Xmas Day Lunch cancellation. Refund rights?

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

Hoenir said:

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

Hoenir said:

sheramber said:

The cost of the food is only one part of the expense.

The meal  would be costed to cover food, but aa share of all business/running  costs e.g share of staff costs, share of electricty, heating etc.

The overall profit from a meal is not just the profit of the price of the ingredients.

A business doesn't open one day a year either. Some days it will operate at a loss. Too simplistic to talk about profit in terms of one meal. Only at the financial year will the profit, if any, will be known. 

Costs/profit relate to the contract, not the day, month, year, decade, otherwise it would be silly. 

Attempting to run a business in such a manner would be beyond silly. 

Who is talking about running a business?

We are talking about claiming costs or loss of profit, the idea the consumer should wait for year end to see what total profit was before being able to reclaim their disproportionate advanced payment is, in the politest possible manner, ludicrous.

Alderbank

I'm not comfortable with this idea of totting up how many pigs in blankets were theoretically not served to that party or how many minutes the waiting staff didn't spend with them. That's not at all how restaurants work.

What if one of the party had pigged out on roasties and then said, 'I don't want any more food. I'd like to cancel my Christmas pud and the whole cheese course.' The pudding hasn't been served yet. Is he entitled to a refund for change of mind for those items, plus money back as well for not being served and no washing up of spoons and plates?

Christmas lunch is table d'hôte at a fixed sitting time. It is delivered as an event, a piece of theatre. The table is laid for you, the food prepared for you and the staff are waiting for you. The contract really is that the venue works to provide the opportunity for you to come in, sit down and eat.

I don't see any savings at a scheduled event because someone, even five people, do not turn up.

I volunteer for a homeless charity here in Edinburgh. I am surprised and humbled at the amount and quality of food donated to homeless shelters by restaurants. Hotels like the Balmoral order many items including oysters and lobster fresh every day and they never warm anything up for tomorrow if it's not sold. They give it away, we joke about how well the homeless are eating some nights. 

What did the party do for Christmas lunch having all decided at 11am not to go to the planned restaurant? McDonald's?
Perhaps they all ordered and paid for food on the McDonald's app while driving to the restaurant. Perhaps the party leader walked into the restaurant, was directed to the trays of prepared boxed food waiting on the counter and said, 'Do what you like with that lot - bin it if you want. I've changed my mind. Give me my money back!'

What should the manager say?

RefluentBeans

Alderbank said:

I'm not comfortable with this idea of totting up how many pigs in blankets were theoretically not served to that party or how many minutes the waiting staff didn't spend with them. That's not at all how restaurants work.

What if one of the party had pigged out on roasties and then said, 'I don't want any more food. I'd like to cancel my Christmas pud and the whole cheese course.' The pudding hasn't been served yet. Is he entitled to a refund for change of mind for those items, plus money back as well for not being served and no washing up of spoons and plates?

Christmas lunch is table d'hôte at a fixed sitting time. It is delivered as an event, a piece of theatre. The table is laid for you, the food prepared for you and the staff are waiting for you. The contract really is that the venue works to provide the opportunity for you to come in, sit down and eat.

I don't see any savings at a scheduled event because someone, even five people, do not turn up.

I volunteer for a homeless charity here in Edinburgh. I am surprised and humbled at the amount and quality of food donated to homeless shelters by restaurants. Hotels like the Balmoral order many items including oysters and lobster fresh every day and they never warm anything up for tomorrow if it's not sold. They give it away, we joke about how well the homeless are eating some nights. 

What did the party do for Christmas lunch having all decided at 11am not to go to the planned restaurant? McDonald's?
Perhaps they all ordered and paid for food on the McDonald's app while driving to the restaurant. Perhaps the party leader walked into the restaurant, was directed to the trays of prepared boxed food waiting on the counter and said, 'Do what you like with that lot - bin it if you want. I've changed my mind. Give me my money back!'

What should the manager say?

