like that, then go back to wrap them up for later.

RubyRec, don't understand?!

Oh god...parental tales of food prep/hygiene. My dad's tales of making pork pies have damaged us all for life (not that I needed much help avoiding that particular foodstuff). It has made me quite weird about sausage rolls too...

Urgh Pork Pie Georgina. That vile jelly.

What ninnies people are with all this "but people breathed on them"!!!

No wonder we are so wasteful of food!

I don't really get the problem, not at all.

So, so silly.

If it went to the skip isn't the issue.

You had already fed yourself and your ds who then complained he was still hungry despite a full meal being provided.

Would you have paid for more chips if you hadn't noticed the potential free ones on offer?

That isn't really the point, you've given your dc permission to take something that isn't his because you did it with the chips , he saw you do it.

Terrible example to your children?? Really?? How is eating leftover food that would only go to waste a terrible example? I think that's a total over-reaction. I'm going to defend the OP and say I would probably let my kids eat the food if they were still hungry and I was sure it hadn't been touched by the previous owner. But my kids probably wouldn't eat someone else's food anyway (I probably would though if I was on my own!)

it is a skanky thing to do

eating a strangers left overs when there is no need to other than greed

I am having such a visceral response to this I cannot entertain the question rationally.

It's not the breathing that bothers me. It's dirty hands. But they could have been breathed on if they were particularly hot I suppose.

My dad once pinched some 'leftover' chips from the table nect to his in a pub, when he was out with my mom... But the person sitting there had only gone out for a cigarette or something!

Luckily he didn't catch my dad in the act but my mom has never forgiven him

I wouldn't have done it - but I don't know why . The illogical part of my brain is screaming "GERMS", the logical part is going "meh".