Afternoon tea difficulty

[TheAverageJoanne]

Well it's ATBU. Booked afternoon tea for a few friends on Saturday for a birthday. One person only eats cheese on sandwiches but she'll have chutney and things like that on them.

Unfortunately they are being rather difficult. When I requested cheese sandwiches when I booked she had to check with her manager who said it would be OK. They phoned today saying they could only provide cream cheese & cucumber, but not plain cheese! I pointed out plain cheese was available on the children's menu but they weren't able to change the sandwich selection, only for allergy or food intolerance.

AIBU to not leave them a tip, grumble on Trip Advisor and complain to them? We want it to go ahead. I'm going to make some and take along in a sandwich box for this person, too. She doesn't eat meat or fish.

This is a prestige hotel that charges a lot btw.

I've got a friend who has never had a Betty's Afternoon Tea. I was going to take her for her birthday but then I realised that she doesn't eat meat, will only eat egg if it's boiled, will only eat certain kinds of fish and likes cheese but only hard cheese not soft.

I thought back to the last afternoon tea I had and decided it wouldn't be worth the money. I love a good Afternoon Tea, especially at Bettys, but I eat almost anything. I do love my friend dearly, and I know she'd be mortified if she could only have one type of sandwich because of her food restrictions.

I have eaten afternoon tea many many times around London over the past few decades. They have always been flexible and catered for vegetarians, vegans, and pescatarians etc. I would have chosen a different venue I think if possible.

Betty’s is customer focused enough to give your friend exactly what she desires. If you give them the heads up that it’s a birthday they’ll personalise a complimentary fondant fancy and present it with a candle.

In that case, I’ve never had an afternoon tea where they haven’t offered more scones/savouries/cakes so if she’s so picky she should just eat those instead and if her friends really want her company (and I’m not sure I could be bothered) then perhaps they can eat her sandwiches and let her eat some of their cake…

You really can’t bring your own- they might chuck you out but they really should be able to accommodate. I have found afternoon tea to be a bit of a pain with fussy eaters. I’ll eat it all but have found with my kids I have to ask to take things like mustard out of ham sandwiches etc. My husband isn’t a fan of cream cheese so that also means I often get those ones as a default. I do generally always check the menu and have often asked for some tweaks ahead of time which have been accommodated. You have to pick the right guests for an afternoon tea. I’d be much better going on my own than with my family.

It’s odd that they wouldn’t accommodate something so simple (and that they don’t have egg and cress - that would be my line in the sand). Hotels and restaurants do it all the time and it’s not uncommon for at least one person at a table to have a food preference (I say this as a former hotel restaurant waitress). It would be different if your friend said, ‘Instead of cream cheese I want caviar’ but substituting cream cheese for cheddar is well within their gift and is not an unreasonable request.

Restaurants are used to being asked for salad instead of chips, sauce on the side, no cucumber anywhere on the plate, cheese not melted on the burger, the beans not touching the sausages, extra mushrooms on the pizza…etc. etc. And why wouldn’t they? They want their customer to enjoy the experience, rave about it to their friends, and return regularly. If a cheese sandwich substitution is all it takes to get someone to drop £30 on a scone, a cake, a cup of tea, and a sandwich, then I’d be thrilled to do it.

I have got her a Betty's voucher instead and we're going to go for a meal instead of afternoon tea. My friend can therefore pick what she wants from the (extensive!) menu rather than feeling that she's had to be 'catered for' specially. She absolutely hates to put anyone to any trouble and she really is restricted in her sandwich choices.

So we'll have a slap up meal instead!

They are being unreasonable, and if you go ahead with the booking you are telling them that their inflexibility and lack of customer service is acceptable and correct. Why do you want to go ahead? If they are the only decent quality hotel that does afternoon tea in the area then they are fine to treat their customers badly because there's no alternative. If there are others nearby but this one is the cheapest then they are fine to treat their customers badly because you get what you pay for. Businesses function in the way that is cheapest for them to operate while still bringing in their expected level of income. YABU to be still planning to go, and YWBU to make the booking at all before they confirmed that they would actually feed your guests.

This kind of nails it: set menu afternoon teas aren't for everyone.

She may still want to come and join everyone, maybe order a cream tea, or a child's tea, but you can't force square pegs into round holes.

Set menus are round holes.

She's bringing her own sandwiches to a nice hotel ? What a joke she is.

Of course not. But if you say yes you will proved something to get the booking, then stop pretending that is OK or something we should support to change later hoping it's too annoying to then not go ahead. That's pathetic behaviour and should be rightly not tolerated by people going there.

The boot licking some people do is so strange.

Why didn't you book somewhere else knowing already your friend is a veggie? It can’t be the only place that does afternoon tea?

I think your request is reasonable but you can’t bring your own food!

What kind of grown adult is so pathetic that they’ll only eat a sandwich if it’s cheese?

if she wants to be like this just don’t take her. Don’t pander to it. Don’t complain at the hotel because they don’t have a menu that suits her stupid whims. You wouldn’t go to Kwik Fit and complain that they won’t fix a sewing machine.

I think an adult only eating cheddar cheese sandwiches is a bit annoyingly fussy. I'm not sure an afternoon tea is really what she should be ordering as frankly a main component of afternoon tea is a selection of different, fancy sandwiches.

She should order a cheese sandwich and a cream tea and the rest of you the afternoon tea.

She’s vegetarian so the other sandwiches the hotel offers aren’t suitable.

Of course it’s ok not to like certain stuff but then you shouldn’t order it. When I want to book afternoon tea somewhere I look up their menu to check if I fancy it or not and if I don’t fancy everything on the list the next question am I ready to pay the quoted price for what I’m going to eat.
So yes, you are very unreasonable to expect set offer to be changed just because. You could easily choose a different place or go for another option from the menu for this friend (if it’s possible) or (shock horror) she could just leave what she didn’t like or swap with one of others for extra sweet thing.

Exactly.

And if you dull it down for the fussy eaters, you're disadvantaging everyone else who're thinking they're going out for a fancy afternoon tea and want something a bit more special than mild cheddar on sliced white bread.

Could you ask to add on a children’s afternoon tea and then she can have the cheese sarnies, anyone who doesn’t like one of the cakes for example can have an alternative. As there’s a few of you going, an extra £10-15 to give some flexibility for your friend and others seems a moderate price to pay.

i have been to loads of afternoon teas, there are always a couple of items I don’t eat but I eat other things instead. We don’t sit there diving it up equally, there is usually way too much food. She doesn’t need to bring her own sandwiches, can’t she eat extra scones?

Hotel are being ridiculous, as long as you are still paying the same they should accommodate.
Ring and ask to discuss with the manager.

It is a cheese sandwich, not a huge ask for a prestigious hotel!

Where did the mild cheddar and sliced white bread come from?

As she is vegetarian the correct way was to ask if they provide a vegetarian option of their afternoon tea and order her one but she can’t complain that she doesn’t like their choices - she can comment that vegetarian options are not very exciting or limited or not available.
You could go to a Thai place and have plenty of vegetarian options.

Surely you can request cucumber sandwiches without the cream cheese?

What you definitely can’t do is take your own sandwiches.