Apparently the manager should get out his Excel sheet and work out how much each patty, fry, gherkin, and drink would cost and then take that off and refund the difference. <sarcasm>

I agree - the whole debate is rather silly. Cancelling the day of and expecting a substantial refund is misguided. And I don’t think it’s fair to expect the restaurant to provide costs to you - arguably it’s sensitive commercial information. I think the issue is comparing Toby Carvery’s to a once in a year meal (and as you rightly pointed out, event). One is a budget roast dinner with water thin meats and mass produced sides and the other one is a hotel/restaurant cooked (at least) 3 course meal. 

Hoenir

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

Hoenir said:

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

Hoenir said:

sheramber said:

The cost of the food is only one part of the expense.

The meal  would be costed to cover food, but aa share of all business/running  costs e.g share of staff costs, share of electricty, heating etc.

The overall profit from a meal is not just the profit of the price of the ingredients.

A business doesn't open one day a year either. Some days it will operate at a loss. Too simplistic to talk about profit in terms of one meal. Only at the financial year will the profit, if any, will be known. 

Costs/profit relate to the contract, not the day, month, year, decade, otherwise it would be silly. 

Attempting to run a business in such a manner would be beyond silly. 

Who is talking about running a business?

We are talking about claiming costs or loss of profit, the idea the consumer should wait for year end to see what total profit was before being able to reclaim their disproportionate advanced payment is, in the politest possible manner, ludicrous.

As in your view it has nothing to do with running a business.  Please explain how the "costs" are arrived at. 

Also how a restaurant which doesn't make any profit on any given day of opening recoups this shortfall. To quote  your own words they are not "related to the contract, not the day, month, year, decade".  I assume you know what the term overheads means and the broad nature of expenses that are required to run a functioning restaurant. 

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

RefluentBeans said:

Apparently the manager should get out his Excel sheet and work out how much each patty, fry, gherkin, and drink would cost and then take that off and refund the difference. <sarcasm>

I agree - the whole debate is rather silly. 

The only thing silly here is a lack of understanding of how businesses work, a member of staff will have drawn up a menu whilst looking at what offers their suppliers are running for Dec. 

The menu will have been costed and then a margin applied. 

Simplistically speaking, gross profit is how much you have left after cost of sales (in this case food), net profit is how much you have after all overheads (staff, rent, energy, advertising, etc, etc), you apply a high enough gross profit to ensure you cover all the non-direct overheads, typically 65% for restaurants (you can Google it if you don't believe me). 

For set menus it will be averaged, obviously some items are more expensive to provide which is why you often see a supplement charge on set menus for dishes such as steak. 

What are you expecting, them to pluck a figure out of thin air to charge for lunch? 

RefluentBeans said:. I think the issue is comparing Toby Carvery’s to a once in a year meal (and as you rightly pointed out, event). One is a budget roast dinner with water thin meats and mass produced sides and the other one is a hotel/restaurant cooked (at least) 3 course meal. 

This is the problem, I didn't compare the two to say they are alike, I compared the two to show how different they are to dispel the idea that a restaurant running a function at £135 a head on a premium day of the year is unlikely to sell food at cost and hope to make on drinks.

The only similarity was pointed out by yourself, that Toby Carvery charge more on Christmas Day because it's a premium event where demand allows such. 

This idea that businesses are micro managing every penny doesn't translate to the real world. 

That's not to suggest there aren't exceptions, the mark up on beans on toast will likely be higher because the cost of the food is so cheap, you may have competition capping pricing, you may find increasing the price of popular items doesn't dent sales so why not charge more.

The level of fine tuning will depend upon the business, the smaller they are the more likely they'll look at the finer aspects and vice versa. One place my wife worked at you could sit outside eating whilst watching the fishermen/women in their boats out at sea, the fish on the menu was frozen from 100 miles away. Why? Because head office dictated every outlet purchased the same thing from the same place, they had their costs, they had their margin, this gave them confidence in maintaining the desired profit and maintaining a consistent level of quality across every outlet despite the fact this one outlet could have charged a premium by selling fish fresh out the sea that morning.  

RefluentBeans said:

 And I don’t think it’s fair to expect the restaurant to provide costs to you - arguably it’s sensitive commercial information. 

You'll have to direct this point to the CMA, it's their guidance based on common law that states either costs or loss of profits, it's not my opinion. 

Hoenir said: Please explain how the "costs" are arrived at. 

