Who owns the food?!

The_Write_Girl

I organised a buffet in a private room of a hotel recently to mark a special milestone. We had around 20 people there, but some arrived later than others. We had a hot and cold buffet, then we cut the cake. However after the waiter cut the cake, he took away all the hot items, which the late arriving people were still tucking into. Neither myself nor any of the organisers noticed until they'd been gone (and probably bined) about half an hour as we were busy with other things.

We paid almost £15 a head. So who does the food belong to and what right did they have to take it away, barely an hour after serving it? We had booked the room for the whole day. There was a lot of food left over and it was a shame for it to be wasted like this. It could easily have been taken home and reheated by anyone who wanted the nibbles.

Hintza

You should have made your wishes clear, the hotel will always try and keep things tidy.

The_Write_Girl

In hindsight, I was going to mention it, but didn't want to put a damper on the event!

The_Pedant

As the others have said, they were simply following the usual routine that most functions follow to keep everything tidy.

I'm sure if you had asked they would have worked around the request and allowed people to go back for more, up until they were required to take the food away (2 hours I think due to food safety rules for hot food).

Becc4

We had the same issue at our wedding and was told that hot food can only be kept out for an hour due to food hygiene - however they happliy left all the breakfast food out for the 2 hour duration the next morning, bacon susage, beans etc.

The_Write_Girl

Thanks for the replies. Yes, it does make sense regarding food hygiene.

flutterby_lil

I too would have been unhappy and upset. Hope it didn't spoil the day.

dshart

You say they only took away the hot food, so this would tie in with the food hygiene reason as there are fairly strict regulations for maintaining temperatures on hot food. I am sure if you had requested the left over food to be put aside so it could be taken away later then they would most probably have done so.

go_cat

Hot food can only be left out for 2 hrs at ambient temperatures, after that there is a risk of bacteria multiplying.

They actually did you a favour as if it had sat there all night you would have probably had food poisoning!

What you could have asked for was the hot food to be brought out in two stages to avoid this