I ran across this interesting story: No-carb eating couple booted from buffet. From the story:
Isabelle Leota, 29, and her husband Sui Amaama, 26, both on the no-carb diet, were dining Tuesday at a Chuck-A-Rama in the Salt Lake City suburb of Taylorsville when the manager cut them off because they’d eaten too much roast beef.
This cracks me up for a number of reasons. Let me count the ways.
1) The place doesn’t claim to be an all-you-can-eat restaurant. Is it something in our culture that makes us think “if it’s a buffet, I need to gorge myself?” I’ll admit, I too have gone to buffets and stuffed myself. In fact, a decade ago when I worked in Newport for the DoD, we used to go to a little place called the Hong Kong Restaurant, before Chinese buffets were everywhere. As buffets go, this one was tiny, but it had chicken wings, ribs, fried rice and soup. In other words, it had a lot of fatty stuff. But I digress. What amuses me is that these folks were insulted that they were told to stop eating after 12 trips to the roast beef. In all my years, I don’t remember making even close to 12 trips at a buffet. At 3 trips for chicken wings, I feel supremely piggish.
2) The place is called Chuck-A-Rama. Tell me that doesn’t make you think “vomitorium.” Tell me, dammit!
3) The couple are finishing their second week of the Atkins Diet, which requires taking in little to no carbohydrates, and they eat at Chuck-A-Rama’s $8.99 buffet at least twice a week because of its convenience. It’s the convenience? If they wanted to eat a ton of roast beef and only roast beef, they could go to a supermarket deli and buy a couple of pounds of roast beef and eat that. That’s more convenient than showing your face 12 times at the buffet.
4) They make 12 trips up there for roast beef. Between the two of them, call it 20 servings of the main course for a total of $18 bucks. If you figure the average customer goes for roast beef seconds, these two people are consuming 10+ customers worth of main courses. That’s a loss of $180 of revenue a couple of times a week when they walk through the door.
5) Even though they had consumed about 10 customers-worth of the main course they asked for their money back when confronted by management.
6) This really could have been handled better. Of course, on the customer side, they should have left before the police had to be called. Were they staying just on principle? The restaurant manager should probably have responded differently for the request for money back. “Yes, you can have your $18 back if you promise never to come in here again for roast beef.” The restaurant would have noticed increased profits on certain days.
7) The couple says they’re not going back. Did they bother to ask how many servings of roast beef they were allowed? It seems like the line was drawn at 11. Is there anywhere else in their town where they could get 10 servings of roast beef for 9 bucks? At the deli it’s $7/lb. And my guess is that a restaurant serving is around 4oz. So 10 servings would cost them $17.50. Convenience, my butt. They were going for a cheap way to load up on beef.
8) Any sort of diet that has you going to a buffet at least 2 times a week for megadoses of beef is not teaching you anything good about long-term sustainable healthy eating. Sorry. It just isn’t. Unless Salt Lake City is Bizarro World.
9) I’ll give the customers this: I bet the restaurant does very little to visibly dispel the myth that they are an all-you-can-eat establishment. But still. Really.
(link found via Boing Boing)
Not-necessarily-related links:
I dunno, I think its pretty much implied that buffet means all-you-can-eat. Unless there are specific printed instructions about exactly how much of what item you can take, in which case why even make it a buffet? Just so the restaraunt can avoid hiring waiters?
I think the whole Atkins thing is wierd and creepy, but I really don't see the customers being in the wrong here. It would be like me telling my clients I will be at their wedding all day and then changing my mind halfway through the day and going home. This is shit you need to figure out *before* its a problem. The proper way to do it would be for the owner to recognize the problem, set a policy, and clearly post something in writing to the effect of "YOu are only allowed ten servings of roast beast."
Just because *you* don't eat as much beef as these people do doesn't mean they were in the wrong because a business had a flaw in its business model.
Posted by: David Grenier at April 25, 2004 7:27 AMI'm not saying these folks are wrong "because they eat more beef than I do." I said it cracks me up. Both the restaurant and the patrons crack me up. And I think the people are (mostly-it's not black and white) in the wrong because they are exploiting the restaurant.
The restaurant is clearly benefitting from the perception that it is an all-you-can-eat place. And, for most people, it probably is. So you can use your own judgement about how dishonest that is. I think it is ever-so-slightly dishonest.
But a restaurant is a business. It doesn't exist unless it can cover its operating costs. It also has other customers it needs to serve and serve well so that it has a reputation that brings it repeat business. Should they be forced to feed two roast beef junkies the main course until their other customers only have mashed potatoes and squash available to them? Do they want to turn their buffet into an establishment where they have to advertise "Succulent Roast Beef on Tuesdays and Thursdays, as long as you get here before Leota and Amaama?"
I agree with you that it would be better for the restaurant to have an explicit policy on the limit, if they are saying there is a limit. And they likely will now, if they have any brains.
