To expect a restaurant to be able to do a pint of milk?

[YourAgileBiscuit]

My autistic DD (13) will normally only drink milk when we are out in restaurants etc.

Some restaurants (including chain restaurants and pubs/carvery places) get a bit funny about it when she orders/asks for milk though. Even though they already have milk for the kitchen and for teas/coffees. We’ve had some restaurants outright refuse as well even though they have milk in the building.

Is it unreasonable to expect restaurants to be able to serve milk for a paying customer? Of course we pay for her milk, we are not asking for it for free!

I would say about 50% of places we go to get funny about it which I don’t understand as they already have milk in the building.

Most places do not serve milkshakes.

We used to take our grandson to Morrisons cafe for a cooked breakfast when he stayed over. One week, eggs were not being cooked as they hadn't been delivered that morning. I could see eggs in the store from where I was sitting but they 'wouldn't be allowed' to cook them if I scampered over and bought some. I can well believe the same intransigence over milk. Is it the quantity that throws them?

It’s the same in Sainsburys cafe too. You can’t take things from the shop floor due to different prices and costings. I know it sounds stupid but its head office rules, and if an auditor see it the person could be sacked.

If it's on the menu, I see no reason they can't give you it.

Otherwise, that's unfortunately not how most businesses espsically chains operate. At mine we categorically cannot give someone a cup of milk. One because the actual cups themselves are on the stock count and two the milk is also on stock count and ordered in some bizarre way I don't understand that they know the exact quantities they are supposed to use for products . And if there literally isn't an option on the till they we couldn't charge you so you'd be getting it for free. Which you could argue they should just use discretion and give it to you anyway (as some apparently behave) but that then sets a precedent and everyone else also wants free milk. And the staff cannot override that, in some cases giving away stuff for free (yes even a glass of milk!) could actually go down as theft and result in the employee being sacked.

I do understand that it's not easy when there are issues such as autism or ARFID etc at play. But it's not as black and white as a lot of people assume. I wish it was cos that would be simpler and better for people like the OPs child. But not a lot you can do bar avoid chains and go to more independent places who don't have such strict stock rules

And who would pay for the milk? The person going? Take the money out of the till? Then the till would be short.

If a large glass of milk ( and a pint is an extremely large glass) isn’t on the menu then I wouldn’t expect it to be available.