Help - Charged £57 for eating nothing!!

dobbie82

I work in a hotel and it can be very annoying when someone books a group booking and has a lot of absentees but four missing from 20 is nothing and charging is a bit harsh.

If we have a pre-order for certain meals to be ready at a certain time then we do still charge as the food is wasted, or like recently someone booked for 50 but less than half turned up then we charged them half the table d'ote menu price for those that didnt turn up as we had had to turn bookings down, rota on extra staff etc

ollywood68

dobbie82 wrote: »

I work in a hotel and it can be very annoying when someone books a group booking and has a lot of absentees but four missing from 20 is nothing and charging is a bit harsh.

If we have a pre-order for certain meals to be ready at a certain time then we do still charge as the food is wasted, or like recently someone booked for 50 but less than half turned up then we charged them half the table d'ote menu price for those that didnt turn up as we had had to turn bookings down, rota on extra staff etc

Just to clarify, we turned up at 9.30 and told we had to order immediately as the kitchens were closing by 10. The place was half empty at that stage anyway. The place would not have been able to "resell" those empty seats anyway :mad:

ollywood68

dangeroussports wrote: »

Oh dear....firstly stop writing in capitals. Secondly stop swearing. Thirdly reread the thread and all your answers will come.

Now my little monkeyman, did you not know that when you order something you pay for it. Now you also know that when you book a table the restaraunt charges a service charge per head.

If you or your friends didnt know that then you probably havent been to restaurant. I wouldnt regard a kebab house a restaurant nor Mcdonalds.

If you dont believe me then ring a local restaurant (not a kebab shop or mcdonalds) and request a table for 20, then ask what would happen if 4 people didnt turn up. Ask them if they would charge for the unfilled four seats (as in service charge per head).



Go on, ring them,......hurry up .....stop blubbing and pick up the phone!








See, told you so! You can look all dow eyed and goofy.....its ok.

Sorry, but if u are asked to pay a deposit, you would expect to lose this. this would normally be a nominal charge. But £15. My whole meal inlcuding a drink and coffee cost less than that :mad:

dangeroussports

Ok,
Vent over....

What have you taken away from all this? What have you learnt?

You have had time to evaluate the situation and you have read some of the responses.

ollywood68

dangeroussports wrote: »

Ok,
Vent over....

What have you taken away from all this? What have you learnt?

You have had time to evaluate the situation and you have read some of the responses.

not sure yet. but i am sure its about when was the contract formed and what were the terms of that, if it even existed. Ultimately, they charged us, got our money and we walked away. our tough luck it seems:mad:

Gingernutmeg

Cerro wrote: »

For a set meal, where its all pre-ordered and prepared I would have expected and accepted a charge for 20 people, regardless of how many turned up. The price would have been agreed and I would have paid a deposit. However just booking 20 seats and having 16 turn up means little to the restaurant so I would have asked them to justify the £13 charge. Extra food? Are they psychic, did they know what we were going to order before we even entered the restaurant, or did they just order 20 extra of everything on the menu - just incase? Extra staff? So you are saying if we booked for only 16 then you would have taken out a quarter of the required staff? Maybe, cut out a quarter of the waiter or maybe they could work one-handed? Honestly...

If the restaurant was expecting twenty extra covers on top of a 'normal' nights business, then yes, they would have ordered in extra food. From my own experience, if you've got twenty extra guests who aren't having a set meal then you're going to have to order extra of quite a few things, or risk getting disappointed and disgruntled customers who can't have the meal they want. As for being psychic, a good restaurant manager WILL know (roughly) what people are likely to order - when you're serving more or less the same meals for fifty odd weeks of the year you get to know what people will generally order, what's likely to be popular and what isn't.

Again, if a restaurant was expecting to do twenty extra covers then they WOULD have got extra staff in, regardless of the fact that four people didn't turn up. Yes, well trained staff can serve a lot of customers (I once did a whole day in a restaurant of about fifty covers with just one other person ...) but untrained staff (which I'd imagine these were) just could not cope with it. Therefore, the restaurant would have got at least one extra front of house staff member in, and possibly even someone extra in the kitchen.

