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.

And I should have said in this, yes we make a profit on it in our pub! It’s not causing us to make a loss.

This is a really good point about not actually being able to put it through the till.

I expect if OP was regularly going somewhere with her daughter, a similar situation might occur, whereby they'd get used to her requirements and be able to factor in her orders to their planning and budgeting. Seeing the accommodations your place has made kind of demonstrates why actually it is a big deal when a customer comes in on a more one-off basis and asks for a large quantity of an item unexpectedly! It's really cool that your pub does that for your regular.

Milk has a shelf life of what 2 weeks? So they will have ordered in what they normally need for what's actually on their menu.

It’s not known for its rarity value though, is it? Unless the OP is going to a particular restaurant daily and her child drinks three pints each time, I can’t see it’s going to be a major ongoing problem.

Personally, I very much doubt an extra pint will tip a restaurant’s supply precariously close to the edge. I’d be very surprised if they’re managing their supply right down to the pint. It retails for about 80p in the supermarket; a restaurant will be paying less wholesale. They wouldn’t be so tight with their ordering as to run out to avoid the risk of an overspend of a couple of quid. Even if they had to run to the corner shop for an emergency pint or two, the mark-up they could charge would make it worth it.

I was going to suggest this!

Well 70% of people think you are being unreasonable and some people have given some good suggestions.

Quite honestly most restaurants do not have the ability to ‘pop’ to the shops. They might even be cashless. Either accept that you cannot expect to just turn up to a place, order something that isn’t cost effective for the place to serve you with no notice or bring your own.

In regards to people asking why a pint and not a glass. We’ve had places get funny about both, so it’s not just a pint that’s a problem unfortunately.

Take milk with you in a Stanley cup or similar and he can drink from that

As someone pointed out upthread, lots of places won't have the option on the till to sell you a "glass of milk".

Somewhere selling 90 coffees a day isn’t watching their milk supply down to the pint.

That's very common with supermarket cafes, often because they're contracted out to catering firms like Compass. We've certainly had similar in both Tesco and Asda where the counter staff have said they can't take anything from the shop floor and can only use supplies provided by the daily delivery! Once, we were at an Asda cafe and on the hot counter were a tray of bacon and a tray of sausage, so we asked for a couple of bacon & sausage buns, but the guy behind the counter said they couldn't because they'd run out of buns! We even offered to go and buy a bag of buns ourselves for him to put the bacon and sausage into, but he refused saying they weren't allowed to sell bacon and sausages separately and the best he could do was give us two full breakfasts and we could take the sausages and bacon off the plates once he'd served them to us! As others have said, they seem to have to follow procedures, however daft they appear to be!

It's one of the reasons I prefer Morrisons if we have to eat in a supermarket cafe. They do seem to have "permission" to get things off the shop floor if they run out. In reality, they rarely run out of things, so it seems that flexibility seems to work! We've certainly be sat there waiting at our table when someone in a Morrisons uniform has come from the shop area with a few loaves of bread in her hands!

So charge what you would for a Coke, or a coffee, and press that button. It’s not rocket science.

It could be put through as a latte or milkshake or hot chocolate

In reality, it will be awkward for the waiting staff as it’s not on the menu. The waiting staff will know that the chef will likely get funny about it. Milk will be kept in the kitchen rather than at the bar usually so the waiting staff know the chances of the chefs seeing them pouring milk as a drink for a customer are high and they’ll ask questions. In my experience, a lot of chefs get really funny about stuff ordered that isn’t on the menu. It’s as simple as that (but not a solution for the OP , I appreciate).

From someone who worked for many years in hospitality!

I would think it’s even less of a problem if it’s a one off to be honest. Or at least that’s my experience, it might be different in other restaurants that are not run in the same way as ours.

I agree ! I really can’t see why this is a problem at all??

I'm Irish. We grew up with glasses of milk to our dinner.

My brothers still order a pint of milk with their dinner wherever they go. (We eat out as an extended family regularly)

It's never an issue here anywhere we go.

Genuine question, why would your chefs get funny about that? I’ve worked in hospitality all my life and I can’t imagine any of the chefs I’ve worked with getting funny about this. Maybe it just depends on the type of restaurant though or the personality of the chefs.

Also in what land do people literally use a teaspoon full of milk in their coffee?? I get through about 50ml per cuppa I reckon, I can easily get through half a pint a day in tea alone if I have a heavy tea day.

If they sell milky coffees what’s the big deal with a glass of milk. Maybe if it’s not on the menu they don’t know what to charge for it?!

£3.50 for a pint (a few coffees worth ?) is very reasonable.
I would expect to pay the price of a coffee or hot chocolate with the restaurant saving on coffee and time /electricity/labour to steam the milk.

It’s not going to cause any great harm to any business to accommodate either of these situations.

You keep making grand statements @OhYesImgoingtosay about what businesses should and shouldn't do. The business can make their own decision!! If they have decided that it is not worth it to them to go off menu, then that is their decision. If you would like to set up a business to make your own decisions, then do that.

Off menu items are difficult for a number of reasons
from putting it through the till to stick levels

I mean even imagine a worst case scenario- that a pint of milk is provided to a child - the last pint and it can’t be replaced and then an adult comes in and wants a coffee , they might have to just go without or go elsewhere, sometimes one person takes priority over another.

The only problem I could see is if somewhere ran out of milk from it. But even then in our pub we would put customer satisfaction first and if push came to shove we would send someone to the local Sainsbury’s for some more milk if we really had none left at all.