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!

I've made loads of ham rolls in my time from a breakfast buffet and taken fruit.

It'll all be stale by the end of the day and go to waste surely.

We don't eat much at breakfast anyway compared do some people so it's no big deal imho

You'd hate me. I take ziploc bags on holiday. Make up two small cheese rolls for kids at lunch and take 2/3 pastries and 2/3 pieces of fruit.

It's going in the bin/out the following day what difference does it make. There's plenty

Low behaviour to take more than you can eat.
If you can afford a break, you can afford a pastry.
Local economy needs your custom.

No wonder holiday destinations hate the tourists.

I might do. I prefer a very light breakfast of coffee and fruit so might take a pastry to graze on later and a piece of fruit for the kids. Really can’t see the harm, some people eat loads for breakfast.

What's the problem?

No. I’ve been on holiday with people who did this and it’s a pita because they save them for lunch and then tell me it’s my own fault for not stealing food at breakfast.

Agree @PiggyPigalle support local cafes and shops instead.

Absolutely! And fruit. You've paid for it, and just choosing not to eat it at the breakfast table. In one hotel we stayed in, the waiter saw me wrapping pastries in a napkin and brought me a box to put them in!

If I think might want a snack later, I’ll take something. But I think this whole furtive attitude towards doing it on the sly and worrying about being seen and judged is very British: I travel a lot with friends who are from places where it’s just the norm to openly take something for later (and even to ask for a takeaway box to do so) and have never yet seen the staff have any issue with it whatsoever.

I always eat a good sized breakfast when I'm on holiday and would never be so tight as to take extra food away with me so that I didn't have to pay for lunch 😆

My mum in her 70's wants a banana for later but is too scared so I brazenly take one and an orange for her 😂

Surely it’s a buffet already paid for in your holiday package. Taking a couple of pastries to eat later rather than at the table is hardly crime of the century.

For those tut tutting, suppose someone took the pastries to their table but after their toast and eggs decided they were full? What should they do with them?

Amazing how many people on holiday but are watching other holiday makers so they can ‘judge’ what they're doing with the pastries? Are you not enjoying the company of your breakfast companions?

Usually, yes, but if it's a small hotel and you've already eaten your fair share you're potentially taking someone else's pastry so it's not really comparable to a doggy bag.

I don't because I'm on holiday and want to eat something nicer than stale breakfast at lunchtime. To he honest pre kids I wouldn't have bothered with lunch at all. It's hardly breaking the budget to go for some lunch on holiday.

Just be careful you don't get charged, stayed in a hotel with breakfast included one time and I took an apple away, was charged on checkout.

I’m laughing at po faced posters who wouldn’t ‘look kindly’ on someone taking a pastry from a pre-paid buffet. Unless you're staying in a 5* hotel, the breakfast in a Tenerife hotel is going to be part of the holiday package. I think I’d be tempted to seek out any particularly po faced person at breakfast scowling disapprovingly at me and ask them if they’d like my pastry (maybe in the style of Alan Partridge and his cheese!).

I always ask staff if I can take some breakfast away to my room as I can't eat first thing, and without exception they always take pity on an old gimmer say yes.

(And I do ask if I should bring the plate back.)

@BunnyLake yes! 🤣

Why not eat the toast and eggs and go back for a pastry afterwards if you are still hungry? Same as you don’t take massive piles of food from the serving dishes at home but have seconds if you are still hungry. I don’t sit watching and judging other people in hotels, but sometimes you can’t help noticing what they are doing, especially if you are eating alone, same as you might notice other behaviours.

As long as there is plenty left for everybody else that is fine. For example if you're there at the end of the breakfast slot, and you know it'll be wasted if there's loads left, than I don't see an issue at all with taking an extra couple. Infact the hotel we were at when I was younger encouraged this at the end of breakfast, to avoid waste.

If you're loading them into your bag and leaving none left for anybody else than it is rude yes. It also annoys me when people take an eternity infront of you doing this sort of thing when you're waiting. I remember one woman, and her dh making several rolls up and wrapping them up one by one and putting them in her bag! Nobody was judging/or pettily food policing anybody over taking an extra pastry as that is ridiculous, but they stood out as they were so loud, and taking alot. She and her family had already had a large cooked breakfast, etc, again stood out, as they were making a huge commotion. Now they were making lunch to take for later. I'm not a cereal/fry up breakfast sort of 5 wanted something from the continental section, a ham cheese croissant or similar. I ended up just grabbing a chocolate doughnut and sitting down in the end.😕

May as well take a couple, I expect they get thrown away if not eaten.

No we don't. The last hotel we were in actually had a sign on the tables saying taking food out of breakfast to eat later would be considered stealing, which I thought was a bit far.

Yes, we sometimes for the kids we would take a piece of fruit or perhaps a mini muffin for later. Always in hand and never hidden. Nothing substantial and nothing that would stop us buying lunch at the hotel, as I would see that as stealing as you’re depriving them of their lunch income by taking more than you need from breakfast.

Certainly no Tupperware, bags, yogurts or rolls. Somehow there is a blurry line in my mind that I can’t adequately define that makes a piece of fruit fine, but the rest just seem a bit grabby / wrong.

I take a croissant occasionally mostly because DD is not a big eater at breakfast. I don’t judge if people are taking a fruit with them. Sometimes children don’t want to sit for long so it’s natural not to give them all at once.
I don’t think making sandwiches is appropriate.

Some good points made there!

We’ve always assumed fruit is to be taken away, like the hotel is making a gesture to give you something for later in the day.