AIBU to think that buying a coffee doesn't entitle you to squat in a cafe all afternoon?

[MythicalKings]

Inspired by the "reserving tables" thread.

No problem if it isn't crowded but some groups of people think it's ok to sit for a couple of hours or more in a busy café having only bought one drink each.

Last year in Cornwall I even saw one family sneakily get out a sandwich lunch which they ate furtively.

Last week Dsis and I popped into a cafe for a coffee before embarking on a shopping spree for her newly decorated living room. An hour and a half later we went back for lunch and saw the same group of people at the same table with the same empty coffee cups. It was really busy but they pretended not to notice the hovering people with food laden trays.

It is rude and inconsiderate, isn't it?

My father was challenged once when he was out with them & simply walked out (didn't pay) leaving an untouched coffee on the table

Pretty appalling behaviour by your father. And the cost of the coffee probably came out of a server's pay packet -- they're on minimum wage already. I hope you father was proud of that.

PrincessOfThemyscira: But what really boils my piss is when families come in and buy a hot drink for the adult and think that entitles them to get out their lunchboxes
Princess, I'm glad you posted this, and just would like to say that what I am going to say is not meant in a confrontational way and it's not to wind you up, it's to share my perspective as a customer.

I (as a single woman) often take a packed lunch when I go shopping in the city centre. I will go into a cafe, have a 99p filter coffee (I like my coffee very weak and that's the "commercial" coffee nearest to my taste) and then I take out my plastic lunchbox and eat my salad. I sometimes ask for a fork, too. :) Reasons: 1. I like healthy eating and the salad I make at home only has what I like in it, including dressing; 2. my salad is about twice the volume and one-third of the price of the one I'd get in the cafe, and would have a lot more protein in it (sometimes I take a box of salad and a tin of tuna, open it and mix it in the cafe). I have done this in Costa, Starbucks, McDo, probably some other places, too. I have never been challenged. I think both parties (the cafe and myself) figure that if I can sit there for the price of the coffee then eating my lunch does not make a difference, i.e. I have already paid for the coffee.

If I were challenged, I would put away the food, drink (or take away) the coffee and eat my food later somewhere else (e.g. in a shopping centre). In other words being challenged would not make me buy food in the cafe. But I would never go back (and buy a coffee) in that cafe again.

So, essentially, if I did this in your cafe, Princess, you could (very much rightfully, I don't question that for a second) challenge me. I would still only have the coffee and no food; and you would have lost me as a customer. It would also mean that I would be even more likely to go to a big chain from then on, so the big chains would have gained another firm customer.

Maybe she doesn't want customers like you anyway, Iona, and has plenty of customers who are willing to buy the food there or just have a drink.

I really can't imagine an adult having the sheer front to sit in a café and mix their own salad there. And what on earth does being a single woman have to do with it?

IonaNE Thu 19-Feb-15 16:59:32

What a revelation you should have handed out tranqs before divulging that gem.

So there's a guide, from our national library

A guide from our national library For our....National Library

But what really boils my piss is when families come in and buy a hot drink for the adult and think that entitles them to get out their lunchboxes to feed the kids
for really young children ie below 5 I don't know a single parent who goes out without food and snacks for them.
children are fussy, picky, like one thing one min then hate it the next!
you cant guarantee how much they will eat
my first ate like a sparrow there is no way I am spending a fiver so she can have two mouthfuls of something when i can make her own food for a fraction of the price and keep feeding as we go where ever that may be.

healthy choices

ilovesooty I added that detail to show that unlike in Princess's example, it's not a kids' lunchbox. As for eating and mixing my salad in cafes: if I am challenged, I will pack and leave but until that happens, I see no reason not to do it. I am not native British, btw. And as I say I have never been challenged yet. The last time I did this was last Thursday in Costa: box of salad from home and a packet of 3 turkey slices bought in Tesco 5 minutes earlier, eaten with a small black americano at a table by the window.

expat: what is the difference from the point of a cafe owner between:
Customer A drinking a coffee having paid £1 then leaving; and
Customer B drinking a coffee having paid £1, eating their own packed lunch and then leaving?