Also how a restaurant which doesn't make any profit on any given day of opening recoups this shortfall. To quote  your own words they are not "related to the contract, not the day, month, year, decade".  I assume you know what the term overheads means and the broad nature of expenses that are required to run a functioning restaurant. 

See above or Google it, very easy to say I'm incorrect without providing anything to back it up.

Again a one man band might site there fiddling with prices because last week was slow but the time and effort they put into that would be better spent focused on drawing people to the business either through advertising or working out why people aren't attending and tweaking the various aspects of the business to meet expectations.

It's a long game with hope of coming out on top eventually, many business run at a loss when they first open due to the high start up costs, your view that profit is looked at minute by minute simply doesn't work. 

Running or managing a business is hard work with not enough hours in the day, if you spend your time worrying about a burger being a £1 more or less because Tuesday was slow you ain't gonna make it... 

Alderbank said:

I don't see any savings at a scheduled event because someone, even five people, do not turn up.

I don't really understand why this point is difficult to understand, there aren't any savings to be had, that's obvious, the cancellation was too close to the time. 

It's merely a question of costs or profit, the hotel has both and can keep one or the other if the consumer fails to fulfil their obligations under the contract.

Pollycat

galvinonthewing said:

Family of 5 booked for Xmas day lunch at local hotel at £135 per head and paid in advance. Mother in law was taken ill suddenly with Covid and hospitalised. As a result, we had to cancel the booking. Cancelled one person the day before and the other four on the morning of Xmas Day. 

Hotel have said no refund or credit as food had been ordered and it was too late to resell the table.  I had hoped that they might offer a partial refund or credit, especially as we’ve dined there several times before on Xmas Day. No booking conditions/cancellation rights were stated or provided in the booking process.

Any thoughts on how I might change the hotel’s mind? 

Perhaps the OP could come back and let us know how/if he managed to change the hotel's mind based (or not based) on the advice given to him on this thread...

born_again

While law requires a retailer to mitigate their loses. It is unfair that consumer should not also be held accountable for the same.
So cancelling on the same day means pay in full.

As someone said. OP could have gone & picked up 4 meals & then take them home. In case they were worried of having covid, they could have done exactly the same as we did during lockdown.

Sometimes the law is too weighted to consumers & a no refund policy, should mean exactly that. After all if you do not line a no refund policy, vote with your feet & go elsewhere 👍

RefluentBeans

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

RefluentBeans said:

Apparently the manager should get out his Excel sheet and work out how much each patty, fry, gherkin, and drink would cost and then take that off and refund the difference. <sarcasm>

I agree - the whole debate is rather silly. 

The only thing silly here is a lack of understanding of how businesses work, a member of staff will have drawn up a menu whilst looking at what offers their suppliers are running for Dec. 

The menu will have been costed and then a margin applied. 

Simplistically speaking, gross profit is how much you have left after cost of sales (in this case food), net profit is how much you have after all overheads (staff, rent, energy, advertising, etc, etc), you apply a high enough gross profit to ensure you cover all the non-direct overheads, typically 65% for restaurants (you can Google it if you don't believe me). 

For set menus it will be averaged, obviously some items are more expensive to provide which is why you often see a supplement charge on set menus for dishes such as steak. 

What are you expecting, them to pluck a figure out of thin air to charge for lunch? 

RefluentBeans said:. I think the issue is comparing Toby Carvery’s to a once in a year meal (and as you rightly pointed out, event). One is a budget roast dinner with water thin meats and mass produced sides and the other one is a hotel/restaurant cooked (at least) 3 course meal. 

This is the problem, I didn't compare the two to say they are alike, I compared the two to show how different they are to dispel the idea that a restaurant running a function at £135 a head on a premium day of the year is unlikely to sell food at cost and hope to make on drinks.

The only similarity was pointed out by yourself, that Toby Carvery charge more on Christmas Day because it's a premium event where demand allows such. 

This idea that businesses are micro managing every penny doesn't translate to the real world. 

That's not to suggest there aren't exceptions, the mark up on beans on toast will likely be higher because the cost of the food is so cheap, you may have competition capping pricing, you may find increasing the price of popular items doesn't dent sales so why not charge more.

