What are the worst crimes you have seen committed at a buffet? Or any communal food situation.

[Sparklingbrook]

Following on from people who stand too close when queuing.

Also any top tips for buffet etiquette on an AI holiday?

Crimes for me-

Picking up food and putting it back
Using incorrect spoons and cross contaminating different foodstuffs

I just read your nn as FartWidow !!

You should have gone and tickled her in the ribs, Fart so that her chicken ball mountain avalanched all over the floor.

I want to go to an all you can eat buffet now to watch people commit terrible crimes .....

I wonder how many people at DLP get the shits from the festering salmonella sandwiches they sneak from the breakfast buffet? It probably costs DLP more in bog paper than stolen food!

What are the queues like at the loos in DLP?

I put a price of toast in a conveyor toaster and it came out done only on one side, so I thought I'd turn it over and do the other side. Except it must have been the same side again and the damn thing actually caught fire

I did this with a croissant on holiday in one of those industrial toasters, I wanted it warmed up and didn't realise it would overheat so quickly. Two of the staff stood laughing while I panicked that the alarms would go off and cause the whole hotel to be evacuated but thankfully it didn't catch the actual toaster on fire.

People excessively sweating drip, drip, drip into the food in the summer time (gross)

I always smirk at the people who come into my local Chinese wearing very stretchy fabrics.

White - wasn't in a London hotel was it? On a trip to see a musical?

White - wasn't in a London hotel was it? On a trip to see a musical?

No it was in Spain.

oh god I can not read this

I do not visit buffets for fear of the kinds of things I fear this thread is about

The person who set fire to the toaster which had to be closed down reminds me of my mum who I will add has very good buffet etiquette but was unlucky. She had a very small amount from a mr whippy style machine, stopped the machine and went back to her seat, only the machine some how got stuck and my Dad and I were trying to contain the Icecream, it just kept coming! The bowls were tiny and we filled them with about 30cm tall swirl of Icecream and it still kept coming. We were handing these bowls to anyone and everyone before my dad finally managed to get it to stop. My mum was wondering why we were gone so long. I walked past later and heard a little kid upset as there wasn't any Icecream in the machine, whoops!

I felt very sad when I saw a very overweight young boy go up to the dessert trolley and take one of each type of dessert. The rest of his overweight family followed suit. Think normal sized dessert portions x 6.

We went to an event at the House of Commons and as we weren't shown into a room for lunch we assumed it would be a buffet style (the invite said lunch). They gave us fish and chips, 6 tiny chips and the smallest cube of fish, it came in a cone which you held in 2 fingers. None of us could believe it and all sneakily took pictures as we thought no one would believe quite how small it was. I've since seen then as a small canapé at other events, along with other canapés and before the meal, not instead of a meal!

Thinking about it, my DLP sad face poster plan could save disney a fortune. There's the saving in breakfast food being used to make up lunches. Then there's the saving in breakfast food because the posters will probably put everyone off their breakfast. And then there's the saving in loo roll due to the reduction in people with festering ham related shits. There may also be an increase in constipation, as people are missing out on fibre when they're put off their breakfast, which would further reduce the loo roll bills.

I'd charge very reasonable rates for my services.

I've only had two experiences of AI holidays, both with Neilson. I honestly didn't see anyone abusing the buffet on either; people were very restrained considering how lovely the food was!

I did once go to an all you can eat Chinese buffet restaurant in Leeds though. It was for an after baptism party for a uni age relative. He and his mates had obviously spent many a merry hour in this place, but it was revolting... filthy and greasy. I told my children to put as little as possible on their plates... and definitely no meat or fish!

Calamitously I think you are on to something. Good plan.

Shockers Neilson tends to attract sporty, healthy sorts for the outdoor activities though. First Choice seems to be where the Gateaux Beasts direct themselves.

The mention of the Pizza Hut buffet reminds me of years back, when I was a manager in one of the South London branches.

We had just had our "Icecream factory" delivered. At the time they had four plastic perspex towers of sweets on either side which you would scoop out from the bottom - smarties, Choc raisins, marshmallows etc.

I was doing a nightshift and a guy comes in, picks up the Perspex towers in each arm, and runs to the back of the restaurant, we assume to find the fire exit to the car park. However he failed to research that we were a delivery based restaurant and therefore had a maze of corridors and a much bigger area at the back than the front. Plus a load of young delivery drivers hanging out behind the kitchen.

Cue him racing around leaving a trail of smarties and sprinkles around the corridors with a load of staff chasing him like some Benny Hill scene. He cornered himself in the toilets, threw the sweet towers at us, but we managed to block the door and get the police. Then had to spend an hour sweeping bloody smarties up.

Wally that is brilliant Did the Police come and arrest the sweetie thief?

I remember going to one of those pub roast dinner help yourself establishments once. God I've never seen so much heaped up onto one plate as a man put on his. It looked like K2 and should have had a flag on top. Greedy

Yes they did. He did a good job of smashing up the toilets and trying to kick the door, with me and entire kitchen team holding it.

He was high on something.

One of my colleagues had their 6 ft real Christmas tree nicked from the Streatham Pizza Hut restaurant complete with baubles and fairy lights.

She said "oh well, he must have kids and be desperate, I hope they enjoy it after that effort!"

My first ever holiday with DH, we went to the Dom Rep. The hotel was newly opened and had a radio competition going for the locals where they could win a 24 hour stay at the weekend.

First weekend, the winners (about 30 of them) arrived at lunchtime and proceeded to eat their weight at the buffet, including a whole 30 inch pizza that was taken, stone and all, to the poolside and full cakes, leaving the display empty. The kids were digging into the middle of the puddings with their fists and eating where they stood.

At the evening meal they stayed the full time (something like 1830-2100) eating all the time.

The next morning I watched in horror when one lady picked up a full tray of bacon and tipped the lot into her giant handbag, then did the same to a tray of pancakes.

At lunchtime, when they were all due to depart we were treated to the sight of a woman running full speed towards the beach carrying a dressed ham, still on its platter, with a chef in full whites chasing her waving a meat cleaver in the air.

It was like some kind of surreal panto.