'Customer B drinking a coffee having paid £1, eating their own packed lunch and then leaving?'

If the rule is 'No food not purchased on premises' with signs up indicating that, all the difference in the world.

Don't like it, buy the coffee somewhere else.

I'm not native British, either. What has that go to do with it? If there are signs up in an establishment that read, 'No food not purchased on premesis' then I find another establishment or get a takeaway and find a bench. Not difficult.

I wonder how many people like Iona would nip into Tesco, buy a small bottle of vodka then enter a pub, establish their customer status by buying a bottle of orange juice, then proceed to mix their own drinks?

So Iona, your 'reason' is that you can make a larger salad for less than the cafe will charge you? You've missed a trick, you could also make a coffee at home for far less than 99p, put it in a flask and carry it in with you alongside your salad. And have a picnic!

I'm sure it makes you feel all smug inside to tell yourself that you would boycott any cafe with the termerity to challenge your appalling behaviour. But really, you wouldn't need to. I'd expect you'd be barred.

"...for really young children ie below 5 I don't know a single parent who goes out without food and snacks for them..."

I have three dses, and even when they were under 5, we never took food into cafés for them, and I certainly didn't always have snacks in my bag either.

I think if you know your child is a really fussy eater, or if they have allergies or some other similar reason for you taking food, then taking their food with you is sensible (though The parent should ask the cafe owner, and should purchase a meal and drink themselves, IMO).

Otherwise I think you have two choices - either eat in restaurants that serve something your child will eat, or you all picnic somewhere suitable.

Iona - I think your behaviour is pretty shabby, rude and arrogant. Cafés have a lot of overheads, and if everyone did what you do, no cafe would be able to stay in business. It is not hard to get a takeaway coffee - somyoumshoukd do that, and find somewhere outside the cafe to have your salad and coffee.

"...for really young children ie below 5 I don't know a single parent who goes out without food and snacks for them..."

I wonder if the ginormous packed lunches and snacks that parents insist on carting around for their little darlings have anything to do with the rise in childhood obesity.

expat, in an establishment with signs prohibiting it I would not do it of course. But there are no such signs in Costa, Starbucks, etc. What I meant by the difference is that the cafe owner gets £1 in both cases, no less, no more. Not being native British has to do with it because British-born people seem to have a lot of inhibitions that seem to prevent them from trying things. If I am challenged for eating my own food in a cafe, I will of course be polite, apologise and put it away. But I see no harm in trying, and since I am never challenged, I am happy to benefit from doing it.

WhereYouLeftIt, yes, I did use to take coffee in a flask, but then you have to carry the empty flask with you all day. For the salad I use disposable takeaway boxes, or a collapsible silicone lunchbox. Also I need a coffee to be able to sit at a table somewhere. As for picnics, I live in the north, where we get about 5 days a year when you can have a picnic outside. As for being barred: as I say, I have never even been challenged. This aside, I don't think polite people tend to get barred? I have never been barred from anywhere.

SDTG, if my behaviour were rude or arrogant, I think I would have been at least challenged once. As for shabby, I don't really care what other people consider "shabby". Eating my own salad keeps money in my pocket and goes a long way towards being a size 8-10. I am sure cafes have a lot of overhead - and as I said in an earlier post, it is down to cafe owners to challenge behaviour they consider unacceptable. This is why, if I am challenged, I will be polite and put away my food. Because I am of the opinion that it is within the cafe owner's remit to stop behaviour they consider unacceptable. Of course I also know that in Starbucks, Costa etc. no one challenges me because no one who works there is the owner and none of the employees care in the least whether I eat my own salad or not. Which is why I tend to go to big chains and not independent little cafes.

So would you visit a pub as I suggested Iona using the same logic? Would you think it OK to buy an orange juice and take your own spirits in?