The level of fine tuning will depend upon the business, the smaller they are the more likely they'll look at the finer aspects and vice versa. One place my wife worked at you could sit outside eating whilst watching the fishermen/women in their boats out at sea, the fish on the menu was frozen from 100 miles away. Why? Because head office dictated every outlet purchased the same thing from the same place, they had their costs, they had their margin, this gave them confidence in maintaining the desired profit and maintaining a consistent level of quality across every outlet despite the fact this one outlet could have charged a premium by selling fish fresh out the sea that morning.  

RefluentBeans said:

 And I don’t think it’s fair to expect the restaurant to provide costs to you - arguably it’s sensitive commercial information. 

You'll have to direct this point to the CMA, it's their guidance based on common law that states either costs or loss of profits, it's not my opinion. 

Hoenir said: Please explain how the "costs" are arrived at. 

Also how a restaurant which doesn't make any profit on any given day of opening recoups this shortfall. To quote  your own words they are not "related to the contract, not the day, month, year, decade".  I assume you know what the term overheads means and the broad nature of expenses that are required to run a functioning restaurant. 

See above or Google it, very easy to say I'm incorrect without providing anything to back it up.

Again a one man band might site there fiddling with prices because last week was slow but the time and effort they put into that would be better spent focused on drawing people to the business either through advertising or working out why people aren't attending and tweaking the various aspects of the business to meet expectations.

It's a long game with hope of coming out on top eventually, many business run at a loss when they first open due to the high start up costs, your view that profit is looked at minute by minute simply doesn't work. 

Running or managing a business is hard work with not enough hours in the day, if you spend your time worrying about a burger being a £1 more or less because Tuesday was slow you ain't gonna make it... 

Alderbank said:

I don't see any savings at a scheduled event because someone, even five people, do not turn up.

I don't really understand why this point is difficult to understand, there aren't any savings to be had, that's obvious, the cancellation was too close to the time. 

It's merely a question of costs or profit, the hotel has both and can keep one or the other if the consumer fails to fulfil their obligations under the contract.

Completely disagree. Cancelling anywhere last minute (literally working 24 hours) means that consumers should be charged. 

As for working out the cost - if the restaurant turns back round and says ‘sorry, we were running the meal at cost - we bought the best produce including free range, organic-fed Turkey and pig products, the smoked salmon and caviar was from the best fisheries in Scotland, the veg was bought to ensure that farmers were fairly paid; and we were hoping to make money on the drinks and not the food’ - there is no retort to that other than taking them to court. 

You clearly disagree and have you had said it’s easy to disagree. You’re talking about what is fair and right versus actual consumer rights. The customer cancelled very last minute, and the business had no time to mitigate their losses. It was a premium meal, and the company has declined the meal. Without postulating how much the meal cost, what law has the trader broken? 

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

RefluentBeans said:what law has the trader broken? 

Who said laws were broken?

RefluentBeans said:

As for working out the cost - if the restaurant turns back round and says ‘sorry, we were running the meal at cost - we bought the best produce including free range, organic-fed Turkey and pig products, the smoked salmon and caviar was from the best fisheries in Scotland, the veg was bought to ensure that farmers were fairly paid; and we were hoping to make money on the drinks and not the food’ - there is no retort to that other than taking them to court. 

They could say magic fairies grew the food, I'm stating what the legislation says and what the CMA guidance in response to that is, nothing more. 

The endless rabbit hole of hypotheticals only comes from odd comments being made about restaurants not making money on food or waiting to see if Sally breaks a plate before the end of the year to determine whether a profit was made. 

RefluentBeans said:

The customer cancelled very last minute, and the business had no time to mitigate their losses. 

I never suggested otherwise. 

RefluentBeans said:

Completely disagree. Cancelling anywhere last minute (literally working 24 hours) means that consumers should be charged. 

Again don't tell me, tell the CMA

Pollycat

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:
The endless rabbit hole of hypotheticals only comes from odd comments being made about restaurants not making money on food or waiting to see if Sally breaks a plate before the end of the year to determine whether a profit was made. 

The 'endless rabbit hole of hypotheticals' is not helping the OP to 'change the hotel's mind' about a refund...in addition to the stress of his MIL's illness.