They had a way of running their business which depended on social conventions which are being challenged by these folks. This is where being explicit is helpful -- when you can't rely on social conventions.
I can't help but find it funny when people are surprised that they're asked to stop eating when other customers are in danger of having their dining experience ruined. Who wants to go into a restaurant where you're racing beefaholics to the carving table? Of course the restaurant is going to choose making sure that its good (read: profitable) customers are taken care of.
The restaurateurs are not losing anything by losing these customers. What is their motivation to keep them? Raise prices for everyone so that these two can have all the beef they want? If I were one of their other customers, I wouldn't like that very much.
Do these two have some right to all the roast beef they can cram down their gullets? They don't have a contract. They don't even have a verbal agreement. Legally, they appear to be very much in the wrong. It's not at all like the example you give. These people were never told they could eat roast beef until they were engorged like ticks.
You make an excellent point that this is shit you need to figure out before it is a problem. That's what these folks should have done before they handed their money over. Caveat emptor.
Posted by: James at April 25, 2004 1:20 PMMost buffets I've been to (quite a few, thanks to my Florida relatives) are not AYCE. Those that are, specifically say they are an AYCE buffet and you can tell because the food's right there for anyone to take. Otherwise you just go through the line, load up your plate to the max, pay the lady and you're finished. Or in some cases you can go for refills on your side dishes, but you only get to go through the meat line once. You get your meat, go to the register and pay. If you want more meat you have to go through the meat line again and pay again. If the restaurant didn't want people going for refills on their meat, they should have made it clear by sectioning off the meat line behind a register. Or at least put up a sign so customers couldn't whine if they were eventually shut off.
Most restaurants and stores (I've worked in a few of each) will tell their own employees that the customer is always right as long as the customer isn't breaking any of the rules in the fine print or on the big signs. In fact, if you try to enforce those rules and the customer notices that your boss is standing nearby, the boss will jump in, create a Heartwarming Customer Experience, and make you look like a fool. BID.
In this case, the customers were hogs and their Simpson-like behavior was repulsive. On the other hand, while they didn't have a contract, neither did the restaurant, and consumer law usually sides with the consumer. So I'm afraid I have to side with the customers, revolting as they are. The restaurant's management should have learned their lesson after that couple's first visit and created their new rule after the customers went home. Having failed to do so, they had no one to blame but themselves when the couple came back and did it again.
Frankly, I'm surprised that the restaurant wasn't prepared for this, because there are always customers who take "all you can eat" as a challenge or try to take their "leftovers" home.
Also, contrary to popular belief, Atkins never recommended megaportions of anything. He also encouraged high-fiber non-starchy vegetables, even during the first weeks of the diet. Unless they do not know how to read, these people can't blame Atkins for their suicidal eating habits or "special dietary needs" and it should not even have been part of the story unless it was only mentioned for comic relief.
Posted by: Julie at April 25, 2004 9:20 PMMost successful consumer disputes I've heard of in which the consumers were successful involved the consumer suffering some sort of loss or injury, or did not receive what they paid for.
I'm willing to bet that a judge would find for the restaurant. I think the judge would look at the $8.99 vs. the food that was eaten and figure that they'd not been swindled. But I'm far from sure about that. And if a jury's involved, who knows?
The Atkins angle was a legitimate part of the story because it's the excuse the couple are using, even if their excuse isn't legitimate. OTOH, there's an incentive for a reporter to get the Atkins name in there because it's trendy and it gets the story more attention.
Maybe I'm clinging to an idealistic view of the world. I'm a champion of the consumer. There have been so many instances where people really are being swindled and injured in dealings with companies. This case, in comparison, is like a joke. It certainly struck me like a joke.
Maybe I'm the only one who thought it was funny.
Posted by: James at April 26, 2004 1:56 AMIts not about what the business will lose if they lose those two as customers. Like I said, it wouldn't be a problem if the business made a policy that said "Only 1 serving of beef" and printed it on their menus or somehow let it be known. But lets face it, just letting the people get away with it one time (though the restaurant let it happen several times, which is their own fault), *then* making a policy decision and putting up some signs so it doesn't happen again is not going to run them out of business. Kicking people out of a restaurant for eating is just ridiculous.
This reminds me of the Simpsons episode where the Sea Captain kicks Homer and Marge out of his "All You Can Eat" seafood restaurant because Homer ate too much...Crazy Homer....
Posted by: Mike at April 26, 2004 11:40 AMTwelve helpings of roast beef? EACH?
Yeah I'd kick them out of my place too.
You go home now, fatboy! You been here four hour! You frighten my wife! You eat more than killer whale! Sign say 'All you can eat' not 'You eat all'!"
Seriously, a lot of restaurants are overpriced, and I can understand wanting to get your money's worth, but they're just taking advantage of the place as far as I'm concerned.
Posted by: Chuck S. at April 26, 2004 5:04 PM