Iona you can justify yourself to yourself by any weasel words you choose. Interesting that you see British-born as inhibited, as British-born I would probably describe it as playing fair. Not that you care for the opinion of others, you are patently contemptuous of the concept - you're more 'I'm all right Jack, fuck the rest of you'. You are a user and a taker.

Iona over my 27 years of leading school trips all over the world, the saddest thing I had to deal with was a 13-year old boy with mild ASD (no food issues or rituals or fears though). His mother was insistent that he must only eat the food she supplied, dry biscuits etc. during a hot weekend in Geneva. The other students went to McDonalds - I took him to a pavement cafe round the corner, explained that he needed his own food, which was fine with them, and bought myself a coffee & sandwich. I got him some water and noticed that he was crying, really sobbing over his intact sandwich box. He desperately wanted to try McDonalds. The next day the other students took him there, looked out for him & he had a great time - the happiest I'd ever seen him. Back at my cafe, the owner asked me where my 'son' was ... When I told him he laughed & said he was glad they were all having fun together in McDs. The point for a child of visiting a cafe is surely the chance to taste different food in a new atmosphere, so why deny your child that, and risk their embarrassment if confrontation occurs ?

I will go into a cafe, have a 99p filter coffee (I like my coffee very weak and that's the "commercial" coffee nearest to my taste) and then I take out my plastic lunchbox and eat my salad. I sometimes ask for a fork, too

This us the definition of "brass neck" and sense of entitlement -- and to then make the comment that you think British people are too "inhibited" to do this?!

TBH, I'm a bit flabbergasted by your behaviour: it's appalling actually.

No, it's because we play fair, and understand that when we go to a cafe or restaurant, we are paying not just for the cost of the food, but its service, the comfortable surroundings, and so on. Are you happy that the staff in the chain cafes you like so much are paid NMW, and probably don't get many tips? Do you tip? Or does your utter meanness and tightwaddishness extend to the poor saps who have to put up with you?

Erm Iona if you don't like our 'British-born' manners, you know what you can do. I thought your first post was a wind-up until your subsequent posts.

ilovesooty, I am a teetotaller, so I don't know what I would do about spirits.

WhereYouLeftIt, UptheChimney and angelos02, I have used the word seem twice in that sentence: British-born people seem to be inhibited and this seems to prevent them from trying things. I felt that this indicated the subjective nature of the statement sufficiently, but this seems to have been lost on you. On the same note: all posters here seem to miss the fact that I have not been challenged for eating my own food in cafes. This seems to mean that either the behaviour is acceptable despite what you are saying (i.e. you are just a few people whereas society consists of many); or that British people are indeed too inhibited to challenge someone even for unacceptable behaviour. Which is it?

angelos02, there is more to a country than manners. Economy?

Iona You do not eat food in a cafe that you have not purchased in that café. If everyone did that, all cafes would go out of business.

I have a feeling I've met Iona and her entitled attitude on another forum.

I don't think you'll find many posters if any who find your actions and attitude acceptable. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the workers you come across are too flabbergasted to challenge you.
And as others have said you obviously don't give a toss about those workers on minimum wage otherwise you'd mention leaving a tip for them when they accommodate your brass necked cheek.

This seems to mean that either the behaviour is acceptable despite what you are saying (i.e. you are just a few people whereas society consists of many); or that British people are indeed too inhibited to challenge someone even for unacceptable behaviour

Or that most "British-born" hate using such a xenophobic racist term, but it seems to be what you prefer are polite, and certainly too polite to challenge a seemingly poor customer, who seemingly can't afford more than a 90p coffee and her own lettuce in a cardboard box.

Or maybe "British-born" people are compassionate to the seemingly poor and homeless who seem to have nowhere to go, and seem only to be able to afford a single cup of the cheapest coffee.

Yes UptheChimney you might have a point there. They might think she is homeless or short of money rather than rude and entitled.
She's certainly taking advantage of the fact that people interacting with her are too polite to challenge her appalling behaviour.