However, as I've said before the restaurant manager should not have charged so much, BUT the OP should have questioned those charges then and there. People in all walks of life will try it on if they think they can get away with it, and in this case they did. Not all restaurants are well run and it's true that people are unlikely to want to 'spoil a night out' by arguing with restaurant staff. I'm not saying that I agree with what this guy did, but I am saying, from my professional experience, that I can see why he did it. However - and this is also from my professional experience - I would not have charged the extra, because it's not done him any good. However, any monkey can open a restaurant, and guys like this are the reason that about a third of catering businesses fail in the first year. They aren't professional and they don't know what they're doing.

dangeroussports

Fact:

1 The OP was insulted by four people not turning up.
2 The manager charged a further £57 for the four who didnt turn up
3 The OP is clearly upset and venting


These are your options NOW.

1 Get four new reliable friends.
OR
2 Get the existing four so called friends to give you £57
OR
3 Write to manager asking for the cash to be reimbursed
OR
4 Get the remaining 15 people and divide the £57 between 16 of you
OR
5 Moan
OR
6 a combination of the above.

Me thinks you'll opt for option number 6

Honeydog

OK so how can everyone learn from this and move on?

My suggestion - if you ever find yourself in the same position as the OP or if the OP finds himself in the same fix.

Why not order 4 cheapish starters and share them between everyone and then share the cost of the 4 starters between everyone?

Any good - if it wouldn't work then feel free to enlighten me as to why. I won't be offended - I've just broken up for 6 weeks holiday so nothing bothers me at the moment. LOL

skintscotsman

ollywood68 wrote: »

booked a restauraut for 20 people. only 16 turned up on night. they charged us £13 a head for each missing person. (it was not a fixed price for the meal) and then 10% service charge on top of that - TOTAL PAID £57.20 - TOTAL RECIEVED NOTHING

We were the last sitting. Place was relatively empty. Plenty of spare tables.

WAS I RIPPED OFF? What are my rights?

PS This meant my burger and chip, a quarter bottle of red wine and a coffee cost me £30

PPS - it was a place called Jeffers in Bangor NI:mad:

not bothering to read entire thread, but why didn't you raise that at the time and/or refuse to pay the extra amount???

milkydrink

When did the restaurant tell you they were charging for the 4 no-shows?

I used to work in a very busy west end hotel, at Xmas the restaurant was jammed & there was a set Xmas meal, really popular for works Xmas do's. They used to have to pay the full amount in advance per person. If anyone didn't turn up, they always wanted the meals taken off their drinks bill, but it didn't work like that there in the Xmas period. The place was jammed & if they had known in advance of lower numbers, they COULD easily have sold the seats. I think that is the crux of the matter.

Two weeks ago, we had a chinese meal out as a works night out. Its £13.50 per head, but its not a set menu. You order what you want for that, BUT YOU MUST EAT IT ALL. If you order & don't eat it, they will charge you extra. Anyway we booked for 16 but only 12 turned up. The restauranter did grumble a little about it, but didn't charge us for them. We would have been very annoyed if he did, as there was only four other diners in their on a rainy Monday night.

I suspose if the charging thing is their policy you can't do much about it. But did they charge you for the cheapest things on the menu, because they would have had no right to average it. If everyone else had a two course then the two cheapest if everyone had a three course then the three cheapest things. Service charge is a grey area/charge anyway, so I think its a bit mean to charge that on meals that didn't get served.

I know people are saying he had to buy in food. But any restaurant would have enough for 4 covers either way. The food won't get chucked out, it will be served the next day.

I think really it boils down to how busy they are & if they had to turn away 4 because of your 4 no-shows.

I don't think staff numbers will be affected by 4 people over the course of an evening dinner shift.

Vote with your feet, don't go back.

Damn jusr re-read it burger & chips. one course. Did they reckon the no-shows were going to have steak then???