Pastries at breakfast - you also help yourself to a couple right?

[tanstaafl]

Let me say this is lighthearted.

We’re on holiday , Tenerife, half board.

As we’re leaving breakfast we take a couple of the pastries to enjoy later in the day usually after the afternoon’s sunbathing.

It’s not just us is it?
As it happens we did see someone making up rolls with ham and cheese this morning but we’ve never gone that far!

Mum used to take a tub of flora and marmite so she could make rolls for us to have for lunch (!) saying that she also made us carry decanted Bacardi in a Sprite bottle through customs before they changed the limits of what you were allowed to bring back...

It's pretty usual, not really any different to a doggy bag, but I'm sure some will class it as stealing.

No, I absolutely never do that and I don't look kindly on those who do.

I couldn't give a shit what anyone else is doing really. What does it matter? Plenty of them will end up on the bin, no doubt. Crack on.

Of course it's fine.
As long as you don't carry dedicated Tupperware in you handbag

I sometimes take one for DS if he hasn't eaten much at breakfast and I suspect he'll be hungry in an hour. But I wouldn't take them for an afternoon snack mainly because I'd prefer to get an ice cream than eat a slightly squashed pastry.

I don't but I don't judge anyone else who does (unless its a bag full)

It’s fine - I’ve been at hotels where they put out the leftover pastries etc after breakfast anyway for snacks.

Also Dd and I have done close analysis of the Premiere Inn breakfast buffet policing and have come to the conclusion that a) taking a hot drink up to your room or in a travel cup and b) leaving with a piece of fruit in hand are perfectly acceptable as the vast majority of people walked past the staff with one of these two things and nobody gave a damn. So we now make it a point of principle to take our “hand fruit” on the way out (and we do always eat it later!).

Yes, if I've paid for an all you can breakfast I would take a couple of muffins or pastries for lunch. Occasionally take a yoghurt or hard boiled egg as well.

I don't see the issue, I've paid for it, what difference is it if I eat in the hotel restaurant or on my balcony.

Meh, I don’t but also don’t judge those who do.
Personally I’m happier to buy fresh food if I want a snack or at lunchtime.
But I do appreciate for others budget restrictions may dictate that some pastries carried around in a bag for a few hours is what’s on the menu. Needs must I guess.

What does it matter to you whether someone eats their pastries at breakfast or takes them to eat later?

If they want, they can eat two or three pastries at breakfast. So why is it a problem to eat one or two at breakfast and another one later? The number of pastries is the same. And the breakfast is all-you-can-eat. So there will be some people who don’t take a pastry for later who are actually eating less overall than people who do.

Personally, I’d never bother to take a pastry for later, purely because I couldn’t be bothered carrying a crumbly sticky pastry around wrapped in a serviette all morning, and in any case I’ve generally eaten enough at a hotel breakfast not to want/need a snack later and if I do I’d rather go to a cafe and have an ice cream or whatever. But I don’t give a damn what anyone else does with the breakfast food they are entitled to and have paid for.

I don’t because I always eat a very large breakfast that fills me until the evening but I see nothing wrong with you taking a few pastries to eat in the afternoon.

I may take a pastry or a banana if I have not eaten it at breakfast but would not make up a little lunch of rolls etc.

Not sure why I think one is different from the other, but I do, somehow.

I've seen that done! But by a colleague when we were at a conference and they had a buffet. I felt very at it, but actually they would have just thrown the leftovers away i assume.

Interesting question OP. I have all sorts of contradictory feelings about it.

Who wants to eat a slightly squashed, slightly stale pastry later in the day? It’d make more sense to wander off with some fruit. Even thenI couldn’t be bothered.

Irrational though it is, I’d see walking off with a piece of fruit acceptable, but making a roll, taking some pastries, or half-inching a yoghurt as common and unacceptable. If the cost of snacks or a lunch later is an issue, you probably shouldn’t have gone away…or should have stayed somewhere cheaper in the first place.

I did when the children were small. It’s incredibly irritating to finish breakfast and then the I’m hungry starts up shortly afterwards. Not a full picnic but a croissant or a muffin and a banana. I don’t for myself generally although I might fill a to go cup with coffee.

Ive stayed in quite a few places where they have to go cups already out so it seems fair enough to fill my own. I have asked and always been fine.

Do they not go a bit sweaty/manky/stale?

I don’t do it but I suppose if someone has a light breakfast and then takes a croissant to munch later it’s probably still less food than people like my husband who has a 3 course hotel breakfast 😂

If it’s not eaten it gets thrown away, someone might as well eat it.

'Hand fruit,'love it. We do the same, although given that Premier Inn breakfasts are about £13 each now, we also take some porridge pots from Aldi if we're staying for a few days. They're only 50p each and lovely with some boiling water and a splash of milk. We use the 'window fridge' a lot of slightly older Premier Inns have to keep the milk and cans of cider cool.

I stayed in a b&b recently where they left out fruit, rolls and pastries (under a dome) and packs of crackers and told us to help ourselves whenever we wanted.

Depends how big the hotel is. I used to work in a 25-room hotel and the pastries, baguettes etc arrived fresh from the boulangerie every morning. They ordered in enough to cover the number of rooms occupied the previous night so there was plenty for everyone but to minimize waste. So if more than a couple of people took extra bread and pastries to eat later there might not be enough for everyone (there was plenty of other breakfast so no one was going hungry). We wouldn't say anything to the guests in question but it's pretty cheapskate when they were paying €€€ per night at the hotel and the boulangerie/supermarket were on the same road! 😂

I don't, but I don't care what you do. I don't want a squashed stale croissant at 3pm after a day's sunbathing, I want a cocktail and some pistachio nuts.

I wouldn't even register anyone doing it I don't think, who's looking what people are doing with their hands when they leave the dining room?

Ok I confess, I take a tupperware box specifically for the purpose of storing my breakfast muffin.

I might take a small cake/pastry if fairly self contained and a piece of fruit but (a) this is usually only if youngest has had eyes bigger than belly and already put it on her plate and then been too full to finish there and then (so it would get binned anyway). And (b) for her benefit as she then has it as a mid morning snack, delaying the "I'm hungry" moaning.

I'll rarely take anything for myself though last year in Santorini they had these gorgeous mini baklavas in sealed wrappers and I would take "one for later". They were tiny though.

I would never bag up a whole lunch worth of stuff. I think that's a bit much.

I wouldn’t personally . The most I’ve ever taken from a breakfast buffet is a piece of fruit . I read that at Disney Paris some of the non Disney hotels have stopped people taking bags into breakfast to try and stop people taking their lunch from the breakfast buffet .